At the beginning of March, Germany’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and Christian Social Union (CSU) defence policy spokesman Florian Hahn called for the reintroduction of compulsory military service before the end of the year.
“We can’t just sit back and watch as the world around us becomes more insecure,” he told German tabloid Bild.
Damn, are we really that afraid of Russia invading Europe? Seems like a short time ago we were mocking their pathetic inability to even conquer a quarter of Ukraine.
If NATO isn’t a completely worthless organisation, then Russia will never invade.
I mean Russia has had quite some success turning NATO into a worthless organization. They’re not quite there yet, but in ten years when half of Europe is controlled by the far right? It’s anybody’s guess.
No, we are afraid of Germany having an actual army. But telling the biggest economy to just lay back and chill is no option either.
So we need to find a way for them to waste enormous amounts of money on defense without getting anything to show.
Enter: conscription.
Because this way you can then spend massive amounts of money on infrastructure for a lot of people instead of buying actual stuff like equipment or ammunition. And as a bonus for the country that has perfected keeping the population poor and on low wages while the top 1% make all the money (see: Germany’s GDP while at the same time having a median wealth more fitting for eastern Europe*), they can get a lot new
slavesserfsforced workerscheap labor from those refusing to serve to optimise corporate profits even more.*reference (because I know people love to deny reality): median/wealth…
I also agree that investing in training, equipment and deployment capabilities seems like a better option than having a conscription as the number of fighting personnel is roughly equal (and as a defender you need less people for defense). From what I heard the European armies match Russias army in power overall - however I’m not sure if they could be as fast as Putin in getting this power coordinated to the Baltics.
Regarding the median and wealth statistics: I agree that they are concerning especially for a rich country as Germany. However I think that is mainly due to the lower home ownership rates compared to most other countries. So I think it’s more an accidental situation (with f.e. historic reasons) than result of more neoliberal policies. Still an important point to highlight and work on.
“match”:
And that’s before accounting for quality of equipment or training of operators.
If Russia decides to, it could glass a good part of Europe
And as they’re getting more imperialistic and global warming also throws the world into tumult (is this a correct English word?), we will see more and more nations trying to get an advantage.
Sometimes because it’s just about survival, sometimes because there are just opportunities
I think the concerns mainly evolve around the Baltics as f.e. Estonia couldn’t defend alone against the Russian army and the armies of other nations could be to slow/ineffective to respond - before the region has been conquered. However I am also unsure how mandatory conscription could prevent this situation (maybe as a way to recruit more professional soldiers?).
The main point point of conscription is to build up a large number of reservists who will require minimal training compared to fresh recruits when called up in case of a war. This is especially important when a smaller country is attacked by a larger one, because in that case, there is precious little time to react, and no country can afford a standing military even remotely capable of defending it against a much larger opponent.
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