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On the positive side, with gender equality the pool of resources is twice as big
Norway and Sweden have conscription for both men and women.
Israel has it for Jews, but not Christians, Muslims, Druze, and Circassians.
First of all, there is no viable way to actually use conscripts. Sending them overseas to die over a patch of dirt is a really bad move, as the Vietnam war has shown. Europe doesn't really want to invade anyone, so you're left with defense. So who's going to invade? The only foe even worth considering is Russia - and NATO's combined professional armies are more than a match for them. Not to mention that there are thousands of kilometers between Russia and the country considering conscription.
Second, it'd actually be a massive burden. The army suddenly has to train a bunch of unmotivated teenager every single year, which in reality ends up being a LARP session in a local forest. This drains a huge amount of resources from the professional soldiers. And all those conscripts will not contribute anything meaningful to the economy while doing so.
Sure, it might make sense if you are bordering Russia, but anything further west just isn't going to happen.
Most of Western Europe is unwilling to fight for their country https://preview.redd.it/of-europeans-who-would-fight-for-the...
> 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.
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…
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…
> 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 army might be happening in the future, but entity protesting the European army the most will be USA diplomacy. On one hand US armed forces would like for Europe to be self sufficient so they can concentrate on China. On the other hand US diplomacy would lost leverage on Europe + getting another geopolitical competitor (despite being ideologically aligned with USA) isn't something what USA is looking for.
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…
"Abundance leads to wastefulness". 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…
Refreshing is a helluva lot easier than training, when you're simultaneously fighting an active conflict.
It simply doesn't make any sense for most European countries. First of all, there is no viable way to actually use conscripts. Sending them overseas to die over a patch of dirt is a really bad move, as the Vietnam war has shown. Europe doesn't really want to invade anyone, so you're left with defense. So who's going to invade? The only foe even worth considering is Russia - and NATO's combined professional armies are…
That's been shown to be true over the last year, but prior to that it was very much an open question.
Also from the perspective of "Europe" in an insular sense, it depends heavily on the large standing force and transport capability of the USA. Remember that as recently as three years ago, the occupant of the white house was publicly musing about the possibility of leaving NATO and aligning with Russia! And influential members of the minority party still wander close to that idea rhetorically.