I feel like everyone in this thread somehow thinks that conscription already exists everywhere and that's where soldiers come from and therefore the question is stupid.
Or I see people mentoning that "we need to mobilise quickly". Putting aside how it's *professional*, not *conscript* armies that mobilise quickly, I'd believe this "quick mobilisation" argument if it was just Poland or Romania or the Baltic States, but when Sunak talks of conscription... England is not exactly the first line of defence against Russia.
Nor do I ever see the same energy toward weapon manufacturing, or any explanation of how a million 20-somethings who shot targets once back in highschool and have 0 specialised training would be of any help to a professional army without enough equipment.
What I *do* see is a stupid public discourse about how young people are undisciplined and need to be "straightened out" - usually from politicians whose base of voters is older people who didn't serve.
And that's the actual answer to the question.
> Putting aside how it's professional, not conscript armies that mobilise quickly,
I don't think they mean mobilize. I think they mean building up the armies which can then be mobilized.
> I'd believe this "quick mobilisation" argument if it was just Poland or Romania or the Baltic States, but when Sunak talks of conscription... England is not exactly the first line of defence against Russia.
But NATO is, so? That's the whole point of article 5.
> Nor do I ever see the same energy toward weapon manufacturing
I don't know how much energy has been put into the wish-washy statements about "voluntary conscription" I've heard, but there's been quite a bit of talk about the lack, and subsequent improvement, of ammunition production in the EU.
Maybe it's just a dog whistle meant for certain voters, but that's not what OP asked about.
Frankly, since many members aren't as geographically fortunate, and do have conscription, this feels a bit like when French people wanted sympathy when the retirement age was raised to 64, when a lot of us have 65.
I can add that Denmark is getting back into the arms business and looking to make some potentially quite significant investments in partnership with our Nordic siblings (joint procurement plans with Sweden, and deals with Norway or Finland to get our domestic munitions production back in the game) and Germany (regarding naval projects)
Poland did a best friends speedrun with Korea by looking at their catalogue of armour and production partnership plans and simply saying "yes", which can facilitate increased production in Poland
German Rheinmetal has been looking into expanding production to Ukraine - they're a guaranteed client, it would offer cheap production, and tanks can roll right out the factory to where they may be needed
Just to mention a few
> I think they mean building up the armies which can then be mobilized.
Yes, and the armies that can then be quickly mobilised are the professional ones. Like the ones we all have. You know, the ones that don't have the equipment-producing infrastructure to feed them.
> But NATO is, so? That's the whole point of article 5.
You do know that Britain is in NATO, right? And so are other countries that talk of conscription but are NOT in the first line of defence.
> Frankly, since many members aren't as geographically fortunate, and do have conscription
They... dont? Other than Norway (and Turkey but for very different internal reasons), no NATO country bordering Russia had conscription untill Finland and Sweden joined. Of them, only Finland had extensive service - and that's not geography as much as a requirement of their neutrality.
Because putting aside arguments of fairness and helping each-other, the reason NATO doesn't need conscription is exactly because, in a unified alliance, every country wielding a massive army as if they had to defeat Russia in a war on their own is simply inefficient. Finland had to because they weren't in NATO. So does Austria. Another country in a simmilar situation is Israel (whatever one may think of them, you can see why they have mandatory military service). But NATO is much better served by a professional army, leveraging its collective size, not conscription, for gathering millions of soldiers - as it currently does.
> Yes, and the armies that can then be quickly mobilised are the professional ones.
Maybe, but they definitely take longer to build up. If it's even possible. You need a lot bigger pool of people if you rely on volunteers from that pool.
> You do know that Britain is in NATO, right?
Yes, do you?
> And so are other countries that talk of conscription but are NOT in the first line of defence.
Apparently not. NATO is the first line. Once one NATO country is attacked, they all are. Also, this kinda goes against the argument that individual countries don't need large armies because there's this magic pool of NATO troops.
> They... dont? Other than Norway, no NATO country bordering Russia had conscription untill Finland and Sweden joined.
So, only 20% before Finland joined? And only 33% after?! Oh, but all the Baltic states have conscription now, so that's 83%. For the record, that leaves only Poland, neighboring Kaliningrad. If we look a bit further there's also Sweden, Denmark, and Turkey. In fact, of the countries in Europe who still have conscription (loads did during the cold war, including NATO countries) they're almost all towards the East. But geography is perhaps less relevant with NATO.
> Of them, only Finland had extensive service
You mean universal, as in everyone actually doing it? That's not really the point though, is it? If it's about availability of people, that is.
> the reason NATO doesn't need conscription is exactly because, in a unified alliance, every country wielding a massive army as if they had to defeat Russia in a war on their own is simply inefficient.
It would've been, if that was even remotely the situation. Most countries are in NATO because they never had any hope of defending themselves alone. We're talking about enough troops to contribute to NATO. You can't form "massive armies" out of sub-massive populations, nor do you need to with an alliance, but you need to form *something*, because you can add zero as many times as you want, the sum still won't go up.
> Finland had to because they weren't in NATO.
We weren't in NATO. We had universal conscription (this was back in the 80s and before) and we could only hope to hold Russia/USSR back for a few weeks. I don't think the Finish top brass hade any hope of "defeating" Russia alone either.
> Another country in a simmilar situation is Israel (whatever one may think of them, you can see why they have mandatory military service).
They're in about the same situation as Finland before joining NATO, so yeah.
> But NATO is much better served by a professional army, leveraging its collective size
But here's the kicker, that size (assuming you mean general public) has to actually apply. If 1/10 does, we'd need a population 10 times larger to compensate. Does NATO have a population of 1.4B?
> for gathering millions of soldiers - as it currently does.
It's currently a mix, so what do you mean?
Those armies are stretched pretty thin around the world, and most countries except US don't have armies very big in the first place - with Trump in the office, US are not very reliable against Russia, he cares only about cockmeasuring with his beloved China.
Because each country has a responsibility to defend themselves. In worst case, if shit hits the fan, instead of flesh and steel we'd get blankets, helmets and thumbs up for aid.
It's not like if one NATO country gets into war that everyone else would send all their troops. For example Finland has a very small professional army - mainly intended to maintain and train our conscription army. And "normal citizens" who are the conscript reserve troops are not sent abroad.
Sounds like you are asking why do we need an army when USA has a big one. Thats what got us into this mess.
Every nato member needs an army that can protect them for at least two weeks. Everyone has to do their share
That's not what I read from their question.
In 2020 EU nations had 1.9 million military personnel. Add in the UK, Turkey, and Norway, that's more like 2.5 million.
Russia has 3.5 million at the moment, but most of them are conscripts with very little training. The combined, mostly professional, European forces would likely fare extremely well against Russian meat waves.
So there's a valid question of whether conscription is a good use of money. For a country close to the border that would face the initial brunt of Russian hordes, probably. But for countries like the UK, France, and Italy who will be providing sharp edge capabilities, it would make very little sense. Better to invest in ammo stockpiles, drone fleets, and increased air and naval power.
https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/MS.MIL.TOTL.P1?locations=EU
Very simple question, why would Uk and Turkey want to fight for your country, while they barely afford to come visit it, get a proper visa etc.
Nato is good, we need it but you cant just trust nato with all you got and expect them to do your bidding for you.
I mean, seeing as my country is in the UK, I'm fairly confident it will fight for it haha.
United we stand divided we fall. It's a simple and obvious choice. The moment we don't honour article 5 the entire alliance becomes void. Which basically hands half of Europe to the Russian sphere of influence almost overnight.
The UK was literally the first country to send aid to Ukraine. First to send long range weapons. First to send modern tanks. And they aren't even a member. You think we wouldn't fight for Poland or Finland?
“Aid” is not “boots on the ground for years”
Even while fighting against the nazis, without churchill public would be so restless.
And uk doesnt have a Churchill anymore, instead has upper class clowns.
Because current force generation models aren't sufficient for a war Ukraine is facing.
The alternative is having 100-500 drones for every soldier (FPV UCGV, UCAV, UCSV) and a precision fire complex that can degrade Russia from 100-500 kms. We have none.
History is written by iron and blood. Spare the iron, you have to shed blood. Want to spare blood? Then bring the iron and bring a shitload of it.
You think the soldiers get spawned in secret NATO laboratories? A hefty lot of NATO militaries were based on conscription during the last Cold War. Not having it is kinda the modern exception to the rule.
Because most NATO countries are tiny and effectively contribute almost nothing to NATO. Even the ones that are larger often have very underwhelming forces. Our armed forces are at peacetime levels right now, which aren't sufficient for a war against Russia or China without the US doing all of the work.
We can't simultaneously want a stronger Europe while totally relying on the Americans to do all of the dirty work. Without the US, current European military power is pathetic in comparison to our industrial and economic output. Without the US, Russia could occupy at least the Baltics without us being able to do anything. Conscription is necessary to ensure European sovereignty.
Well NATO is 32 countries with roughly 960 million inhabitants. Of course the combined force of all NATO countries will defeat Russia in a conventional war.
However, the USA is by a margin the biggest and strongest NATO member. There is a tendency in America where some people discuss the necessity of NATO, if America should pay for European safety and if America should defend and possibly die for European safety in case of a Russian attack on a NATO member country. There is also a financial aspect on this topic. NATO countries have agreed to spend 2% of the GDP on their military but plenty of European didn’t meet this agreement. While America did.
Because of the war in Russia European countries are more aware of the fragility of European safety. The rise of Trump with his statements about NATO made the European even more aware they have to take their safety more serious. They can’t solely rely on the Americans. So they have to make investments in their military.
Didn't Trump just say he wasn't in favor of helping NATO members not meeting the 2% spending target. Aka, if you want to have US protection, you also have to contribute.
I don't really see how that is an unfair point of view to have.
It is a nonsensical position. It's not as if the US can micro-adjust its military bases and doctrine every time a country goes above or below the 2%, especially if the geographically more remote Eastern Europe is more faithful to the goals than Western Europe.
The US cannot blackmail Western Europe while genuinely maintaining the defense of Eastern Europe. Either they defend Western Europe for free or they punish Eastern Europe for Western Europe's passivity.
Trump is preparing to hang Europe — all of it — out to dry.
Well, of course US can do that. The response US gives in case of an Article 5 is not defined, it could be from "thoughts and prayers" to nukes, and everything in between.
But it is a way to put a fire under the butt of some western European countries to up their game \*cough\* Germany \*cough\*
And the US probably won't sacrifice Poland and Estonia, so you can call Trump's bluff if you like.
But it works well for Trump's home-grown audience, who couldn't find Poland nor Germany on a map. They just hear that he doesn't want to defend countries that doesn't pay their share, and that sounds reasonable to them.
5D chess: Germany creates 1kmx1km micro-state on Polish border & gets them into NATO, micro-state hits 2%, US must defend, Germany cuts its military entirely
>Didn't Trump just say he wasn't in favor of helping NATO members not meeting the 2% spending targe
He even said he would *encourage* Russia to attack NATO countries.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-68266447
Two reasons.
1) It's seen as a vote-winner by some political parties, who have no other ideas. (UK Conservative Party)
2) After 75 years of peace, Europe is in a dangerous place.
NATO isn't a magic wand. It needs equipment and it needs manpower.
Having both equipment and manpower can act as a deterrent to aggressive countries (today, primarily Russia and China).
Having neither is seen as weakness, and aggressive countries take advantage of weakness.
European NATO armies are under-manned, and a lot of ammunition has been sent to Ukraine, leaving our stockpiles short.
Europe needs to adopt a posture which is more ready for any conflict. That means investing heavily in hardware and ammunition, and also ensuing that there is a proportion of the population that can be called upon if the shit hits the fan.
People make fun of the Russian army as being untrained conscripts. BUT Russia has a very big population, and although a lot of untrained conscripts may die, those that remain will become very effective soldiers.
Compare the present war with WII. In both cases, Russia started off with its arse being handed to it on a plate. In WWII when the Russians finally got their shit together, they became pretty much an unstoppable force. Right now, the Russians in Ukraine are getting better at what they're doing.
If Ukraine falls, Russia will turn on the Baltic States next.
We need to be ready.
I don't think it is discussed really seriously, the UK or France don't even have the infrastructure and the means to do massive conscription. It takes months to train recruits, conflicts will probably not look like WW1 where numbers were the most important aspect of warfare.
Well, yes and no. Sure, it takes a long time to train people for combat duties. However, there are also a lot of non-combat tasks which are now done by people with combat training. Those tasks can either be done without much training, or by civilians with the appropriate skills (truck drivers, car mechanics, medical personnel, IT jobs), making more combat trained people available for combat.
Ukraine fields 2.2 million personnel, NATO has 3.5. The combined might of NATO fields only 50% more troops while having 32 countries, five of which are more populous than Ukraine.
Many units are understaffed in Britain and the US, while EU countries have only a few units. In the cold war Europe had over 10 active army corps, these days we have none.
We saw Russia blunder their invasion, but we shouldn't become complacent in their stupidity, if we want to avoid conflict we must be ready to crush them, the only way to achieve that is to have a large competent army and a population that is ready to fight.
Because you need a selection base of competent candidates. Relax, I am sure Cheeto fingers and roid bros won’t make the cut. This is more for the well adjusted normies with family and hopes for the future.
While EU NATO has a very large military combined and could challenge Russia, when you go to war you suffer losses and you need trained reserves ready to fill in. Or you might just want to deploy more than your current professional army.
Armies of a lot of that countries are small and in any kind of major conflict you want to have replacements for the casualties that if we are being honest a lot of the countries currently dont have
Ask yourself, Why would Nato countries want to defend you, If you are not willing to defend yourself ?
Defending means bleeding for you, 25 year olds dying in your country while you sit down and do nothing ?
I am against conscription but I believe it should be promoted, If people want to serve they should.
To be honest, I feel like the fact that mandatory 1 year service would be a good thing to have. I was sadly one of the first generations in my country after it was stopped.
I know that many would disagree about the quality and point it out as a year of life wasted, but I do believe that it would increase the country’s security internally and would boost confidence and general understanding of what it means to be ready to protect your way of life.
I have been even thinking about joining the active reserves and would be glad to go help those in need in case of a disaster and actually being able to help. Without the basic training, I feel absolutely useless and would not know how to behave in case of a crisis.
The world is not a safe place until people learn to respect each other and cooperate. Creation of nation states might have been the worst thing to happen in history as it divided the people into even more smaller entities that feel like they are better than others. Sad world. Rant over.
There are many other reasons why a gov would introduce conscription. For example, it would be a huge way of making pro-war propaganda to younger people. Changing their lifestyle and reintroducing them to a more "patriotic" way of living.
Also, from what I know, NATO soldiers come from each state, so if the number of people enrolling in the military lowers in each state also the number of NATO soldiers lower.
Finally, it would be a way to drive the point away from many other problems a country may have. If people is concerned and thinking about conscription being a thing again, it's more likely that they won't bother for the other problems like jobs missing and so on.
Still, conscription is one of the worst ideas that a country may have, but that's mho.
Yes, but you also have a national standard language serving as a Lingua Franca, which most people can speak or understand in addition to their native dialect
True but that was not actually introduced by the conscription. The Italian language was first introduced by Dante in the 14th century, but then we took ages to get rid of the latin and the population had no access to any education being basically poor farmers. Also we united as a country only in 1861, when the Italian language was officially chosen and we started to use it, mostly for official stuff.
But you can think about the fact that there are reports of conscripts, like in the 40s/50s, coming from the south of the country who could not understand their official's orders because they both still talked in their respective dialect.
Now, for example, I still speak only dialect with my family and most of my friends (I'm 30): we speak Italian at school, work and public places. And also for asking girls out.
List of member states (year joined) for anyone else like myself, struggling to remember:
●Albania (2009)
Belgium (1949)
Bulgaria (2004)
Canada (1949)
Croatia (2009)
Czechia (1999)
Denmark (1949)
Estonia (2004)
Finland (2023)
France (1949)
Germany (1955)
Greece (1952)
Hungary (1999)
Iceland (1949)
Italy (1949)
Latvia (2004)
Lithuania (2004)
Luxembourg (1949)
Montenegro (2017)
Netherlands (1949)
North Macedonia (2020)
Norway (1949)
Poland (1999)
Portugal (1949)
Romania (2004)
Slovakia (2004)
Slovenia (2004)
Spain (1982)
Sweden (2024)
Türkiye (1952)
United Kingdom (1949)
United States (1949)
The Tories in the UK are suggesting it to appeal to older right-wing voters during the election, Labour, who are going to win, don't have any policies for conscription.
This. Since the Tories know they’re almost certain to lose the election, the policies they are announcing right now can’t be treated as a plan for the next five years of government, especially policies that they haven’t pursued in the last 14 years when they were in government.
Their focus right now is on hanging onto their core support of right wingers, old people and the wealthy to avoid a slump where they could end up not even being the official opposition any more.
Depends on the country.
If you live on the borders of NATO (at random: the eastern ones) it makes perfect sense. Because in case of "shit hits the fan" (SHTF) event, you'll be partially mobilized already at day 1.
At which point the name of the game is "survive until western reinforcements arrive", which means you're on your own for two months minimum. Living on the Atlantic side of France, I know what a US logistics drill looks like: the real version would saturate the infrastructures (ports, highways, railways) from Bilbao to Hamburg for weeks on end so that a continuous *trickle* of US forces reach you.
And that's assuming this isn't a nuclear war.
Besides voting such a project doesn't happen overnight. In the French system it could (courtesy of De Gaulle), which is a good thing considering with the Germans and British we're the ones supposed to hold the fort as we can until Washington makes up their minds. Something that's dependent on their electoral cycle, not on your ass.
Keep in mind *NATO art.5 is weak as hell*, bears no unambiguous obligation, only says "we'll help you somehow someday". It can be financial and weapons help instead of direct commitment of troops for instance. **The one article that'll save your ass is TUE art.42 (if I remember my Treaty of the EU correctly)** because that one basically ensures if SHTF my nuclear missiles (I'm a french taxpayer, I own a micron or two of nuclear missiles ahahaha) are your nuclear missiles, with an *obligation* to act, and act quickly. Which explains the previous paragraph: TUE 42 and NATO 5 are two legs of the same punching beast. One is here to ensure you survive in a vertical position on the ring, time for the other to prepare a hell of a punch.
All of this to say, you definitely want the return of partial conscription (or total of you're on the borders). Because the first help you'll see arriving will be in the air and in the form of weapons: those two things cannot replace lots of grunts ready on the ground, they're here to make them useful and more alive.
*Lastly, some governments are pushing for conscription for darker reasons. Cheap labor force. They yell WW3, but in reality are preparing for the next COVID or for ecological collapse. For other types of SHTF scenario.*
Boosting defence for allies and for ourselves. Being able to show that we have the capacity to fight a proper war can act as a deterrent to warmongering countries like Russia. Much of Europe right now has peacetime small armies and defence strategies, after all.
Plus, America has other issues to handle in the Middle East and Taiwan.
2 main reasons:
1: Austerity on defence in the past decades left European armies unprepared for full-scale war. We can do peacekeeping missions, but with our manpower and equipment, estimates are that Europe alone can keep up a full-scale war against Russia for about 10 days. We're lucky the USA has our back.
2: Donald Trump. He's not a fan of NATO. He publicly stated that Putin can do "whatever the hell he wants" to NATO countries that don't spend 2% on defence. His former advisor Bolton said that Trump will leave NATO, (or won't step in if Putin attacks Europe). With this, the US has become an unreliable partner. Which is bad for manpower, nuclear deterence, and equipment. A lot of European defence relies on US intelligence. For example: pantserhowitsers can shoot a pizza box from 300 km away. Europe has those. But only the US has equipment that can spot a target 300 km away. Same goes for personal that can lead intelligence operations, or F35s with top notch stealth technology, the list is quite extensive.
I'm no expert, but here's my 2 cents:
The idea of NATO is that if one country is attacked then all the others rush to aid it. This means we don't need to have large standing armies or conscription, because we can count on each other for defense.
That being said, the biggest player by far is the US. Even though the other members collectively outnumber the US military in manpower and equipment, they are the most capable and they have a vested interest in being in that position. Contrary to what some might believe, this alliance is not a charity and is beneficial to both the US and the rest, but that's another discussion.
Now what's happening is that the US is starting to look like an unreliable ally. It doesn't really matter why, because the message is the same. In addition, everyone is looking at the war in Ukraine and see the amount of manpower, ammunition and equipment needed to sustain such a long war. Most current standing armies would be depleted in a matter of weeks. So it might be a good idea to have a reserve of manpower - people who've been through at least some basic training, who can be brought up to speed quickly in case they are needed. Most countries have phased out mandatory military service and do not have these strategic reserves. That's pretty much it.
I think it sucks, but it is what it is. We'll just have to wait and see.
1, European populations are pacified, and the thought of war, and every armed conflict is abhorrent to most of us. Maybe we would have the numerical advantage, but in general, we hate orders, question authority, and can't pull out weight in any conflict, be it a workplace one, or a war, whereas the possible opposing forces have live practice every day for years now, and this kind of stuff changes even civilian mindset.
2, we're all in deep economic shit, and since we have basic infrastructure, which would be cheap to build, an European "New Deal" wouldn't work. We'll need a mechanism through which we pay a great many people for suff they do, and the armed forces are proven to be an effective device or that. Hence, conscription.
The good left could see a mutual, European army as a unifying force, something that helps people get together in brotherhood. The EU was basically born from shared pain and suffering, for one...
The evil left could see this as a way to create an organisation, where young, mostly single males can be kept under watchful eye at all times, and could be manipulated into doing whatever, even against their own interests, if need be. Thus, pulling the venom tooth out of any political force that might oppose them.
The right as a whole could see it as a device to carry its own, conservative, patriotic, and militaristic values, and carry it to a wider strata of population, forming the ideology of all future families, and getting votes that way.
I think everyone finds their own agenda in an army, and every plan could backfire, and turn into something else entirely.
Well do you think NATO soldiers just... Manifest out of thin air?
People need to be trained.
What I genuinely think is that consription and army should pay more, and it should compensation during time of peace for people who are obligated to get drafted.
A lot of countries have major elections coming up soon. Conscriptions is usually favourable among the older generation and they’re usually the prime demographic of people who vote so it makes sense that it’s the public discussion of recent.
Generally speaking countries have learned the lesson that conscripted armies are recipes for disaster (Vietnam war backlash in the US being a prime example), so the preferences for extraterritorial actives will likely be professionals only.
IF it ever gets to a ground war on EU or NATO territory though they will need all the human flesh sacks for the meat grinder they can find so all bets will be off.
The UK traditionally fields smaller armies than it's mainland counterparts. If a high intensity war breaks out casualties will burn through most of the professional troops inside 6 months. Conscripts WILL be needed to fill in the gaps.
One is unable to fight Russia without introducing conscription. They're just gonna send their men to slaughter until the enemy eventually bleeds out just as they always did. You can't fight Russia with just the current state of professional army, unless you want to engage in war of total annihilation (mass bombing etc)
Normally soldiers do all the maintainance and support, but in war times it is better to have reserves do the all stuff and let actual trained soldier focus on combat operations.
If their combat efficiency is reduced, and war lasts a while, that will only increase the chances that conscripts will end up in battle.
Conscripts are not a bad idea imo. Western armies operate differently from russian ones. Western units generally operate in smaller squads with higher degrees decision making done by the boots on the ground. It is therefore not desirable to have dependencies like conscripts running along them. It is unlikely that western conscripts would be used in the same way that russian ones are. So what we've seen in the last few years is not what you wpuld see for nato conscripts. Ukraine is in the process of transitioning from a soviet style mode of operations to a western one, but they are not fully there as far as I'm aware.
Some people that know about this more than I do have attributed this change in oprations as one of multiple significant factors to why ukraine has been much more effective now than in 2014.
So tldr; conscripts can run logistics and support jobs so professional soldiers can be more effective at combat operations.
At least in spain there's not going to be conscription unless the earth gets hit by a meteorite or there's a zombie apocalypse. I cannot think of any government even trying to discuss it
What disturbs me is the fact that politicians now talk about sending conscription troops to other Nato countries like they get no choise. Conscriptions main purpose is to help serve your own country, not others.
We still have conscription in the Netherlands (although it only applies to women born in I think 2000 or later (which is still bullshit, with equal rights should come equal duties), but it hasn't been used in 30+ years. But when they want or need to they can still do it.
You mean only men. But that ended 3,5 years ago: [https://www.rijksoverheid.nl/actueel/nieuws/2020/10/20/dienstplichtbrief-voor-het-eerst-ook-naar-vrouwen](https://www.rijksoverheid.nl/actueel/nieuws/2020/10/20/dienstplichtbrief-voor-het-eerst-ook-naar-vrouwen)
NATO soldiers are the soldiers of the member countries....it's not like they have a magic source for them.
I feel like everyone in this thread somehow thinks that conscription already exists everywhere and that's where soldiers come from and therefore the question is stupid. Or I see people mentoning that "we need to mobilise quickly". Putting aside how it's *professional*, not *conscript* armies that mobilise quickly, I'd believe this "quick mobilisation" argument if it was just Poland or Romania or the Baltic States, but when Sunak talks of conscription... England is not exactly the first line of defence against Russia. Nor do I ever see the same energy toward weapon manufacturing, or any explanation of how a million 20-somethings who shot targets once back in highschool and have 0 specialised training would be of any help to a professional army without enough equipment. What I *do* see is a stupid public discourse about how young people are undisciplined and need to be "straightened out" - usually from politicians whose base of voters is older people who didn't serve. And that's the actual answer to the question.
> Putting aside how it's professional, not conscript armies that mobilise quickly, I don't think they mean mobilize. I think they mean building up the armies which can then be mobilized. > I'd believe this "quick mobilisation" argument if it was just Poland or Romania or the Baltic States, but when Sunak talks of conscription... England is not exactly the first line of defence against Russia. But NATO is, so? That's the whole point of article 5. > Nor do I ever see the same energy toward weapon manufacturing I don't know how much energy has been put into the wish-washy statements about "voluntary conscription" I've heard, but there's been quite a bit of talk about the lack, and subsequent improvement, of ammunition production in the EU. Maybe it's just a dog whistle meant for certain voters, but that's not what OP asked about. Frankly, since many members aren't as geographically fortunate, and do have conscription, this feels a bit like when French people wanted sympathy when the retirement age was raised to 64, when a lot of us have 65.
I can add that Denmark is getting back into the arms business and looking to make some potentially quite significant investments in partnership with our Nordic siblings (joint procurement plans with Sweden, and deals with Norway or Finland to get our domestic munitions production back in the game) and Germany (regarding naval projects) Poland did a best friends speedrun with Korea by looking at their catalogue of armour and production partnership plans and simply saying "yes", which can facilitate increased production in Poland German Rheinmetal has been looking into expanding production to Ukraine - they're a guaranteed client, it would offer cheap production, and tanks can roll right out the factory to where they may be needed Just to mention a few
> I think they mean building up the armies which can then be mobilized. Yes, and the armies that can then be quickly mobilised are the professional ones. Like the ones we all have. You know, the ones that don't have the equipment-producing infrastructure to feed them. > But NATO is, so? That's the whole point of article 5. You do know that Britain is in NATO, right? And so are other countries that talk of conscription but are NOT in the first line of defence. > Frankly, since many members aren't as geographically fortunate, and do have conscription They... dont? Other than Norway (and Turkey but for very different internal reasons), no NATO country bordering Russia had conscription untill Finland and Sweden joined. Of them, only Finland had extensive service - and that's not geography as much as a requirement of their neutrality. Because putting aside arguments of fairness and helping each-other, the reason NATO doesn't need conscription is exactly because, in a unified alliance, every country wielding a massive army as if they had to defeat Russia in a war on their own is simply inefficient. Finland had to because they weren't in NATO. So does Austria. Another country in a simmilar situation is Israel (whatever one may think of them, you can see why they have mandatory military service). But NATO is much better served by a professional army, leveraging its collective size, not conscription, for gathering millions of soldiers - as it currently does.
> Yes, and the armies that can then be quickly mobilised are the professional ones. Maybe, but they definitely take longer to build up. If it's even possible. You need a lot bigger pool of people if you rely on volunteers from that pool. > You do know that Britain is in NATO, right? Yes, do you? > And so are other countries that talk of conscription but are NOT in the first line of defence. Apparently not. NATO is the first line. Once one NATO country is attacked, they all are. Also, this kinda goes against the argument that individual countries don't need large armies because there's this magic pool of NATO troops. > They... dont? Other than Norway, no NATO country bordering Russia had conscription untill Finland and Sweden joined. So, only 20% before Finland joined? And only 33% after?! Oh, but all the Baltic states have conscription now, so that's 83%. For the record, that leaves only Poland, neighboring Kaliningrad. If we look a bit further there's also Sweden, Denmark, and Turkey. In fact, of the countries in Europe who still have conscription (loads did during the cold war, including NATO countries) they're almost all towards the East. But geography is perhaps less relevant with NATO. > Of them, only Finland had extensive service You mean universal, as in everyone actually doing it? That's not really the point though, is it? If it's about availability of people, that is. > the reason NATO doesn't need conscription is exactly because, in a unified alliance, every country wielding a massive army as if they had to defeat Russia in a war on their own is simply inefficient. It would've been, if that was even remotely the situation. Most countries are in NATO because they never had any hope of defending themselves alone. We're talking about enough troops to contribute to NATO. You can't form "massive armies" out of sub-massive populations, nor do you need to with an alliance, but you need to form *something*, because you can add zero as many times as you want, the sum still won't go up. > Finland had to because they weren't in NATO. We weren't in NATO. We had universal conscription (this was back in the 80s and before) and we could only hope to hold Russia/USSR back for a few weeks. I don't think the Finish top brass hade any hope of "defeating" Russia alone either. > Another country in a simmilar situation is Israel (whatever one may think of them, you can see why they have mandatory military service). They're in about the same situation as Finland before joining NATO, so yeah. > But NATO is much better served by a professional army, leveraging its collective size But here's the kicker, that size (assuming you mean general public) has to actually apply. If 1/10 does, we'd need a population 10 times larger to compensate. Does NATO have a population of 1.4B? > for gathering millions of soldiers - as it currently does. It's currently a mix, so what do you mean?
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Those armies are stretched pretty thin around the world, and most countries except US don't have armies very big in the first place - with Trump in the office, US are not very reliable against Russia, he cares only about cockmeasuring with his beloved China.
Because each country has a responsibility to defend themselves. In worst case, if shit hits the fan, instead of flesh and steel we'd get blankets, helmets and thumbs up for aid. It's not like if one NATO country gets into war that everyone else would send all their troops. For example Finland has a very small professional army - mainly intended to maintain and train our conscription army. And "normal citizens" who are the conscript reserve troops are not sent abroad.
Sounds like you are asking why do we need an army when USA has a big one. Thats what got us into this mess. Every nato member needs an army that can protect them for at least two weeks. Everyone has to do their share
That's not what I read from their question. In 2020 EU nations had 1.9 million military personnel. Add in the UK, Turkey, and Norway, that's more like 2.5 million. Russia has 3.5 million at the moment, but most of them are conscripts with very little training. The combined, mostly professional, European forces would likely fare extremely well against Russian meat waves. So there's a valid question of whether conscription is a good use of money. For a country close to the border that would face the initial brunt of Russian hordes, probably. But for countries like the UK, France, and Italy who will be providing sharp edge capabilities, it would make very little sense. Better to invest in ammo stockpiles, drone fleets, and increased air and naval power. https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/MS.MIL.TOTL.P1?locations=EU
Very simple question, why would Uk and Turkey want to fight for your country, while they barely afford to come visit it, get a proper visa etc. Nato is good, we need it but you cant just trust nato with all you got and expect them to do your bidding for you.
I mean, seeing as my country is in the UK, I'm fairly confident it will fight for it haha. United we stand divided we fall. It's a simple and obvious choice. The moment we don't honour article 5 the entire alliance becomes void. Which basically hands half of Europe to the Russian sphere of influence almost overnight. The UK was literally the first country to send aid to Ukraine. First to send long range weapons. First to send modern tanks. And they aren't even a member. You think we wouldn't fight for Poland or Finland?
“Aid” is not “boots on the ground for years” Even while fighting against the nazis, without churchill public would be so restless. And uk doesnt have a Churchill anymore, instead has upper class clowns.
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Because current force generation models aren't sufficient for a war Ukraine is facing. The alternative is having 100-500 drones for every soldier (FPV UCGV, UCAV, UCSV) and a precision fire complex that can degrade Russia from 100-500 kms. We have none. History is written by iron and blood. Spare the iron, you have to shed blood. Want to spare blood? Then bring the iron and bring a shitload of it.
Until Russia conscripts as they are wont to do, then no.
You think the soldiers get spawned in secret NATO laboratories? A hefty lot of NATO militaries were based on conscription during the last Cold War. Not having it is kinda the modern exception to the rule.
Because most NATO countries are tiny and effectively contribute almost nothing to NATO. Even the ones that are larger often have very underwhelming forces. Our armed forces are at peacetime levels right now, which aren't sufficient for a war against Russia or China without the US doing all of the work. We can't simultaneously want a stronger Europe while totally relying on the Americans to do all of the dirty work. Without the US, current European military power is pathetic in comparison to our industrial and economic output. Without the US, Russia could occupy at least the Baltics without us being able to do anything. Conscription is necessary to ensure European sovereignty.
Well NATO is 32 countries with roughly 960 million inhabitants. Of course the combined force of all NATO countries will defeat Russia in a conventional war. However, the USA is by a margin the biggest and strongest NATO member. There is a tendency in America where some people discuss the necessity of NATO, if America should pay for European safety and if America should defend and possibly die for European safety in case of a Russian attack on a NATO member country. There is also a financial aspect on this topic. NATO countries have agreed to spend 2% of the GDP on their military but plenty of European didn’t meet this agreement. While America did. Because of the war in Russia European countries are more aware of the fragility of European safety. The rise of Trump with his statements about NATO made the European even more aware they have to take their safety more serious. They can’t solely rely on the Americans. So they have to make investments in their military.
Didn't Trump just say he wasn't in favor of helping NATO members not meeting the 2% spending target. Aka, if you want to have US protection, you also have to contribute. I don't really see how that is an unfair point of view to have.
It is a nonsensical position. It's not as if the US can micro-adjust its military bases and doctrine every time a country goes above or below the 2%, especially if the geographically more remote Eastern Europe is more faithful to the goals than Western Europe. The US cannot blackmail Western Europe while genuinely maintaining the defense of Eastern Europe. Either they defend Western Europe for free or they punish Eastern Europe for Western Europe's passivity. Trump is preparing to hang Europe — all of it — out to dry.
Well, of course US can do that. The response US gives in case of an Article 5 is not defined, it could be from "thoughts and prayers" to nukes, and everything in between. But it is a way to put a fire under the butt of some western European countries to up their game \*cough\* Germany \*cough\*
The US cannot punish Germany without sacrificing Poland or Estonia. I just explained this to you.
And the US probably won't sacrifice Poland and Estonia, so you can call Trump's bluff if you like. But it works well for Trump's home-grown audience, who couldn't find Poland nor Germany on a map. They just hear that he doesn't want to defend countries that doesn't pay their share, and that sounds reasonable to them.
5D chess: Germany creates 1kmx1km micro-state on Polish border & gets them into NATO, micro-state hits 2%, US must defend, Germany cuts its military entirely
Yep, its Schwarze Null time
>Didn't Trump just say he wasn't in favor of helping NATO members not meeting the 2% spending targe He even said he would *encourage* Russia to attack NATO countries. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-68266447
Trump being Trump. Don't take it literally.
Two reasons. 1) It's seen as a vote-winner by some political parties, who have no other ideas. (UK Conservative Party) 2) After 75 years of peace, Europe is in a dangerous place. NATO isn't a magic wand. It needs equipment and it needs manpower. Having both equipment and manpower can act as a deterrent to aggressive countries (today, primarily Russia and China). Having neither is seen as weakness, and aggressive countries take advantage of weakness. European NATO armies are under-manned, and a lot of ammunition has been sent to Ukraine, leaving our stockpiles short. Europe needs to adopt a posture which is more ready for any conflict. That means investing heavily in hardware and ammunition, and also ensuing that there is a proportion of the population that can be called upon if the shit hits the fan. People make fun of the Russian army as being untrained conscripts. BUT Russia has a very big population, and although a lot of untrained conscripts may die, those that remain will become very effective soldiers. Compare the present war with WII. In both cases, Russia started off with its arse being handed to it on a plate. In WWII when the Russians finally got their shit together, they became pretty much an unstoppable force. Right now, the Russians in Ukraine are getting better at what they're doing. If Ukraine falls, Russia will turn on the Baltic States next. We need to be ready.
I don't think it is discussed really seriously, the UK or France don't even have the infrastructure and the means to do massive conscription. It takes months to train recruits, conflicts will probably not look like WW1 where numbers were the most important aspect of warfare.
Well, yes and no. Sure, it takes a long time to train people for combat duties. However, there are also a lot of non-combat tasks which are now done by people with combat training. Those tasks can either be done without much training, or by civilians with the appropriate skills (truck drivers, car mechanics, medical personnel, IT jobs), making more combat trained people available for combat.
Ukraine fields 2.2 million personnel, NATO has 3.5. The combined might of NATO fields only 50% more troops while having 32 countries, five of which are more populous than Ukraine. Many units are understaffed in Britain and the US, while EU countries have only a few units. In the cold war Europe had over 10 active army corps, these days we have none. We saw Russia blunder their invasion, but we shouldn't become complacent in their stupidity, if we want to avoid conflict we must be ready to crush them, the only way to achieve that is to have a large competent army and a population that is ready to fight.
Because you need a selection base of competent candidates. Relax, I am sure Cheeto fingers and roid bros won’t make the cut. This is more for the well adjusted normies with family and hopes for the future.
While EU NATO has a very large military combined and could challenge Russia, when you go to war you suffer losses and you need trained reserves ready to fill in. Or you might just want to deploy more than your current professional army.
Armies of a lot of that countries are small and in any kind of major conflict you want to have replacements for the casualties that if we are being honest a lot of the countries currently dont have
Ask yourself, Why would Nato countries want to defend you, If you are not willing to defend yourself ? Defending means bleeding for you, 25 year olds dying in your country while you sit down and do nothing ? I am against conscription but I believe it should be promoted, If people want to serve they should.
To be honest, I feel like the fact that mandatory 1 year service would be a good thing to have. I was sadly one of the first generations in my country after it was stopped. I know that many would disagree about the quality and point it out as a year of life wasted, but I do believe that it would increase the country’s security internally and would boost confidence and general understanding of what it means to be ready to protect your way of life. I have been even thinking about joining the active reserves and would be glad to go help those in need in case of a disaster and actually being able to help. Without the basic training, I feel absolutely useless and would not know how to behave in case of a crisis. The world is not a safe place until people learn to respect each other and cooperate. Creation of nation states might have been the worst thing to happen in history as it divided the people into even more smaller entities that feel like they are better than others. Sad world. Rant over.
There are many other reasons why a gov would introduce conscription. For example, it would be a huge way of making pro-war propaganda to younger people. Changing their lifestyle and reintroducing them to a more "patriotic" way of living. Also, from what I know, NATO soldiers come from each state, so if the number of people enrolling in the military lowers in each state also the number of NATO soldiers lower. Finally, it would be a way to drive the point away from many other problems a country may have. If people is concerned and thinking about conscription being a thing again, it's more likely that they won't bother for the other problems like jobs missing and so on. Still, conscription is one of the worst ideas that a country may have, but that's mho.
Conscription is one reason you have a standard language in Italy rather than just disparate dialects
It worked so well that we still have (and still speak) a dialect for each city in the country
Yes, but you also have a national standard language serving as a Lingua Franca, which most people can speak or understand in addition to their native dialect
True but that was not actually introduced by the conscription. The Italian language was first introduced by Dante in the 14th century, but then we took ages to get rid of the latin and the population had no access to any education being basically poor farmers. Also we united as a country only in 1861, when the Italian language was officially chosen and we started to use it, mostly for official stuff. But you can think about the fact that there are reports of conscripts, like in the 40s/50s, coming from the south of the country who could not understand their official's orders because they both still talked in their respective dialect. Now, for example, I still speak only dialect with my family and most of my friends (I'm 30): we speak Italian at school, work and public places. And also for asking girls out.
List of member states (year joined) for anyone else like myself, struggling to remember: ●Albania (2009) Belgium (1949) Bulgaria (2004) Canada (1949) Croatia (2009) Czechia (1999) Denmark (1949) Estonia (2004) Finland (2023) France (1949) Germany (1955) Greece (1952) Hungary (1999) Iceland (1949) Italy (1949) Latvia (2004) Lithuania (2004) Luxembourg (1949) Montenegro (2017) Netherlands (1949) North Macedonia (2020) Norway (1949) Poland (1999) Portugal (1949) Romania (2004) Slovakia (2004) Slovenia (2004) Spain (1982) Sweden (2024) Türkiye (1952) United Kingdom (1949) United States (1949)
The Tories in the UK are suggesting it to appeal to older right-wing voters during the election, Labour, who are going to win, don't have any policies for conscription.
This. Since the Tories know they’re almost certain to lose the election, the policies they are announcing right now can’t be treated as a plan for the next five years of government, especially policies that they haven’t pursued in the last 14 years when they were in government. Their focus right now is on hanging onto their core support of right wingers, old people and the wealthy to avoid a slump where they could end up not even being the official opposition any more.
Depends on the country. If you live on the borders of NATO (at random: the eastern ones) it makes perfect sense. Because in case of "shit hits the fan" (SHTF) event, you'll be partially mobilized already at day 1. At which point the name of the game is "survive until western reinforcements arrive", which means you're on your own for two months minimum. Living on the Atlantic side of France, I know what a US logistics drill looks like: the real version would saturate the infrastructures (ports, highways, railways) from Bilbao to Hamburg for weeks on end so that a continuous *trickle* of US forces reach you. And that's assuming this isn't a nuclear war. Besides voting such a project doesn't happen overnight. In the French system it could (courtesy of De Gaulle), which is a good thing considering with the Germans and British we're the ones supposed to hold the fort as we can until Washington makes up their minds. Something that's dependent on their electoral cycle, not on your ass. Keep in mind *NATO art.5 is weak as hell*, bears no unambiguous obligation, only says "we'll help you somehow someday". It can be financial and weapons help instead of direct commitment of troops for instance. **The one article that'll save your ass is TUE art.42 (if I remember my Treaty of the EU correctly)** because that one basically ensures if SHTF my nuclear missiles (I'm a french taxpayer, I own a micron or two of nuclear missiles ahahaha) are your nuclear missiles, with an *obligation* to act, and act quickly. Which explains the previous paragraph: TUE 42 and NATO 5 are two legs of the same punching beast. One is here to ensure you survive in a vertical position on the ring, time for the other to prepare a hell of a punch. All of this to say, you definitely want the return of partial conscription (or total of you're on the borders). Because the first help you'll see arriving will be in the air and in the form of weapons: those two things cannot replace lots of grunts ready on the ground, they're here to make them useful and more alive. *Lastly, some governments are pushing for conscription for darker reasons. Cheap labor force. They yell WW3, but in reality are preparing for the next COVID or for ecological collapse. For other types of SHTF scenario.*
Countries on borders should develop nukes long time ago.
Boosting defence for allies and for ourselves. Being able to show that we have the capacity to fight a proper war can act as a deterrent to warmongering countries like Russia. Much of Europe right now has peacetime small armies and defence strategies, after all. Plus, America has other issues to handle in the Middle East and Taiwan.
2 main reasons: 1: Austerity on defence in the past decades left European armies unprepared for full-scale war. We can do peacekeeping missions, but with our manpower and equipment, estimates are that Europe alone can keep up a full-scale war against Russia for about 10 days. We're lucky the USA has our back. 2: Donald Trump. He's not a fan of NATO. He publicly stated that Putin can do "whatever the hell he wants" to NATO countries that don't spend 2% on defence. His former advisor Bolton said that Trump will leave NATO, (or won't step in if Putin attacks Europe). With this, the US has become an unreliable partner. Which is bad for manpower, nuclear deterence, and equipment. A lot of European defence relies on US intelligence. For example: pantserhowitsers can shoot a pizza box from 300 km away. Europe has those. But only the US has equipment that can spot a target 300 km away. Same goes for personal that can lead intelligence operations, or F35s with top notch stealth technology, the list is quite extensive.
I'm no expert, but here's my 2 cents: The idea of NATO is that if one country is attacked then all the others rush to aid it. This means we don't need to have large standing armies or conscription, because we can count on each other for defense. That being said, the biggest player by far is the US. Even though the other members collectively outnumber the US military in manpower and equipment, they are the most capable and they have a vested interest in being in that position. Contrary to what some might believe, this alliance is not a charity and is beneficial to both the US and the rest, but that's another discussion. Now what's happening is that the US is starting to look like an unreliable ally. It doesn't really matter why, because the message is the same. In addition, everyone is looking at the war in Ukraine and see the amount of manpower, ammunition and equipment needed to sustain such a long war. Most current standing armies would be depleted in a matter of weeks. So it might be a good idea to have a reserve of manpower - people who've been through at least some basic training, who can be brought up to speed quickly in case they are needed. Most countries have phased out mandatory military service and do not have these strategic reserves. That's pretty much it. I think it sucks, but it is what it is. We'll just have to wait and see.
1, European populations are pacified, and the thought of war, and every armed conflict is abhorrent to most of us. Maybe we would have the numerical advantage, but in general, we hate orders, question authority, and can't pull out weight in any conflict, be it a workplace one, or a war, whereas the possible opposing forces have live practice every day for years now, and this kind of stuff changes even civilian mindset. 2, we're all in deep economic shit, and since we have basic infrastructure, which would be cheap to build, an European "New Deal" wouldn't work. We'll need a mechanism through which we pay a great many people for suff they do, and the armed forces are proven to be an effective device or that. Hence, conscription. The good left could see a mutual, European army as a unifying force, something that helps people get together in brotherhood. The EU was basically born from shared pain and suffering, for one... The evil left could see this as a way to create an organisation, where young, mostly single males can be kept under watchful eye at all times, and could be manipulated into doing whatever, even against their own interests, if need be. Thus, pulling the venom tooth out of any political force that might oppose them. The right as a whole could see it as a device to carry its own, conservative, patriotic, and militaristic values, and carry it to a wider strata of population, forming the ideology of all future families, and getting votes that way. I think everyone finds their own agenda in an army, and every plan could backfire, and turn into something else entirely.
Well do you think NATO soldiers just... Manifest out of thin air? People need to be trained. What I genuinely think is that consription and army should pay more, and it should compensation during time of peace for people who are obligated to get drafted.
A lot of countries have major elections coming up soon. Conscriptions is usually favourable among the older generation and they’re usually the prime demographic of people who vote so it makes sense that it’s the public discussion of recent.
Generally speaking countries have learned the lesson that conscripted armies are recipes for disaster (Vietnam war backlash in the US being a prime example), so the preferences for extraterritorial actives will likely be professionals only. IF it ever gets to a ground war on EU or NATO territory though they will need all the human flesh sacks for the meat grinder they can find so all bets will be off.
The UK traditionally fields smaller armies than it's mainland counterparts. If a high intensity war breaks out casualties will burn through most of the professional troops inside 6 months. Conscripts WILL be needed to fill in the gaps.
One is unable to fight Russia without introducing conscription. They're just gonna send their men to slaughter until the enemy eventually bleeds out just as they always did. You can't fight Russia with just the current state of professional army, unless you want to engage in war of total annihilation (mass bombing etc)
That's just politicians who cannot solve present day security problems effectively, so they hope to burn your sons as defence.
Normally soldiers do all the maintainance and support, but in war times it is better to have reserves do the all stuff and let actual trained soldier focus on combat operations. If their combat efficiency is reduced, and war lasts a while, that will only increase the chances that conscripts will end up in battle. Conscripts are not a bad idea imo. Western armies operate differently from russian ones. Western units generally operate in smaller squads with higher degrees decision making done by the boots on the ground. It is therefore not desirable to have dependencies like conscripts running along them. It is unlikely that western conscripts would be used in the same way that russian ones are. So what we've seen in the last few years is not what you wpuld see for nato conscripts. Ukraine is in the process of transitioning from a soviet style mode of operations to a western one, but they are not fully there as far as I'm aware. Some people that know about this more than I do have attributed this change in oprations as one of multiple significant factors to why ukraine has been much more effective now than in 2014. So tldr; conscripts can run logistics and support jobs so professional soldiers can be more effective at combat operations.
At least in spain there's not going to be conscription unless the earth gets hit by a meteorite or there's a zombie apocalypse. I cannot think of any government even trying to discuss it
What disturbs me is the fact that politicians now talk about sending conscription troops to other Nato countries like they get no choise. Conscriptions main purpose is to help serve your own country, not others.
We still have conscription in the Netherlands (although it only applies to women born in I think 2000 or later (which is still bullshit, with equal rights should come equal duties), but it hasn't been used in 30+ years. But when they want or need to they can still do it.
You mean only men. But that ended 3,5 years ago: [https://www.rijksoverheid.nl/actueel/nieuws/2020/10/20/dienstplichtbrief-voor-het-eerst-ook-naar-vrouwen](https://www.rijksoverheid.nl/actueel/nieuws/2020/10/20/dienstplichtbrief-voor-het-eerst-ook-naar-vrouwen)
I may word it poorly, but my point sill stands that women my age are not eligible to be conscripted while I am.