In Denmark all women are invited to join the “Forces Day”. All men are required to go.
They recruited 4,700 last year, of which 100% were volunteers. They have the power to force you to join but if enough volunteers join they don’t use it. These conscripts then enter for a short 4 month stint, basically “basic training”. The aim is solely to create a recruitment pool for which they can recruit professional soldiers.
Now the government is proposing changing the number to 5,000 and the service length to 11+ months, enough to give you your “specialist training”, ie turn you into infantry, engineers, artillery gunner or whatever.
As the service length will go up dramatically they expect the volunteering rate to fall somewhat, which means they expect somewhere between 500-1000 will be forced to join, whether they want to or not.
You can always become a conscientious objector, which means you still have to carry out the same service length (11 months) but you go do it in a nursing home, library, kindergarten or similar.
Previously the objector rate was very low and I’d imagine it will continue to be so.
My platoon had about 10-15 who had been forced to join (this was back in the late 90s). All bar 1 (one) loved or at the very least accepted their time in there and couldn’t understand what they so rejected. The last one became a conscientious objector within the first month. My best soldier had been forced to join and he personally shook my hand when I sent him home on his last day.
As the service length will go up dramatically they expect the volunteering rate to fall somewhat, which means they expect somewhere between 500-1000 will be forced to join, whether they want to or not.
That’s fucked up. It’s one thing to talk about actual conscription if you actually need to enlist a lot of relunctant people, but if you can get 4000 voluntarily getting to 5000 should be easy by increasing the benefits (higher pay might work , or scholarships or …).
You’re depriving a thousand people of their freedom for a year to save maybe a hundred million kronor. That’s roughly the cost of a single modern tank.
I strongly disagree. This isn’t about “depriving people of their freedom” this is about the fact that everyone who lives in a free country, which will support them and give them benefits for life, has a responsibility and a duty to answer when called upon.
Nobody can expect others to defend them if they won’t do the same. An integral part of the social contract in countries with conscription is that everyone accepts that duty to answer when called upon, and to defend their countrymen when necessary.
Anyone who doesn’t like it is free to start a political movement to abolish it. I have yet to see such a movement in any of the Nordic countries.
This isn’t about “depriving people of their freedom”
No, but depriving people of their freedom is what conscription does. It can be necessary, just as depriving people of their money via taxation is necessary, but you should be honest about what you’re doing.
Nobody can expect others to defend them if they won’t do the same. An integral part of the social contract in countries with conscription is that everyone accepts that duty to answer when called upon, and to defend their countrymen when necessary.
Yeah, but you’re using the opposite of the solidarity principle here. As I said, it’s reasonable to use conscription if you actually need a lot of people. I very much see the point in what South Korea or Israel are doing with conscription (albeit that they’re a bit sexist with it). But if 98% of the birth year cohort (and 99.98% of the entire population) get to enjoy their freedom while a tiny minority is forced to join the army, then that’s a serious injustice.
Imagine doing taxation that way. Next time the state needs more income: Don’t raise income tax by 1% for everyone, just you could pick 1% of the population and raise it by 100% for them.
As long as the army doesn’t need (almost) everyone to have served, incentives paid for by everyone should be used to get enough volunteers.
Dunno if you’ve grown up in a country with conscription? Back when I was conscription age, and there was actual conscription, it was just seen as this thing you had to get through when you were 18. The vast majority were proud to serve and planned accordingly.
Being conscripted isn’t a job. It doesn’t need to compete on market terms, why should it? We all live here, in peace. Do your bit, and all that. The alternative is a hell of a lot worse.
No different to mom and dad expecting you to wash up after dinner. You live here too, contribute!
The alternative is to have a standing professionall army. Then you have people who are actually trained and “combat ready”. I wouldn’t say that’s worse at all. It allows people who want to be in the military to be in the military and people who don’t, won’t have to.
Mandatory military service isn’t doing your bit, it’s sitting around for a few months doing nothing useful. Even if war breaks out during your time, you are barely better prepared than someone just picked off the street. And after 2-3 years all the “training” you went through is forgotten anyhow.
I understand the need of drafting people during a time of war. That makes sense. But all mandatory military service does, is waste a year of your time.
They live next to an enormous, aggressive neighbour. Should Russia decide to go Ukraine on them (is that likely? It’s besides the point for the discussion on conscription) they need hundreds of thousand of soldiers to enable a credible defence. If they have that as a standing, professional army, society is wasting huge resources keeping people in uniform that could be out and be productive members of civil society.
And should they wait until things looks threatening they don’t have the time to train this army, nor the time to integrate a sudden, enormous new component in a the standing army that’s used to working only with itself.
Instead they choose a system of conscription. Soldiers are trained, then sent home to be productive. Occasionally they’re recalled for supplementary or refresher training, when equipment or doctrine changes. Invariably, they get older, eventually too old, so while they may remain part of the reserve, they’re recalled less in favour of their younger colleagues.
Undoubtedly they won’t be as effective as a standing army if recalled in war-time. So they’re lead by professional officers, keeping only the squad leaders and platoon leaders in the reserves while anyone of another function are in the standing army. The sergeant’s and lieutenants in the reserve are recalled more often, many having some contract that requires many weeks of service every year.
This makes it possible for Finland to maintain a credible defensive posture without keeping half a million soldiers in their standing army, doing nothing productive for society and costing a fortune.
Conscription has a place when the country is small, the threat nearby and unpredictable.
I can’t help but wonder if your opinion is enabled by the advantaged position of having an ocean between the society you live in and its potential aggressor. Most European states with a front towards Russia has found conscription the best compromises between the vast cost of maintaining a professional army large enough and keeping their societies productive in peace time.
I would agree, but the way, that being trained to be a soldier in a conscripted defence isn’t that particularly useful to the individual receiving the training (other than a change in attitude towards accepting challenges, which many employers later appreciate). It can feel like a waste of YOUR time. In this case, however, the usefulness is for society at large, something I know has been going out of fashion in this day and age.
I grew up in Austria, so while we aren’t bordering Russia there is no oceans between us either.
My issue with the mandatory military service is just, I do not belive that the training is actually effective. You aren’t training soldiers that you can call up and expect to peform. You are artificially inflating your military number by having “reservists” that are just as effective as untrained people picked up from the street. The 6 months of training your rank-and-file soldier gets is just not helpful anymore. It might have worked 150 years ago when we were fighting with muskets and basic cannons.
Maybe the Finnish military is different and prepare you better in the 6 months. I doubt it. The more usefull training is already voluntary and comes with a longer commitment time (both in Austria and Finland). In Austria you don’t even get any training after your 6 months without opting in. Finland gives you an additional 80-150 days over 50 years according to google. Which is at least a little bit usefull.
If countries with mandatory military service bump up their current active standing military by a few thousands and offer a voluntary reservists program, that would provide a military just as if not more effective as the current system. And wouldn’t force thousands of people to spend months doing something they aren’t interested in.
If you really think mandatory service is necessary for the security of the country, then go the way of Singapore or South Korea where the service is around 2 years. Then the people actually are trained and spend long enough time in active duty to be ready in case of a war. But again, this 6 month mandatory service is nonsense in my opinion.
In 2013 Austria had a vote to get rid of the mandatory military service. 60% were in favor of keeping it (only 52% of people voted). The main arguments of people in favor of keeping: The civil service is essential for Hospitals, Nursinghomes, Schools, etc. as “free” labor. They aren’t really free because the state is paying them. The second most common argument was “I had to do it, so they should also have to do it”. Which is just stupid. A very small percentage of people actually cared about the military aspect of it.
they need hundreds of thousand of soldiers to enable a credible defence
And arm them with what? Modern wars are extremely expensive and Finland may have conscription but the country’s military spending as a portion of GDP is lower than that of many countries with professional armies.
Conscription makes sense in Israel. But they get about as much in American arms donations as Finland spend on its entire military.
The whole setup looks Finland looks like the strategy is to copy Stalin’s tactic in the winter war: sacrificing soliders en masse.
Sure, without Nato and the EU there could be the scenario we now see in Ukraine: Hundreds of billions of dollars in foreign aid paying for weapons. But since Finland is in Nato it would get actual armies coming to its aid.
And I’m not even talking about the indirect costs of conscription. Diminishing your workforce by a percent also dimishes your GDP by (roughly) a percent. With that money you could create and maintain a serious nuclear arsenal, including second strike capabilities.
In Denmark all women are invited to join the “Forces Day”. All men are required to go.
They recruited 4,700 last year, of which 100% were volunteers. They have the power to force you to join but if enough volunteers join they don’t use it. These conscripts then enter for a short 4 month stint, basically “basic training”. The aim is solely to create a recruitment pool for which they can recruit professional soldiers.
Now the government is proposing changing the number to 5,000 and the service length to 11+ months, enough to give you your “specialist training”, ie turn you into infantry, engineers, artillery gunner or whatever.
As the service length will go up dramatically they expect the volunteering rate to fall somewhat, which means they expect somewhere between 500-1000 will be forced to join, whether they want to or not.
You can always become a conscientious objector, which means you still have to carry out the same service length (11 months) but you go do it in a nursing home, library, kindergarten or similar.
Previously the objector rate was very low and I’d imagine it will continue to be so.
My platoon had about 10-15 who had been forced to join (this was back in the late 90s). All bar 1 (one) loved or at the very least accepted their time in there and couldn’t understand what they so rejected. The last one became a conscientious objector within the first month. My best soldier had been forced to join and he personally shook my hand when I sent him home on his last day.
That’s fucked up. It’s one thing to talk about actual conscription if you actually need to enlist a lot of relunctant people, but if you can get 4000 voluntarily getting to 5000 should be easy by increasing the benefits (higher pay might work , or scholarships or …).
You’re depriving a thousand people of their freedom for a year to save maybe a hundred million kronor. That’s roughly the cost of a single modern tank.
I strongly disagree. This isn’t about “depriving people of their freedom” this is about the fact that everyone who lives in a free country, which will support them and give them benefits for life, has a responsibility and a duty to answer when called upon.
Nobody can expect others to defend them if they won’t do the same. An integral part of the social contract in countries with conscription is that everyone accepts that duty to answer when called upon, and to defend their countrymen when necessary.
Anyone who doesn’t like it is free to start a political movement to abolish it. I have yet to see such a movement in any of the Nordic countries.
No, but depriving people of their freedom is what conscription does. It can be necessary, just as depriving people of their money via taxation is necessary, but you should be honest about what you’re doing.
Yeah, but you’re using the opposite of the solidarity principle here. As I said, it’s reasonable to use conscription if you actually need a lot of people. I very much see the point in what South Korea or Israel are doing with conscription (albeit that they’re a bit sexist with it). But if 98% of the birth year cohort (and 99.98% of the entire population) get to enjoy their freedom while a tiny minority is forced to join the army, then that’s a serious injustice. Imagine doing taxation that way. Next time the state needs more income: Don’t raise income tax by 1% for everyone, just you could pick 1% of the population and raise it by 100% for them.
As long as the army doesn’t need (almost) everyone to have served, incentives paid for by everyone should be used to get enough volunteers.
Dunno if you’ve grown up in a country with conscription? Back when I was conscription age, and there was actual conscription, it was just seen as this thing you had to get through when you were 18. The vast majority were proud to serve and planned accordingly.
Being conscripted isn’t a job. It doesn’t need to compete on market terms, why should it? We all live here, in peace. Do your bit, and all that. The alternative is a hell of a lot worse.
No different to mom and dad expecting you to wash up after dinner. You live here too, contribute!
The alternative is to have a standing professionall army. Then you have people who are actually trained and “combat ready”. I wouldn’t say that’s worse at all. It allows people who want to be in the military to be in the military and people who don’t, won’t have to.
Mandatory military service isn’t doing your bit, it’s sitting around for a few months doing nothing useful. Even if war breaks out during your time, you are barely better prepared than someone just picked off the street. And after 2-3 years all the “training” you went through is forgotten anyhow.
I understand the need of drafting people during a time of war. That makes sense. But all mandatory military service does, is waste a year of your time.
Ok, but let’s look at a country like Finland.
They live next to an enormous, aggressive neighbour. Should Russia decide to go Ukraine on them (is that likely? It’s besides the point for the discussion on conscription) they need hundreds of thousand of soldiers to enable a credible defence. If they have that as a standing, professional army, society is wasting huge resources keeping people in uniform that could be out and be productive members of civil society.
And should they wait until things looks threatening they don’t have the time to train this army, nor the time to integrate a sudden, enormous new component in a the standing army that’s used to working only with itself.
Instead they choose a system of conscription. Soldiers are trained, then sent home to be productive. Occasionally they’re recalled for supplementary or refresher training, when equipment or doctrine changes. Invariably, they get older, eventually too old, so while they may remain part of the reserve, they’re recalled less in favour of their younger colleagues.
Undoubtedly they won’t be as effective as a standing army if recalled in war-time. So they’re lead by professional officers, keeping only the squad leaders and platoon leaders in the reserves while anyone of another function are in the standing army. The sergeant’s and lieutenants in the reserve are recalled more often, many having some contract that requires many weeks of service every year.
This makes it possible for Finland to maintain a credible defensive posture without keeping half a million soldiers in their standing army, doing nothing productive for society and costing a fortune.
Conscription has a place when the country is small, the threat nearby and unpredictable.
I can’t help but wonder if your opinion is enabled by the advantaged position of having an ocean between the society you live in and its potential aggressor. Most European states with a front towards Russia has found conscription the best compromises between the vast cost of maintaining a professional army large enough and keeping their societies productive in peace time.
I would agree, but the way, that being trained to be a soldier in a conscripted defence isn’t that particularly useful to the individual receiving the training (other than a change in attitude towards accepting challenges, which many employers later appreciate). It can feel like a waste of YOUR time. In this case, however, the usefulness is for society at large, something I know has been going out of fashion in this day and age.
I grew up in Austria, so while we aren’t bordering Russia there is no oceans between us either.
My issue with the mandatory military service is just, I do not belive that the training is actually effective. You aren’t training soldiers that you can call up and expect to peform. You are artificially inflating your military number by having “reservists” that are just as effective as untrained people picked up from the street. The 6 months of training your rank-and-file soldier gets is just not helpful anymore. It might have worked 150 years ago when we were fighting with muskets and basic cannons.
Maybe the Finnish military is different and prepare you better in the 6 months. I doubt it. The more usefull training is already voluntary and comes with a longer commitment time (both in Austria and Finland). In Austria you don’t even get any training after your 6 months without opting in. Finland gives you an additional 80-150 days over 50 years according to google. Which is at least a little bit usefull.
If countries with mandatory military service bump up their current active standing military by a few thousands and offer a voluntary reservists program, that would provide a military just as if not more effective as the current system. And wouldn’t force thousands of people to spend months doing something they aren’t interested in.
If you really think mandatory service is necessary for the security of the country, then go the way of Singapore or South Korea where the service is around 2 years. Then the people actually are trained and spend long enough time in active duty to be ready in case of a war. But again, this 6 month mandatory service is nonsense in my opinion.
In 2013 Austria had a vote to get rid of the mandatory military service. 60% were in favor of keeping it (only 52% of people voted). The main arguments of people in favor of keeping: The civil service is essential for Hospitals, Nursinghomes, Schools, etc. as “free” labor. They aren’t really free because the state is paying them. The second most common argument was “I had to do it, so they should also have to do it”. Which is just stupid. A very small percentage of people actually cared about the military aspect of it.
And arm them with what? Modern wars are extremely expensive and Finland may have conscription but the country’s military spending as a portion of GDP is lower than that of many countries with professional armies. Conscription makes sense in Israel. But they get about as much in American arms donations as Finland spend on its entire military.
The whole setup looks Finland looks like the strategy is to copy Stalin’s tactic in the winter war: sacrificing soliders en masse.
Sure, without Nato and the EU there could be the scenario we now see in Ukraine: Hundreds of billions of dollars in foreign aid paying for weapons. But since Finland is in Nato it would get actual armies coming to its aid.
And I’m not even talking about the indirect costs of conscription. Diminishing your workforce by a percent also dimishes your GDP by (roughly) a percent. With that money you could create and maintain a serious nuclear arsenal, including second strike capabilities.