Change of era?: compulsory military service returns in Europe and in some countries it also includes women

Very few Europeans born after the early part of the 1980s They had to complete compulsory military service with the professionalization of the Armed Forces and the uselessness of having hundreds of thousands of soldiers without professional training.

European armies did not need large quantities of troops, but had specialized in recent decades in peacekeeping operations outside Europe or in highly localized anti-terrorism and military operations for which, at times, only a few hundred or so. trained soldiers. Nobody expected a big war and much less in European territory. But Vladimir Putin arrived, he ordered an attack on Ukraine and everything exploded.

Suddenly European governments saw that Ukraine needed to mobilize hundreds of thousands of men (it is estimated that it will need another half a million this year alone) and thought that in a similar situation they would not form the population. Some are starting to take action and the main one is the return to compulsory military service of several monthssometimes even for more than a year, so that once they reach the age of majority (or at the end of high school), the young people have the minimum military training to be able to be mobilised.

What is new for some countries is that now, unlike decades ago, The girls will also have to do that military service.

In Denmark

Denmark is the latest government to order the extension of already compulsory military service to young women. The prime minister, Social Democrat Mette Frederiksen, said Wednesday that she was trying to achieve “complete equality between the sexes.” Defense Minister Troels Lund Poulsen said for his part that “a more robust military service, including full gender equality, will help solve the challenges of defense, national mobilization and supply of our armed forces.”

Girls can now do military service, but for them it is voluntary. The obligation will come into force in 2026. In Europe, only neighboring countries Norway and Sweden provide compulsory military service for young women.

Germany abolished compulsory military service in 2011 but his Defense Minister, Boris Pistorius, plans to reintroduce it, including for children, starting next year if he obtains parliamentary approval. In Austria it was reinstated in 2013, in Switzerland it was never eliminated and in Poland a Territorial Defense Force, made up of volunteers, was created in 2017 after the abolition of military service in 2009. It already has 50,000 people. It’s not a typical military service, but those who enlist undergo seasons of military training.

Estonia never eliminated it, Lithuania did, but reintroduced it in 2015 (Russia forcibly annexed the Ukrainian province of Crimea in 2014) and Latvia will make it mandatory this year. Latvian is a different system. Instead of training young people for a year or similar period once they reach adulthood, Latvia will do so immediately for all men aged 18 to 27 and then around 7,500 men will be called up every year, in a country that has just over a million inhabitants.

In the United Kingdom the debate has returned in recent weeks, but the political class excludes a return to compulsory military service which was eliminated 60 years ago and which has never been very popular. There were only mass conscriptions to train men during the world wars and there was similar conscription to the rest of Europe between 1949 and 1960.

France abolished compulsory military service in 1997 and has devoted its efforts to professionalizing the armed forces. In March 2017 Emmanuel Macron, then the only presidential candidate, announced that he wanted to restore it. Little by little, as president, he postponed the implementation of his promise, which has not yet been kept.

Italy abolished compulsory military service in 2005 and Spain abolished “military service” in 2001. Among the large European countries, these are the two where its reintroduction is currently least debated. Fear seems to increase as we get closer to Russia.