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.
I’m not entirely opposed to compulsory service, but it shouldn’t be just military. Civil service should be included as well, anything from internship at a town planning and engineering service, to litter pickup, to the military. I could already guess that socioeconomic factors would favor the well-connected and wealthy the soft jobs of working in the governor’s office vs being sent out to pick up trash along the highways, but maybe a lottery system would help prevent that. There’s always ways to game a system, though. Unfortunately.
Mandatory service isn’t the best answer, it’s just one answer.
All the alternatives you suggest don’t accomplish what the military does - transforming a person into a non-thinking unconditional follower of orders.
I’ve seen time and time again when veterans come into the civilian working world. The boss tells them to impale their hand to the desk, and they’ll ask which hand, what gauge nail, and what type of hammer. On the other hand, you put them in a situation that requires individual decision making, no matter how small, and they’ll be entirely lost.
These are solely my experiences and probably don’t apply to every man, woman, and child who has ever worn the uniform.
Already the case. Quoth Article 12a GG:
The short of the story is that the draft was never abolished, instead they suspended its application. Constitutionality-wise what became an issue is that the army would only call up a fraction of eligible people, if we re-do all this they probably have to make sure to call up everyone and then funnel lots into other areas as the military doesn’t even want that many people. Civil defence certainly won’t mind.
It’s generally either medical services (EMT, distributing food for the elderly, various other stuff) or civil defence. If you’re picky and engaged you could even get a gig counting birds as certain nature preservation efforts and data collection count as civil defence (to do catastrophe relief it helps to have an eye on nature), don’t think they’ll take a random slob over someone who actually wants to be an ornithologist, though.
What we really shouldn’t be re-introducing is that “distribute food for the elderly” stuff. Zivis were always a way for the system to depress wages in the sector and now noone wants to be a nurse for the elderly. I mean if people really want to sure go ahead but we shouldn’t be funnelling people there on a default path, that should probably some big-picture civil defence stuff, definitely including evacuations if only because it’s way easier to evacuate a city when a lot of people there already know how to do it.
I’m in favor of mandatory civil service before college, most kids could use a few more years of development before picking a career
Another term for “mandatory service” is slavery.
Absolutely not. Being required to perform service instead of living in your mom’s basement, unemployed, getting stoned and drunk for a few years while you concoct hyperbolic statements about mandatory service is not slavery. You are not forced into service based on sex, color, religion, economic status (sort of, as explained), or used to raise someone else’s profits while you get nothing.
Service should be paid. You should be able to fill out a wish list for the jobs you want or might qualify for. You get to leave, uncontested, when you’ve completed service. That is not slavery.
Just because everyone gets forced into it doesn’t mean it’s not forced labor
by your logic the North Korean people aren’t slaves, so North Korean labor is fine, got it.
They don’t get a choice, do they? And comparing a totalitarian kleptocracy to mandatory service is absurd.
Slavery isn’t always life-long, and it isn’t always done to just one group. Indentured servitude and serfdom are forms of slavery. It’s forced labor against your will and with no way to avoid it if you’re subjected.
Mandatory service means forcing you to work at the point of a gun.
This sounds hyperbolic, but what happens when you refuse and simply want to keep living your life freely instead?
You are given a prison sentence, and if you refuse that, in the last consequence, the state reserves the right to use deadly force to make you comply.
You can ad-hominem every young person as useless basement-dweller, assign beautiful words to your forced labor, use bad comparisons, and pay people to do it.
It doesn’t change the fact that you want to force people to work, and their only other option is prison (where they will also be forced to work) or death.
What?
Oh. so that’s ok then? lookit you simultaneously saying slavery isn’t THAT bad, but OMG mandatory service is SLAVERY.
You’re full of shit, that whole reply is. Maybe some countries are extreme, but it doesn’t have to be like that, and it’s stupid to paint with such a broad brush about mandatory service. If someone’s country is pointing guns at citizens to pave a road, that’s a problem with the country, not the service.
I explain my reasoning in the following paragraph.
I’m not saying slavery isn’t bad, I’m saying the term slavery applies even to forced work that is temporary.
And please explain what you think will happen if someone refuses to do this mandatory service OR go to jail for their refusal?
What would you consider school? Grades K-8 are compulsory.
School isn’t work. And you don’t get sent to prison if you don’t attend.
I think quite a few students would beg to differ. And you do get sent to juvenile detention centers iirc. The parents certainly can be jailed.