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Europe: Is compulsory military service coming back?

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Re: Europe: Is compulsory military service coming back?

#81

Post by LoLFactor »

Barrin92 wrote: post #17

I was one of the last few to go through conscription and service in Germany before it was a abolished I hope it does come back. (including of course the alternative civil service) 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 unif…

Everyone's experience is valid, I guess, but way to lose the thread within 2 sentences. You start by saying how COMPULSORY military service would help and end by saying that a military comprised of people who are there because they have no other choice is not ideal. You really don't see the disconnect? Your solution to having less people there with no other choice is by giving EVERYBODY no other choice? Way to solve a problem. Also, how gracious of you to solve other people's problems. "Youths are having trouble with fitness. Compulsory military service would help them". Cool story. People are too fat? Let them be. Who are you to start solving other people's problems against their will? Did the youths ask for your help? You might think you're being helpful, but what you're ACTUALLY saying is "Yeah, if all you young people would be more fit, it would help ME out in case of a conflict." Mighty altruistic. Thanks for the tip.

Re: Europe: Is compulsory military service coming back?

#82

Post by aleph_minus_one »

Concerning the points

- "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." posted by crote at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36281486

- "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 soldiers?" posted by mszcz at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36281419

Such European countries should rather attempt to train a voluntary partisan army for defense. I do believe that there are many people who would like to learn how to use a firearms (exacerbated by the fact that many European countries have rather strict firearm laws) and get military skills in courses that span over multiple weekends.

The people who would voluntarily attend such courses tend to be highly motivated.

Re: Europe: Is compulsory military service coming back?

#83

Post by lamedukc »

danwee wrote: post #79

It's the year 2023, and the human race cannot simply just talk to fix issues. Incredible. To kill (or hurt) other human beings to protect "your" land or "your" loved ones baffles me. Yes, I love my loved ones (wow) but that doesn't mean I'm willing to kill people who are 99.99999% similar to my loved ones just because the politicians that manage the countries we happen to live in decide so. We think that because we c…

[flagged]

Re: Europe: Is compulsory military service coming back?

#84

Post by dcsommer »

crote wrote: post #56
dcsommer wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're right that it is not necessarily efficient from a military effectiveness perspective. I see it as also an educational tool/investment. As other comments have pointed out, this helps the populace internalize their responsibities in war (affecting voting), might help instill social cohesion, and yes also provides a baseline military competency in the populace in the worst case scenario (total war).

How is it an "educational tool/investment" when you are removing 18-year-olds from their education or job for several months? And "instill social cohesion" sounds a lot like "brainwashing" to me. Those arguments don't have anything to do with conscription. You could just as well achieve the same with mandatory education, or mandatory pick-trash-up-in-the-forests.

I don't claim it's the only way to promote social cohesion. A year of mandatory trash pickup would probably do that too. I don't understand the comment about brainwashing. Any form of public education, including mandatory trash pickup, can have that word thrown around.

Re: Europe: Is compulsory military service coming back?

#85

Post by thfuran »

NovemberWhiskey wrote: post #76
thfuran wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Switzerland most certainly is not going to start making military service compulsory.

Uhhhmmmm. "Switzerland has mandatory military service in the Swiss Army for all able-bodied male citizens, who are conscripted when they reach the age of majority, though women may volunteer for any position. Conscripts make up the majority of the manpower in the Swiss Armed Forces." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscription_in_Switzerland

Yes, they quite definitively cannot suddenly switch to the practice.

Re: Europe: Is compulsory military service coming back?

#86

Post by nickdothutton »

crote wrote: post #23

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…

Unfortunately generations of hopelessly naive and deluded politicians enthusiastically commit their forces to “peacekeeping” operations on a regular basis. Generally designed to prevent group-A of uncivilised people from killing group-B of more or less similarly uncivilised people. Note that this gets written up in the media as “good guys vs bad guys” of course. Recently (e.g. Sudan) even the media have struggled to find cartoon-level-simple labels for the armed factions.

Re: Europe: Is compulsory military service coming back?

#87

Post by wongarsu »

zabzonk wrote: post #72
wongarsu wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NATO armed forces would be under the command of the Supreme Allied Commander Europe, who by pure coincidence happens to always be an American. Right below him is the Deputy Supreme Allied Commander Europe, who has been British in 22/30 cases. If the EU wants to have an army that serves their interests, I would consider it prudent to have the command of that army be in EU hands, instead of just handing their soldiers…

but who would this EU force fight that NATO wouldn't?

A future equivalent to the Kosovo war (that time NATO intervened, but they didn't have to). Or what about wars on the EU's South-Eastern border? Turkey, Syria, Iraq, Iran. The US has complicated feelings about the region that don't always align with the EU. Also protecting European interests in a future war between Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia over the water in the Nile River (Egypt is right next door to Greece and Cyprus after all). Not to mention future actions in Lybia, Algeria or Morocco to deal with illegal immigration.

If we are to convince France to merge their army with the common EU force the EU might be forced to also protect French interests in West Africa (they are quite involved in that region still)

Re: Europe: Is compulsory military service coming back?

#88

Post by ben_w »

adhvaryu wrote: post #5
andsoitis wrote: post #2

> 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.

Not yet, no.

Theoretically this can change at any time with the agreement of the members.

That said: even now the UK has left, there are many in the EU who don't want total integration — as you can see from other aspects like the Euro, Schengen, and the Blue Card not applying to all member states — combined with with the language barriers between almost every pair of states[0], I think this would be a long time coming even if everyone was on board.

Although, NATO is a thing and arguably does all that without any of those problems, so perhaps it's easier than I'm assuming…

[0] Austria and Germany being an obvious exception, except they're banned by treaty from ever being combined again

Re: Europe: Is compulsory military service coming back?

#89

Post by q1w2 »

zarzavat wrote: post #58
ethbr0 wrote: post #15

Heinlein got a lot of flak for Starship Troopers , in the wake of the Korean War and even prior to escalation in Vietnam. 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.

That implies removing peoples voting rights when they reach middle age and are no longer fit to serve in the military. There is some truth to the idea that the places where conscription really works are where politics is not polarized by age.

No it doesn't. Even in the book, voting rights were granted for life after service/citizenship was completed.

Re: Europe: Is compulsory military service coming back?

#90

Post by q1w2 »

danwee wrote: post #79

It's the year 2023, and the human race cannot simply just talk to fix issues. Incredible. To kill (or hurt) other human beings to protect "your" land or "your" loved ones baffles me. Yes, I love my loved ones (wow) but that doesn't mean I'm willing to kill people who are 99.99999% similar to my loved ones just because the politicians that manage the countries we happen to live in decide so. We think that because we c…

War is often not the product of miscommunication. It is often the product of a mis-alignment of political/military power and resources.

Russia saw Ukraine as militarily weak, but in control over strategic territory that it wanted to capture.

It's a simple calculus - no amount of talking would have prevented this war.

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