Germany mulls reintroduction of compulsory military service
Germany mulls reintroduction of compulsory military service
The Bundeswehr is facing a dramatic shortage in personnel. Now Defense Minister Boris Pistorius has rekindled the debate over reintroducing conscription.
At the end of October, the Bundeswehr said it counted 181,383 soldiers in its ranks — that's still some distance from the target of 203,000 that the German military hopes to reach by 2025. This has given rise to concern in times of Russia's war against Ukraine, which has once again reminded Germans how quickly conflicts can erupt in Europe.
Since taking office at the beginning of 2023, Defense Minister Boris Pistorius has been thinking about ways to make the Bundeswehr more attractive as a career. He said he has received 65 concrete proposals from his ministry on recruitment and reforming training methods.
From 1962, the GDR also introduced general compulsory military service for all men between the ages of 18 and 26 for a basic military service of 18 months. The only recognized reason for refusal was religious conviction.
So if you believed in a god who told you it was immoral to serve in the military you didn't have to, but if you believed it was immoral because you came to that conclusion by thinking critically about the arguments for and against military service, you were just fucked?
I’m not entirely opposed to compulsory service, but it shouldn’t be just military. Civil service should be included as well, anything from internship at a town planning and engineering service, to litter pickup, to the military. I could already guess that socioeconomic factors would favor the well-connected and wealthy the soft jobs of working in the governor’s office vs being sent out to pick up trash along the highways, but maybe a lottery system would help prevent that. There’s always ways to game a system, though. Unfortunately.
Mandatory service isn’t the best answer, it’s just one answer.
Fuck this, I can’t stand the idea that in the 21st century you can still have involuntary servitude.
My country recently reinstated mandatory military service. I mean obviously, how else can we get people to sign up. There is of course the idea of actually paying well and giving proper benefits to people who voluntarily sign up, but this is clearly lunacy.
And this is the single biggest reason I am emigrating from my country before my three male offspring are 18, unless this decision is repealed in the next 5 or so years.
Isn’t it rich that all the fat boomers with their broken knees get to force young people to go fight their wars and protect their fortunes when in reality it is young people that are actually working and providing for their country and the over 25 million German pensioners and the rich living off of our taxes, subventions, and much more?
When I’ll be able to afford a home at a fair price and not worry about basic necessities even though I’ve been breaking my back studying for five years and actually working, then I’ll maybe think about fighting their wars and protecting their fortunes. Because as it stands now, I can’t afford shit, and I surely can’t afford to waste one year learning how to protect old fucks that have destroyed our economy. I don’t have anything to fight for. Maybe if I owned shit I would actually be interested in joining the military. As it stands now, they can go enlist themselves.
Germany and many other European countries which had abolished the compulsory military service years ago, are considering reintroducing it.
We had some decades of peace, but those times appear to be ending: EU should prepare for war by end of the decade
Add fyi: Is compulsory military service coming back in Europe
How about we try making it less shitty first?
La puta mili, as young men called it in Spain. Lots of hurry up and wait. Very little fun time driving tanks around. My father got drafted. I got lucky and didn't.
It's been only 13 years since the last conscripts were called up. Crazy. I really thought it was over. It's probably not going to be brought back immediately, but the way things are heading...
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Since taking office at the beginning of 2023, Defense Minister Boris Pistorius has been thinking about ways to make the Bundeswehr more attractive as a career.
As journalist and defense and security policy expert Thomas Wiegold told DW: "A major frustration in the Bundeswehr is the bureaucracy.
When Pistorius floated his ideas about conscription in December, he faced a barrage of criticism, including from within his own center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD).
Party co-chair Saskia Esken said it would be impossible to implement mandatory recruitment on an ad hoc basis "because the training units required for this are no longer available."
"The reintroduction of compulsory service would be a serious encroachment on the freedom of young people who want to orient themselves professionally," FDP parliamentary group leader Christian Dürr warned in an interview with the Funke Mediengruppe.
"Who would have thought around two years ago that the Bundestag would decide on setting up a special fund of €100 billion for the Bundeswehr against the backdrop of a Russian war of aggression?"
The original article contains 900 words, the summary contains 171 words. Saved 81%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
Conscription is the greatest scam there is
the return of slave armies is a sign that capitalism is healthy and working as expected
Mmm, slavery. Tasty.