- cross-posted to:
- worldnews@lemmy.ml
- cross-posted to:
- worldnews@lemmy.ml
At the end of October, the Bundeswehr said it counted 181,383 soldiers in its ranks — that’s still some distance from the target of 203,000 that the German military hopes to reach by 2025. This has given rise to concern in times of Russia’s war against Ukraine, which has once again reminded Germans how quickly conflicts can erupt in Europe.
Since taking office at the beginning of 2023, Defense Minister Boris Pistorius has been thinking about ways to make the Bundeswehr more attractive as a career. He said he has received 65 concrete proposals from his ministry on recruitment and reforming training methods.
That will be a severe shot in the foot.
Professional, volunteer, military forces are a better solution. This only implies governments need to create conditions for people to want to join and the possibility to handle guns and use them against other human beings should be the bottom of an 100 items list, along patriotism and duty fulfilling towards national interest.
The last two plus an intriguing “character development” statement figured in a report for the reintroduction of mandatory military service in my country (Portugal), written by a civilian comitee, headed and divulged by a woman in her very early 30’s. Severe public backlash followed, which was met by very thinly veiled proto fascist rethoric from the same spokesperson.
Mandatory military service is a de facto control and pressure tool over the population. Never again. Anywhere. Governments exist to serve the country and the people, not to make use of it.
I’m unsure about the practices in Portugal. In Northern Europe we use the so called Scandinavian model..
This entails :1) gender-neutral and 2) selective and competitive, and therefore in principle still voluntary. Also there’s an opt-out option, and or a civilian service option. According to some comments, it appears to work that way as well.