“It requires focus and quickly moving between targets. It’s a pretty cool skill.”<\/p>\n
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Danish recruit Mary Petersen, 24, is loving her military service. (Foreign Correspondent: Greg Nelson ACS)<\/p>\n
Currently grappling with threats from an old foe, Russia, and an old ally, America,<\/a> Denmark has made conscription compulsory for women for the first time in its history.<\/p>\n Every 18-year-old Dane, male or female, must now register for military service.<\/p>\n “We’re nothing special because we’re women. When we put our uniform on, we are all soldiers, there’s no gender divide,” Ms Petersen says.<\/p>\n “We need to get as many people as we can [in the military]. We just have to be ready for whatever they deem we need to be ready for.”<\/p>\n The growing threat of war<\/p>\n US President Donald Trump’s threats to seize Greenland, an autonomous region of Denmark in the Arctic, have shocked Danes.<\/p>\n “Both in Denmark and Greenland \u2026 there is a sense of betrayal,” says former chief analyst for the Danish Defence Intelligence Service Jacob Kaarsbo.<\/p>\n “This is the most direct challenge to Danish and territorial integrity and sovereignty since we were attacked by Nazi Germany in 1939.”<\/p>\n The unexpected threat from within the NATO alliance has come at a time when Danes believe the threat from Vladimir Putin’s Russia is growing, too.<\/p>\n The country’s intelligence service has warned that Russia could be militarily ready for a regional war in two years.<\/p>\n It says Russia’s willingness to attack NATO is contingent on, among other things, the war in Ukraine ending or turning into “a frozen conflict”.<\/p>\n Men have long been required to report for military training in Denmark. Now women are too. (Foreign Correspondent: Greg Nelson ACS)<\/p>\n “It’s a precarious position, and we are under pressure both from the east and the west, and we have to handle it,” Mr Kaarsbo says.<\/p>\n The Danish government is responding by investing billions of dollars in ramping up its defence capabilities and getting more boots on the ground.<\/p>\n There’s a sense of urgency to the process.<\/p>\n The country has fast-tracked female conscription by 18 months and has also nearly tripled the length of military service to 11 months.<\/p>\n Sidse Aagard, known as “Copenhagen” to her platoon after the area she is from, is three months into her military service.<\/p>\n She’s thought about the possibility of going to war.<\/p>\n “When I first started, I thought it could be a bit scary because, of course, I don’t want war,” she says.<\/p>\n “If my country requires me to go and fight for them, yeah, I would do it.”<\/p>\n Her military training has been challenging, but it has had its rewards too.<\/p>\n Sidse Aagard has wanted to join the military since school. (Foreign Correspondent: Greg Nelson ACS)<\/p>\n “When my body and mind say, ‘Stop,’ you can’t stop. So you just have to keep going, and you find out that you actually can,” Ms Aagard says.<\/p>\n At her army barracks, male and female soldiers share the same sleeping quarters.<\/p>\n She is one of two women in a nine-person dorm, and when they’re on duty, no phones are allowed.<\/p>\n “I knew I would have to live with more men. I have two brothers,” she says.<\/p>\n “Of course, some men are stronger. So some of the things we have to do, we know men do this, we can do this, and it’s not a bad thing.<\/p>\n “But I think women, we really think about how to do it right. We want to do [it] right the first time.”<\/p>\n After three months living and training with women, 19-year-old Johannes Jensen believes mandatory conscription for both genders is the right move.<\/p>\n “It’s nice to have some women who can speak some sense into the men if that’s necessary,” Mr Jensen says.<\/p>\n “I think that right now is quite a good time for me to do this. Part of me has always wanted to protect Denmark \u2026 [from] the world’s bad things. Russia, for example.”<\/p>\n Young Danes at a recruitment centre in Slagelse, outside the capital Copenhagen. (Foreign Correspondent: Greg Nelson ACS)<\/p>\n Conscription has been mandatory for men in Denmark since 1849.<\/p>\n Women have been able to volunteer since 1998 and in 2024 made up 24 per cent of conscripts.<\/p>\n “I’ve been in Iraq and Afghanistan and had women as combat soldiers. They’ve performed equally to all men,” says Denmark’s head of conscription, Colonel Kenneth Str\u00f8m.<\/p>\n Watch Foreign Correspondent’s NATO Under Attack on ABC iview<\/a><\/p>\n “I think the diversity, having different perspectives on how to solve the operational task, that’s where we have been very strong.”<\/p>\n Colonel Str\u00f8m says while expanding conscription is ultimately a political decision, the rationale is clear.<\/p>\n “Obviously, based on the current security situation, we need more and faster combat power,” he says.<\/p>\n “We will prepare Denmark to be a hard target. It would hurt you if you try to strike it.”<\/p>\n Willing and not-so-willing recruits<\/p>\n At a recruitment centre in Slagelse, about an hour from the capital Copenhagen, bleary-eyed teenagers in hoodies line the hallways scrolling through their phones, waiting for their names to be called.<\/p>\n Every 18-year-old Dane must undergo physical examinations, including for their eyesight and hearing, as well as sit a written exam testing their logic and problem-solving skills, to see if they are fit for service.<\/p>\n Volunteers are taken first, but if the military doesn’t get enough who enrol willingly, it turns to a lottery to determine who’ll become a soldier and who won’t.<\/p>\n Potential recruits draw numbers from a tombola drum; the lower the number, the higher the chance of being drafted.<\/p>\n Isabella, a dancer and recent school leaver, could soon be drafted into the military. (Foreign Correspondent: Greg Nelson ACS)<\/p>\n Nineteen-year-old Isabella has passed all the tests.<\/p>\n The former dancer will soon trade her fake eyelashes and sparkly nails for green and brown fatigues and 11 months of military training.<\/p>\n “My close family, especially my grandparents, think it’s a bit dangerous,” Isabella says.<\/p>\n “At first they were like, ‘It’s a bit of a man’s thing, it could be really dangerous.’ They realised they just can’t talk me out of it, so they’ve just decided to support me.<\/p>\n “I don’t like to visualise myself going to war or being on the battlefield.<\/p>\n “[But] I have thought about it a lot. I think you have to, or else you won’t be mentally prepared going into the military.”<\/p>\n Conscription is taken seriously by the Danish authorities.<\/p>\n Recruits who don’t show up for assessment are fined and can even be arrested and escorted to recruitment centres by police.<\/p>\n “Once or twice a month, the police come here with someone,” says Chief Master Sergeant Steffen S\u00f8rensen, who coordinates recruitment at the Slagelse centre.<\/p>\n Loading…<\/p>\n Norway and Sweden are the only other European countries with compulsory national service for both men and women.<\/p>\n But with Europe on high alert over growing Russian belligerence and signs that US backing for NATO is waning, other countries are rethinking how they draft military recruits.<\/p>\n As of this year, all 18-year-old German men must indicate if they’re willing to join the armed forces. From mid-next year, they’ll have to undergo a medical examination.<\/p>\n France has introduced 10 months of voluntary military training for 18 and 19-year-olds, and Italy is debating doing something similar.<\/p>\n Isabella sees no other option for Denmark.<\/p>\n “When I first heard about Trump threatening to invade Greenland, I was sure it was a publicity stunt. But then it started to get serious, and the threats started to become more real,” she says.<\/p>\n “At that point, I felt we as a nation should be doing something to defend Greenland.<\/p>\n “And I wasn’t the only one with that feeling. When I saw that people started protesting in Copenhagen, I felt a feeling of nationalism. That gave me a feeling of security that when I join the army, I’m joining a force of a land that is truly and deeply loved by its people, and that I won’t be fighting for nothing.”<\/p>\n While some of her friends under 18 are reluctant and even angry about mandatory conscription, Isabella believes it’s essential.<\/p>\n “The whole world is such an unstable place at the moment, so I think recruiting women, and increasing how many we recruit, is mandatory, or else we wouldn’t be able to prepare ourselves for the future.”<\/p>\n Watch Foreign Correspondent’s NATO Under Attack now on ABC iview<\/a> and YouTube<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On a freezing gun range in western Denmark, rows of blonde ponytails poke out of camouflaged helmets, as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":27154,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[10010,15241,27,26,184,17445,57,1111,1465,238,76,830],"class_list":{"0":"post-27153","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-denmark","8":"tag-army","9":"tag-conscription","10":"tag-danmark","11":"tag-denmark","12":"tag-donald-trump","13":"tag-female-conscription","14":"tag-greenland","15":"tag-military","16":"tag-military-service","17":"tag-russia","18":"tag-united-states","19":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27153","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27153"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27153\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27154"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27153"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27153"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27153"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/87706ebe39dd375435d2357c25b273b1.jpeg\")
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