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.
It’s a pretty cost effective alternative to maintaining an excessively large standing force.
If everyone gets 12-18 months of training, it allows the nation the capacity to mobilize quickly “on-demand”, instead of that capacity being “always on”.
I imagine there are other periphery societal benefits. Having a shared experience, even if it is military service, can be good for cultural unity.
Not saying they should or shouldn’t, btw. Just saying it might be more pragmatic than the alternatives.
I have a strong family history of military service, with a verifiable family history going back to the US revolution. I get where the idea comes from. There was a point where I supported compulsory military service too, However, it ultimately serves the capitalist class, who are perfectly content to throw their own children to the war machine to ensure that the next quarter is profitable. Conscription certainly serves the purpose of filling out the ranks, but ultimately it’s a reason to kill people for the imperialist purposes of ensuring an unequal standard of living between the imperial core (in this case the EU) and the imperial periphery.