Mandatory military service is being debated once more in Europe. As the war in Ukraine continues and as Donald Trump threatens to abandon NATO, Europeans feel more endangered. Boris Pistorious the defense minister of Germany has recently said that the dropping of one year mandatory service for school leavers in 2011, was a mistake. The Britain army chief, General Patric Sanders, has called for a public army.
But conscription nowadays has serious questions. First of all, how can soldiers with relatively low physical power and combat experience be helpful in modern warfare? Secondly, conscription needs a high degree of public acceptance. In fact, in the countries that face historical threats, conscription is more or less accepted. For example, Finland, being close to the Soviet Union and later Russia, has a long history of conscription, the country still has it with the strategy of “Porcupine” defense against a foreign invader. Taiwan and South Korea also have public conscription, and they are close to bellicose powers as well.
But the general public and specially younger people in most developed countries, still do not see an imminent threat to support conscription. Anyway conscription is costly for younger people. It has many unintended effects. Various studies show that the young people who participate in conscription earn between 5 to 15 percent less compared to their counterparts who did not participate.
Raising salaries of conscript soldiers may be one solution. The other proper solution is the army of reserved forces. The civilian labor who spend certain days in the army on an annual basis and would join the military in case of emergency until their mid 40s. This way, countries like Britain, France and Germany can recruit an army with several hundred thousand soldiers in a matter of weeks.
Source: Economist
photo Credit: BBC
