Summary
A UK-based think tank warns that Europe’s increased defense spending and weapon production, spurred by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, is undermined by a shortage of military personnel.
European NATO members now allocate over half of their defense budgets to European-made equipment, yet critical troop shortfalls persist due to decades of underinvestment.
Concerns are heightened with Donald Trump’s return to the White House, raising fears of reduced U.S. support for Ukraine.
European leaders, including France’s Emmanuel Macron, emphasize the need for Europe to become less reliant on U.S. security support.
My country had mandatory military service - let’s call what it was - conscription, up to 2004/06 and it only served to fill the heads of young boys with dung.
Volunteer, professional, well trained, well equiped, armed and prepared effectives are the backbone of what modern armed forces are, not quickly churned out cannon fodder.
In Switzerland, the basic training lasts a year I think? And is meant to teach how the army works and how to use weapons and not just rifles and pistols and knives. Depending on their role they also learn how to use artillery, mortars, how to use maps, how to use vehicles and tanks, how to make calculations and navigate and so much more.
The whole point of this is that when shit hits the fan, any additional training takes a lot less time.
It has to be well implemented and taught well. Maybe in your case it wasn’t and you have a bad experience of it.
Any country that’s serious about training it’s people to be ready for combat in case of a serious invasion will probably do a better job than one that isn’t because they want to be prepared.
In any case, I can understand why you would feel the way you do if it was implemented poorly in your country.
It wasn’t that many years ago that a think tank proposed the reinstatement of conscription as a means to reestablish and ingrain notions of patriotism, sense of duty and honor into its population. This was the general sense of the “findings” of such work group.
This is extremely dangerous reasoning to have to argue in favor of military service enforced on a population. To call it badly veilled fascism is being polite.
Basic trainning takes little time. Handling a gun is easy; it’s a very complex machine made simple enough to be handled by a dunce. It also takes very little time to drum in basic notions of rank and role.
Specialization can only take place after that basic training, which serves the purpose to caracterize the individual inside the group, their capabilities and motivation.
If an individual volunteers, usually the motivation is already high. A conscript, not very much.
A country belongs to its people. The notion is too often reversed, which leads to very bad outcomes.