“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.
Even conscription, something Germany ended in 2011, is also up for debate. “There were reasons at the time to suspend compulsory military service. In retrospect, however, it was a mistake,” Pistorius told newspaper Die Welt earlier in December”.
Y’know, just in case.
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Seems unnecessary for a country so big. They can attract more recruits to these roles if incentivised more. They should probably focus on making the armed forces function similar to the US and UK rather than a defence force before jumping straight to national service.
> He also cited the case of Sweden, where compulsory military service was suspended and then reintroduced. “I’m looking at models, such as the Swedish model, where all young men and women are conscripted and only a select few end up doing their basic military service. Whether something like this would also be conceivable here is part of these considerations,” said Pistorius.
Well, how are the “select few” selected?
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Honestly with the ongoing demographic crunch this makes a lot of sense and only makes more sense with time.
Right now Germany only has 7.7 ish million men between 20 and 35
By 2050 that is projected to drop to 6.4 million men of military age.
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When the political elite joins in, then they can reintroduce it. Otherwise they can fight for their money themselves.
As an European (Dutch) I think all European countries should at least make sure that its citizens can shoot a gun and take care of their army’s standard issue equipment.
Im sure the new germans will be eager to enlist.
This should go well.
I would think for Germany it makes more sense to massively incentivize it than mandate it.
You don’t want everyone…that gets you a bunch of fat call of duty players. You do want to make it easy for those that are already on the right wavelength & are on the fence to say yes.
Like the US does with their GI Bill benefits where it’ll pay for education etc.
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I will always strongly advocate against compulsory military service unless it is a matter of your country’s very existence like Finland. Otherwise, compulsory military service should never happen. That isn’t freedom of choice.
He’s tried everything except offering good pay and he’s all out of ideas.
I mean if they make both women and men it will be fair.
Ethical concerns aside, isn’t it known by now that conscripts make poor soldiers?
Not to mention the economical damage of delaying the population’s entry into work or education.
It’s honestly a shame that Germany cancelled the military service („Wehrpflicht“). It’s not like it was hard to maneuver around it and do a social year instead. Always thought it would be good as an orientation and to learn to be responsible after sitting in the parents house for 19 years.
Ah , yes , a country with no National identity will bring back the draft … mmm , will surely go well .
For what type of war do they want to prepare the citizens, a trench war to the last troop? The only reason the ukrainian conflict looks like ww1 in a lot of aspects is because Ukraine doesn’t have nukes and russia doesn’t want to go all out, since they also see a risk in NATO entering UA. The follow up to that would be the world at the brink of ww3. If all hell breaks loose I can’t imagine both sides not using tactical nukes, in which case a conscript will be meaningless on the battle field. He’ll die of radiation poisoning, or due to some biological weapon being used.
That or compulsory Russian lessons.
i imagine that would be political suicide?
Absolutely ridiculous. Shit like this is why libertarians and anarchists still exist.
25 comments
[removed]
“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.
Even conscription, something Germany ended in 2011, is also up for debate. “There were reasons at the time to suspend compulsory military service. In retrospect, however, it was a mistake,” Pistorius told newspaper Die Welt earlier in December”.
Y’know, just in case.
[removed]
Seems unnecessary for a country so big. They can attract more recruits to these roles if incentivised more. They should probably focus on making the armed forces function similar to the US and UK rather than a defence force before jumping straight to national service.
> He also cited the case of Sweden, where compulsory military service was suspended and then reintroduced. “I’m looking at models, such as the Swedish model, where all young men and women are conscripted and only a select few end up doing their basic military service. Whether something like this would also be conceivable here is part of these considerations,” said Pistorius.
Well, how are the “select few” selected?
[removed]
Honestly with the ongoing demographic crunch this makes a lot of sense and only makes more sense with time.
Right now Germany only has 7.7 ish million men between 20 and 35
By 2050 that is projected to drop to 6.4 million men of military age.
[removed]
When the political elite joins in, then they can reintroduce it. Otherwise they can fight for their money themselves.
As an European (Dutch) I think all European countries should at least make sure that its citizens can shoot a gun and take care of their army’s standard issue equipment.
Im sure the new germans will be eager to enlist.
This should go well.
I would think for Germany it makes more sense to massively incentivize it than mandate it.
You don’t want everyone…that gets you a bunch of fat call of duty players. You do want to make it easy for those that are already on the right wavelength & are on the fence to say yes.
Like the US does with their GI Bill benefits where it’ll pay for education etc.
[removed]
I will always strongly advocate against compulsory military service unless it is a matter of your country’s very existence like Finland. Otherwise, compulsory military service should never happen. That isn’t freedom of choice.
He’s tried everything except offering good pay and he’s all out of ideas.
I mean if they make both women and men it will be fair.
Ethical concerns aside, isn’t it known by now that conscripts make poor soldiers?
Not to mention the economical damage of delaying the population’s entry into work or education.
It’s honestly a shame that Germany cancelled the military service („Wehrpflicht“). It’s not like it was hard to maneuver around it and do a social year instead. Always thought it would be good as an orientation and to learn to be responsible after sitting in the parents house for 19 years.
Ah , yes , a country with no National identity will bring back the draft … mmm , will surely go well .
For what type of war do they want to prepare the citizens, a trench war to the last troop? The only reason the ukrainian conflict looks like ww1 in a lot of aspects is because Ukraine doesn’t have nukes and russia doesn’t want to go all out, since they also see a risk in NATO entering UA. The follow up to that would be the world at the brink of ww3. If all hell breaks loose I can’t imagine both sides not using tactical nukes, in which case a conscript will be meaningless on the battle field. He’ll die of radiation poisoning, or due to some biological weapon being used.
That or compulsory Russian lessons.
i imagine that would be political suicide?
Absolutely ridiculous. Shit like this is why libertarians and anarchists still exist.