i don;t like conscription into the military but i’ve always felt some sort of manatory non-military civil or social service or peace corps participation would do a lot for encouraging civic participation in exchange for some sort of universal educational system or some form of reimbursement for secondary education.
In this day and age it feels like a McDonald’s worker could ai copilot a drone better than the folks over in Israel, so no I totally disagree with conscription without certain safeguards in place to prevent genocide or other dumbfuckery.
The title is not entirely correct. They don’t plant to “introduce” conscription. Germany had conscription from its formation of the Bundeswehr in 1955 until it was put on hiatus in 2011 because people back then thought that Ivan was no longer a problem. So what they think about is not “introducing” but just reactivate it.
The changes will be that while before 2011, conscription was only for men, it is planned to be for both sexes, and military service will no longer the one preferred service (back then, you had to go through quite some hoops if you did not want to serve in the Bundeswehr and do your time in e.g. social services). This time, the military option is just one of several that can be chosen.
At this stage it’s all hot air. Nobody has even started talking about how to finance it and the defense minister isn’t even 100% sure he will get his requested additional funds for the next cycle. When somebody asked him about the topic he replied that he isn’t categorically against it but he would have to finance (and restructure, as the necessary infrastructure for it has been degraded/scrapped) more important topics first.
That is so sad, these kinds of times should already be over in humanity’s history. Why doesn’t anyone have a solution? Are the war mongering powers just waiting for the new nuclear deterrent? Future AI terminators pls just go straight to Russia/China/USA leadership and let the humans be
[T]he ministers and generals of the two countries, dressed in bathing-drawers and armed with clubs, can have it out among themselves. Whoever survives, his country wins. That would be much simpler and more just than this arrangement, where the wrong people do the fighting.
Let’s say your country was about to be invaded, your house stolen and you sent elsewhere or killed so that citizens of the invading country could occupy your house and your land instead.
And all of that not happening was hinged on the physical prowess of an old guy who’s probably been in politics for decades.
I think it’d be better if we disregarded highly authoritarian leaders in general and embraced socialism. Back in the day, kings and emperors fought their battles, but it didn’t make their feudalism any less… feudal.
Humans cooperated and formed large confederations long before capitalism and liberalism were ideas.
It’s true that unequal and selfish organisations have often consolidated power and squashed other organisations but we’ve also seen humanity going the opposite way many times before.
To shrug our shoulders and say humans are inherently greedy so socialism can’t work is a cop out. We’ve dismantled unequal power structures many times before and we can do it again
There’s also conscription in places which don’t attack others, because of an attack threat from a neighbor. I just hope that whatever helps humanity forward, goes to the root cause. Imperialist state oligarchs are a good start. And other billionaires
This is an unserious proposal. Germany spends about 1.5 percent of its GDP(*) on defence, much of it wasted, and increasing it to even 2 percent has involved painful and extended political wrangling. If the country collectively cannot find the will to tweak its budget to fund a modest increase in defence spending, it is not going to countenance universal conscription.
This is PATENTLY wrong. It’s 1.49% of GDP, not budget.
Defense budget is 10.9% of the governments budget, it’s the second largest budgeted item after social wellfare and in front of infrastructure (which is crumbling) and debt. To increase it to 2% of gross domestic product means spending an additional amount equal to the entire budget for education and research.
But the point remains: 2% of GDP is the NATO target, getting even to that point for Germany has been like pulling teeth, and a serious implementation of universal conscription would be a much bigger ask.
To be honest, getting a majority to agree that the youth should do what most other generations did seems easier than taking money out of other budgets. Even before Russias attack there had been calls to make every young person do a year or Service for society. The plan was more socially beneficial back then but the sentiment of just ignoring what the younger generation wants isn’t new
Except that you need to actually house, feed, clothe and train those draftees and most western militaries no longer have the capacity to do that at scale.
The fact that it is legally easy does not say anything about how difficult it will be organizationally
It’s a serious proposal, but not as a universal conscription. It’s intended to only call everyone in for the health check and use that as a way to get young people interested in the army.
There are different models floating around, the most serious being that everyone (including women) gets called in and you basically choose between civil service and army. The civilian side can ramp up slots rather quickly, the army doesn’t. So the army probably will ramp up over several years.
Also, I wouldn’t call 100 billion € a “modest increase”.
To be honest, conscription aside, I think a gap year of civil service would be a good idea. It gives you a break from school - university - work, you don’t feel like you lost time since everyone has to do it, and you get into a mindset outside of your preplanned route, which might do you good.
I’m going to have to disagree. It’s forced labour, no amount of pretty words changes that. It’s also not a “break” if you have to work, and considering that you’d be unskilled and probably physical labour with no (simple) way for you to quit if faced with abuse, it probably won’t even be under good conditions or compensated fairly.
As much as I would like to see Russia get shitmixed by a proper first world army (not that Ukraine hasn’t been doing phenomenally), I think that might actually put putin in a corner.
Ideally we’ll just keep giving Ukraine equipment and propagandize how hard they’re kicking russian ass and sanction the hell out of Russia until the people and oligarchs lose their appetite for Ukraine.
Draft soldiers of Germany are not allowed to operate outside of our own borders and are used to fill the gaps that stem from professional soldiers working abroad. The Bundeswehr and especially the draftees can only be used for peacekeeping, humanitarian aid and defense.
How about our military stays between our own borders. Let those that want to go go. But don’t force a bunch of our youth to go fight someone else’s war.
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I always thought conscription had benefits. Tidy up the youth, teach them teamwork, toughen them up and give them self-reliance, will really help with the obesity problem.
Do the army even want a bunch of nerds, theatre kids, goths and bisexual disasters - speaking as someone who was all of those as a teen - in the army? I thought the army liked people who shut up and ran around a field.
It’s not good at all for society. It’s slavery with the addition of a heightened risk of death, all to serve the whims of guys in suits far from the battlefield.
Previous commenter thinking it’s a good thing because it will whip the rabble into shape is delirious. These are peoples sons and daughters that we would be sending off to die in the mud. Shameful.
even if they never see war and just do a bunch of calisthenics in a muddy field - it’s still being yelled at rudely to do push-ups instead of… working a job? Being in education?
I have absolutely no issue with OP being in the army - a good friend of mine was in the Signals. I respect him, but also, it would’ve done most of the people I know no good at all.
why can’t I decide what’s best for me? ages 18-21 I worked for my local city in projects designed to get local young people at risk of offending into projects like (legal) graffiti, music, arts, sports and volunteering.
Surely that was a better benefit to society than learning how to walk in the same rhythm as a group of other people?
Same reason we don’t let kids decide if they want to go to school or not. Not everyone is going to make the right choice. People do things for their and societies good. You really don’t think most people are currently doing that can you?
but we let these “kids” choose their degrees, or jobs and - indeed potentially train them for the military - at that age.
And who is to say the military is the right choice? If someone yells at me to do push ups in the mud - in any other context I am well within my rights to tell them to fuck off. Which is entirely normal behavior.
In general, yes, the majority of people are doing some kind of good for themselves, families and communities. People volunteer, raise kids, donate to charity, recycle, care for sick relatives, help their neighbors and friends…
As much as the fat kids and the kids that have no will power and blame their lack of drive on others could benefit from structure, teamwork and exercise.
You’re right, ultimately it is too late and it just trying to fixing a failing of the state. We need to give these people more attention in school and turn them into better people than what we turn out of schools currently.
Nothing gives people self-reliance like training them to do exactly as they are told, nothing more, nothing less and god forbid they develop a thought of their own on an issue and consider voicing it.
The best argument for conscription is that, like politics or the police, the psychology predisposed to choosing it is not necessarily the most beneficial to be involved with it.
If you could choose to serve only in natural disaster relief, humanitarian, or aid operations it would make it significantly less conflicting.
Ultimately the requirement to be involved with, and potentially murder, in anti-democratic or anti-humanitarian operations, and acts of aggression, that could have been decided entirely by self-serving corporate or political interests makes conscription a dealbreaker.
Draft soldiers of Germany are not allowed to operate outside of our own borders and are used to fill the gaps that stem from professional soldiers working abroad. The Bundeswehr and especially the draftees can only be used for peacekeeping, humanitarian aid and defense.
It might be that aggressive wannabe regional power that has already invaded several of its neighbors over the last decade or two, and makes continuous threats directed towards the rest of Europe?
Historians might look back and see that we now have already been in WW3, Hybrid Warfare / New Generation Warfare has been running rampant for a while between the global superpowers
It isn’t just about the military. I’ve not read the article, but Germany suffers from not having enough people working in social services. This problem got worse after getting rid of conscription. You could either choose military service or social work.
By reintroducing it, they hope to fill in some gaps.
Pedantically speaking… they don’t. And it may be difficult to draw a distinction between a window with a very low sill and a door with an extremely high sill.
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U.S.A. should adopt this policy. It would humble out the nepo children of wealthy pieces of shit, and likely resolve the social issues that people complain about.
The nepo babies wouldn’t serve–same as always. And the political unpopularity of conscription has never changed. The last war draft is still in living memory, and US current military activity hasn’t been an improvement in terms of public appetite.
The US introduces conscription again, and there’ll be riots–and I don’t mean “some kids camped at college and the jackboots locked them up” protests; it’ll be government-building burning, widespread-looting riots.
If you want to do conscription, the kids have to trust the government not to kill them for oil.
I had a class mate who spent his holidays hiking in Nepal and places with his parents. When he was born a doctor close to his parents discovered a serious heart issue that made him ineligible for being drafted. I mean sure. You have a heart issue that you can’t run 30 minutes, but you are doing week long hikes in 5.000-6.000m altitude.
That’s because in the US you could be sent abroad to kill brown people for oil. I was a conscript in my country in the 80’s (Nato). In my country conscripts couldn’t be sent abroad, only professionals. I’d be ok with defending home soil. That doen’t mean that I wanted to do my tour, but I did it. I think I learnt a lot, not least about serving for the common good. Looking back it was good for me. Also, at hat time, after service you’d be in the reserves (simply listed) and the country could raise an army of millions, who’d only need some refresher training in a week, not like the green ass russian conscripts in Ukraine right now.
I’m favor of conscription for limited duration, and no possibility of deployment abroad. Also, women too. That wasn’t a thing then.
I think making the rich mingle with the normal people more would be beneficial. It’s harder to dehumanize the poor when you’ve met them. Can’t call them lazy or stupid and just not “wanting” it enough when you see them work as hard as you and not getting as far.
Although, I think the way things are it’ll never happen though. Nepo babies would dodge everything even if something like this were to occur.
There’s better ways, like reducing car dependency and increasing housing density. Have people from all walks of life, live near each other and travel with each other, without being isolated in metal boxes. The ultra rich might still avoid that too, but at least the 99% will be around each other.
And you don’t need to force people to go to war to achieve it.
You’re absolutely right. I was trying to get what I hoped was the salient point out of the person’s post.
I knew a few guys in Europe I think maybe Austrian or something where they came from lots of money but went to school with “others” and they seemed pretty well-adjusted. Although, they have a lot of the other advantages that you’ve listed as well.
Maybe we should turn this idea around? I know tons of healthy rich old people that have nothing better to do than bicker and complain, how about we force them to do a free full year of community service? Why is their time and energy considered more valuable than the youths’?
And maybe it would humble those wealthy nepo pieces of shit, and likely resolve the social issues that people complain about.
Yeah, instead of actually fixing the system and paying people normal wages, while also fixing the stupid education/certification system that social service workers need to go through, let’s just throw a bunch of teenagers at it, it will surely fix our problems!
yeah… dozens. No government would conscript and send unwilling women to die in war. The women who fight on the front lines are always vaulenteers, and they are very very few.
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