From a purely defense-oriented practical perspective, a conscription system offers a lot of benefits for small countries facing a single adversary that don't have defense in depth like Ukraine....
From a purely defense-oriented practical perspective, a conscription system offers a lot of benefits for small countries facing a single adversary that don't have defense in depth like Ukraine. Finland, Greece, Taiwan/RoC, Japan, S. Korea, and the Baltics are all conscription based and it's an excellent system for their specific situation: a small country on a potential frontline with a much larger adversary. This offers a lot of bang for your GDP percentage but comes with tradeoffs like a struggle to project power. If you're, say, Finland, that's fine!
This article mentions Spain and Italy. Neither is on the frontline of anything. Their most hostile neighbor is the rising sea. Investing in Naval power and air power to support NATO is the only rational thing for them to do and conscripts aren't exactly useful there. Money would be better spent on material and more specialist training rather than raw manpower. The Netherlands, for example, publishes a defense document every so often and their 2024 doc can be summarized as "we will buy more F35s, have nearly no army, and defend ourselves by being a fully contributing part of NATO."
The next step up from Naval and Air defense is expeditionary force structure like the US and France but that's expensive.
I suppose it depends on what you train people to do in their mandatory service, and what you task them with. For every pilot there are hundreds of support positions. Militaries have accountants,...
I suppose it depends on what you train people to do in their mandatory service, and what you task them with. For every pilot there are hundreds of support positions. Militaries have accountants, external affairs, IT, etc. A mandatory service period that helped fill those roles, possibly with a civic service period as well, could be a way to stabilize workforce fluctuations, while training your populace in useful life skills and a basic knowledge of national defense.
I haven't really looked at the countries you mention though, so I don't know what would help them. But every crew member on a ship or flight deck has a lot of personnel behind them, and not all mandatory service needs to be confined to front line roles or infantry and small arms behind basic training.
The reason that conscripts often go into frontline units is cost. It's way cheaper to train a basic infantryman than it is to train virtually any specialist role like IT, accounting, chemical,...
not all mandatory service needs to be confined to front line roles or infantry and small arms behind basic training.
The reason that conscripts often go into frontline units is cost. It's way cheaper to train a basic infantryman than it is to train virtually any specialist role like IT, accounting, chemical, etc. It thus becomes more prudent to save that sort of training for people that have volunteered, since they're a lot more likely to stick around. If you spend a year and a half training a conscript in cybersecurity and they leave after their 2 year commitment is up, it's a whole lot of wasted effort versus someone who is more likely make a long career out of it.
Unless you consider it to be civilian workforce training as well, which a lot of mandatory service countries do. That enables you to have reserves ready to be called up and a skilled populace....
If you spend a year and a half training a conscript in cybersecurity and they leave after their 2 year commitment is up, it's a whole lot of wasted effort versus someone who is more likely make a long career out of it.
Unless you consider it to be civilian workforce training as well, which a lot of mandatory service countries do. That enables you to have reserves ready to be called up and a skilled populace.
It's cheaper to send conscripts to the front lines, but it's more effective to send career soldiers.
It's not hard or expensive to train tier 1 help agents, office admin assistants, department liaisons, etc. Mandatory civil service, with a variety of programs could address a number of needs. But...
It's not hard or expensive to train tier 1 help agents, office admin assistants, department liaisons, etc. Mandatory civil service, with a variety of programs could address a number of needs. But the specifics hinge on the local culture and societal needs.
No, the 18-year-olds drafted against their will with no ability to opt out should be sure to die in wars they didn't start instead. Just an extra fuck you from those older generations ig.
No, the 18-year-olds drafted against their will with no ability to opt out should be sure to die in wars they didn't start instead. Just an extra fuck you from those older generations ig.
I suppose it depends on how the program is run and the culture and society. A program of mandatory civil service, with options for military or civic programs might be well received. Whether a...
I suppose it depends on how the program is run and the culture and society. A program of mandatory civil service, with options for military or civic programs might be well received. Whether a country could start a new tradition without a lot of backlash I couldn't say. But I don't see why 18-22 year old, with oversight and guidance from career civil servants, couldn't help in the back office.
From a purely defense-oriented practical perspective, a conscription system offers a lot of benefits for small countries facing a single adversary that don't have defense in depth like Ukraine. Finland, Greece, Taiwan/RoC, Japan, S. Korea, and the Baltics are all conscription based and it's an excellent system for their specific situation: a small country on a potential frontline with a much larger adversary. This offers a lot of bang for your GDP percentage but comes with tradeoffs like a struggle to project power. If you're, say, Finland, that's fine!
This article mentions Spain and Italy. Neither is on the frontline of anything. Their most hostile neighbor is the rising sea. Investing in Naval power and air power to support NATO is the only rational thing for them to do and conscripts aren't exactly useful there. Money would be better spent on material and more specialist training rather than raw manpower. The Netherlands, for example, publishes a defense document every so often and their 2024 doc can be summarized as "we will buy more F35s, have nearly no army, and defend ourselves by being a fully contributing part of NATO."
The next step up from Naval and Air defense is expeditionary force structure like the US and France but that's expensive.
Perun did a great video on this: https://youtu.be/EVqGEtPj0M0
I suppose it depends on what you train people to do in their mandatory service, and what you task them with. For every pilot there are hundreds of support positions. Militaries have accountants, external affairs, IT, etc. A mandatory service period that helped fill those roles, possibly with a civic service period as well, could be a way to stabilize workforce fluctuations, while training your populace in useful life skills and a basic knowledge of national defense.
I haven't really looked at the countries you mention though, so I don't know what would help them. But every crew member on a ship or flight deck has a lot of personnel behind them, and not all mandatory service needs to be confined to front line roles or infantry and small arms behind basic training.
The reason that conscripts often go into frontline units is cost. It's way cheaper to train a basic infantryman than it is to train virtually any specialist role like IT, accounting, chemical, etc. It thus becomes more prudent to save that sort of training for people that have volunteered, since they're a lot more likely to stick around. If you spend a year and a half training a conscript in cybersecurity and they leave after their 2 year commitment is up, it's a whole lot of wasted effort versus someone who is more likely make a long career out of it.
Unless you consider it to be civilian workforce training as well, which a lot of mandatory service countries do. That enables you to have reserves ready to be called up and a skilled populace.
It's cheaper to send conscripts to the front lines, but it's more effective to send career soldiers.
It's not hard or expensive to train tier 1 help agents, office admin assistants, department liaisons, etc. Mandatory civil service, with a variety of programs could address a number of needs. But the specifics hinge on the local culture and societal needs.
No, the 18-year-olds drafted against their will with no ability to opt out should be sure to die in wars they didn't start instead. Just an extra fuck you from those older generations ig.
I suppose it depends on how the program is run and the culture and society. A program of mandatory civil service, with options for military or civic programs might be well received. Whether a country could start a new tradition without a lot of backlash I couldn't say. But I don't see why 18-22 year old, with oversight and guidance from career civil servants, couldn't help in the back office.