11–20 of 128 posts
> The United Kingdom, the United States and Canada have had exclusively professional armies for 50 years or more. One idea would be for the EU, instead of individual member states, to stand up a professional army. Then you don't have to force people and it also just might bind European countries more closely together.
European Union is not a sovereign entity that can have its 'own' military.
You have a bunch of unmotivated people that don't want to be there. You have to house them, feed them, train them for what, 3, 6, 12 months? Seems like a lot of money. How long will that training last for? How soon will you need retraining to be even considered marginally useful? Isn't it better to spend that money on professional soldiers?
> The United Kingdom, the United States and Canada have had exclusively professional armies for 50 years or more. One idea would be for the EU, instead of individual member states, to stand up a professional army. Then you don't have to force people and it also just might bind European countries more closely together.
> The United Kingdom, the United States and Canada have had exclusively professional armies for 50 years or more. One idea would be for the EU, instead of individual member states, to stand up a professional army. Then you don't have to force people and it also just might bind European countries more closely together.
European Union is not a sovereign entity that can have its 'own' military.
But he was not wrong that there's a fundamental difference in democratic outlook between someone who risks their life (even hypothetically) for their country and someone who does not.
If you can vote to spend a life, even indirectly, you should have some skin in that game too.
> The United Kingdom, the United States and Canada have had exclusively professional armies for 50 years or more. One idea would be for the EU, instead of individual member states, to stand up a professional army. Then you don't have to force people and it also just might bind European countries more closely together.
European Union is not a sovereign entity that can have its 'own' military.
That is, its members transfer part of their sovereignty to the EU
For one it instills in young people a sense of duty and direction and also simply physical fitness which many struggle with these days, in Germany an important aspect was always to have civilian supervision in the military ('citizen in uniform') not a sort of separated, private army. A lot of people in the army I talked to have noted that nowadays a lot of people who sign up are just people with limited job prospects. An army of the unemployed is ethically awful. National service should not be pushed on people who do it desperate for a paycheck. Everyone in the country benefits from its defense, so nobody should be able to skip out. I admire the culture of say Israel, Finland, Norway or Switzerland, small countries where this has always been on the mind of people.
I've always thought of those compulsory military training schemes as a little silly. You have a bunch of unmotivated people that don't want to be there. You have to house them, feed them, train them for what, 3, 6, 12 months? Seems like a lot of money. How long will that training last for? How soon will you need retraining to be even considered marginally useful? Isn't it better to spend that money on professional so…
To my mind mandatory service doesn't help at all - the German military for example needs more soldiers, but more importantly needs to be run competently by the government since it's had well-known problems for years at this point (any analysis on what would happen if they were actually suddenly needed would find they'd be pretty likely to look an awful lot like the Russians in terms of equipment availability, but for entirely stupid reasons - "just in time" equipment procurement).
The obvious question to me is are they arming to defend themselves from Russia or from other European nations rearming? Russia struggled against Ukraine so it seems unlikely that they'd fare well against a country with a similar GDP. Sardonic congratulations to the fine minds at NATO for manoeuvring us towards this outcome. Anyone who feels optimistic as all these armies limber up is beyond an idiot. As a culture we'…
The obvious question to me is are they arming to defend themselves from Russia or from other European nations rearming? Russia struggled against Ukraine so it seems unlikely that they'd fare well against a country with a similar GDP. Sardonic congratulations to the fine minds at NATO for manoeuvring us towards this outcome. Anyone who feels optimistic as all these armies limber up is beyond an idiot. As a culture we'…
From Russia of course.