Highly contentious question, but Germany should bring conscription for everyone (including women) with the option of doing volunteer/civil service.
this post was submitted on 27 Mar 2025
93 points (96.0% liked)
Europe
5078 readers
1758 users here now
News and information from Europe πͺπΊ
(Current banner: La Mancha, Spain. Feel free to post submissions for banner images.)
Rules (2024-08-30)
- This is an English-language community. Comments should be in English. Posts can link to non-English news sources when providing a full-text translation in the post description. Automated translations are fine, as long as they don't overly distort the content.
- No links to misinformation or commercial advertising. When you post outdated/historic articles, add the year of publication to the post title. Infographics must include a source and a year of creation; if possible, also provide a link to the source.
- Be kind to each other, and argue in good faith. Don't post direct insults nor disrespectful and condescending comments. Don't troll nor incite hatred. Don't look for novel argumentation strategies at Wikipedia's List of fallacies.
- No bigotry, sexism, racism, antisemitism, dehumanization of minorities, or glorification of National Socialism.
- Be the signal, not the noise: Strive to post insightful comments. Add "/s" when you're being sarcastic (and don't use it to break rule no. 3).
- If you link to paywalled information, please provide also a link to a freely available archived version. Alternatively, try to find a different source.
- Light-hearted content, memes, and posts about your European everyday belong in !yurop@lemm.ee. (They're cool, you should subscribe there too!)
- Don't evade bans. If we notice ban evasion, that will result in a permanent ban for all the accounts we can associate with you.
- No posts linking to speculative reporting about ongoing events with unclear backgrounds. Please wait at least 12 hours. (E.g., do not post breathless reporting on an ongoing terror attack.)
(This list may get expanded when necessary.)
We will use some leeway to decide whether to remove a comment.
If need be, there are also bans: 3 days for lighter offenses, 14 days for bigger offenses, and permanent bans for people who don't show any willingness to participate productively. If we think the ban reason is obvious, we may not specifically write to you.
If you want to protest a removal or ban, feel free to write privately to the mods: @federalreverse@feddit.org, @poVoq@slrpnk.net, or @anzo@programming.dev.
founded 9 months ago
MODERATORS
The German constitution is very gender bias in that it only allows men to be forcibly conscripted. To be fair they can also choose a civilian alternative, but still sexist.
TBH, I wonder whether the constitution is "unconstitutional" in this regard:
GG Β§3 explicitly states that men and women are equal before the law and have the same rights. So GG Β§12a limiting compulsory service to men and GG Β§12a (4) even explicitly forbidding to force women into service to me at least, clearly contradicts GG Β§3.
Same rights, and women can get into the military as well
But not the same required duties, as only men are required to do their military or civil duties to the state
Background to the thought is, that women already provide those duties by giving birth.
Yeah, it is sexist, but at least women aren't forbidden to join the military.
It's just not mandatory - for the year (or months? Don't know the current regulations in Germany) as men need to
The constitution is easy to change, it only needs a 2/3 majority, which has been abused to write all sorts of silly self destructive shit into it, like the "debt brake" which has been a major factor in the crumbling of Germany's infrastructure over the past few decades.
Why not write something sensible into it for a change?
The constitution is easy to change, it only needs a 2/3 majority,
Only that Putins party and the pacifist Linke have over a third of the votes. The former has a lot of open facists in its ranks and the later hates the idea of killing Nazis, because that is violent.
pacifist Linke
I wouldn't call rolling over and surrendering to the threat of an imperialist invasion "pacifist", but yes, German politics, as politics everywhere, is full of insane crackpots.
Won't happen as it'd require a change in the constitution but the Nazis and the far left have a blocking minority for that.
Not far left, just left. Germany doesn't have anything resembling a major far left party.
In my opinion the actual reason for suspending conscription back then was saving money on all the (socially very beneficiary) substitute services you could do.
Now we are reaping the fruits we sowed by letting a bunch of self serving neoliberal arse clowns run the country for decades.
You may have heard in the news that Denmarkβs defense ministry on Tuesday announced it was bringing forwards military service for women by two years
βIn light of the current defence and security policy situation, the armed forces need to recruit more people,β Defence Minister Troels Lund Poulsen said in a statement.
Women who turn 18 after July 1, 2025, could be required to take part in an annual ballot from next year to determine which ones must perform mandatory military service, something which is already required of men.
The annual ballot would only take place if there were not enough volunteers that year.
I am against bringing back the old-style conscription here in Germany. First, it is limited to male youths only - a no-no in the 21st century. Second, it is designed as "military first, anything else second, and only with a good reason", another idea that belongs to the past.
And, seriously. the German army could not deal with it. Since we halted conscription, the army has done a big and painful transformation into a professional military force, They could not house nor train those masses of unwashed kids anymore, and would basically have to regrow that part from the start.
What Germany could do is install a mandatory service time for all - men and women - with one option being the army, but with a strongly limited number of recruits.
I honestly am starting to think that compulsory service is a good thing, I wish Iβd had to do it. Iβve known lots of people who are from countries that have to do it and I expected them to hate it but they seemed fine with it. And they all had much better self-discipline than the normal person.
I wish Iβd had to do it.
You can go and volunteer for the reserve right now. You'll get a mini basic training and everything.
From what I heard the European armies match Russias army in power overall - however Iβm not sure if they could be as fast as Putin in getting this power coordinated to the Baltics (if there was a conflict, then it would take place there). So I think that should be the most important part to work on.
Furthermore I think that spending the money on more advanced equipment is better than a mandatory conscription, which would make the current shortage of highly skilled workers only worse (and there's also the question about how it would affect 18-year-olds personally).
A proper all-encompassing conscription would be kinda insane. Drafting a percentage of people like they do in sweden might be reasonable. AFAIK they don't actually have to force anybody to go to the army in sweden though, they have enough volunteers, but the system is set up so that in theory they can.
Damn, are we really that afraid of Russia invading Europe? Seems like a short time ago we were mocking their pathetic inability to even conquer a quarter of Ukraine.
If NATO isn't a completely worthless organisation, then Russia will never invade.
I mean Russia has had quite some success turning NATO into a worthless organization. They're not quite there yet, but in ten years when half of Europe is controlled by the far right? It's anybody's guess.
If Russia decides to, it could glass a good part of Europe
And as they're getting more imperialistic and global warming also throws the world into tumult (is this a correct English word?), we will see more and more nations trying to get an advantage.
Sometimes because it's just about survival, sometimes because there are just opportunities
Damn, are we really that afraid of Russia invading Europe?
No, we are afraid of Germany having an actual army. But telling the biggest economy to just lay back and chill is no option either.
So we need to find a way for them to waste enormous amounts of money on defense without getting anything to show.
Enter: conscription.
Because this way you can then spend massive amounts of money on infrastructure for a lot of people instead of buying actual stuff like equipment or ammunition. And as a bonus for the country that has perfected keeping the population poor and on low wages while the top 1% make all the money (see: Germany's GDP while at the same time having a median wealth more fitting for eastern Europe*), they can get a lot new ~~slaves~~ ~~serfs~~ ~~forced workers~~ cheap labor from those refusing to serve to optimise corporate profits even more.
*reference (because I know people love to deny reality): median/wealth...
I also agree that investing in training, equipment and deployment capabilities seems like a better option than having a conscription as the number of fighting personnel is roughly equal (and as a defender you need less people for defense). From what I heard the European armies match Russias army in power overall - however I'm not sure if they could be as fast as Putin in getting this power coordinated to the Baltics.
Regarding the median and wealth statistics: I agree that they are concerning especially for a rich country as Germany. However I think that is mainly due to the lower home ownership rates compared to most other countries. So I think it's more an accidental situation (with f.e. historic reasons) than result of more neoliberal policies. Still an important point to highlight and work on.
From what I heard the European armies match Russias army in power overall
"match":
And that's before accounting for quality of equipment or training of operators.
I think the concerns mainly evolve around the Baltics as f.e. Estonia couldn't defend alone against the Russian army and the armies of other nations could be to slow/ineffective to respond - before the region has been conquered. However I am also unsure how mandatory conscription could prevent this situation (maybe as a way to recruit more professional soldiers?).
The main point point of conscription is to build up a large number of reservists who will require minimal training compared to fresh recruits when called up in case of a war. This is especially important when a smaller country is attacked by a larger one, because in that case, there is precious little time to react, and no country can afford a standing military even remotely capable of defending it against a much larger opponent.
βWe canβt just sit back and watch as the world around us becomes more insecure,β
I imagine GlaDOS' introduction scene in Portal 2, only it's not GlaDOS towering over Chell but Merz admonishing some hapless 17-year old: "Okay. Look. We both said a lot of things that you're going to regret."
In these troubled times the nation will need a strong leader. Is it time to bring back the divine right of kings? Experts remain divided.