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Youtube always shows off all the progressive and positive aspects of Europe. Bike lanes, relable trains. Was so jealous. Then heard that my game buddy is off to manditory milatary service.
The idea that the government can take away a year of your life, and thats normal is still a tough pill to swallow.
The vast majority of countries in Europe don't have military service, and it's no coincidence that the few countries which do, also border Russia.
From a few years ago
Edit: source https://old.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/iejyu9/european_countries_with_mandatory_military_service/
Colourful image with no source. Just a bcbp logo which, wtf is that?
It's not even accurate. At least not for Sweden. So, if they got that wrong. I will assume the rest is possibly wrong too.
Iirc Sweden reinstated compulsory service in 2017?
It's compulsory with a huge asterisk next to it.
If they call you in, it's compulsory.
However, they call far from everyone, and there's about 1001 things you can do to not get called for service if you really don't want to.
First step is that you're sent a form to fill out. Questions about your health and habits among other things. So. If you really don't want to... Let's just say they probably won't be too interested in someone that (allegedly) smokes 1-2 pack of cigarettes a day.
Not to be confused with the Swedish concept of "Total Defense" (probably poorly translated). Should "total-defense" be called however. Everyone between 16 and 70 have to report in for war-duty. This doesn't mean everyone is going into battle. But it means you have to be at service for the defensive effort of our nation. Could be administrative tasks, logistical, construction, anything really, depends on who you are and what your experience is. This is not something you can get out of. It's one of your duties as a citizen
No, "Total Defense" translates well. And that's an interesting system.
More is mentioned in this pdf if your curious. This one is in English.
I will highlight the most important part
we will never surrender. Any suggestion to the contrary is false.
https://www.msb.se/sv/publikationer/om-krisen-eller-kriget-kommer-pa-engelska/
Yeah everything I've read about Sweden, militarily, seems like they've spent the entire cold war making an invasion a nightmare for the invaders.
https://old.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/iejyu9/european_countries_with_mandatory_military_service/
First comment addresses the Sweden situation
First comment is not correct either. Everyone does not fill out a form at 18.
Maybe you should stop posting things you cannot verify.
Seems like you added precisions in another comment, so at least now people reading this have the full picture.
As far as I'm concerned, the picture was correct for UK, Italy, France, Spain, Portugal, Poland, Belgium, Netherlands. For other countries, I was hoping other people could jump in, as you did.
By that logic signing up for Selective Service in the US means the US doesn't have a volunteer military.
Not everybody has 40k American troops stationed in their country
Except for Greece and Turkey. They're both waiting for a cow to wander onto the wrong side of Cyprus. (I joke, but not by much)
Do you think Europe is one country?
Doesnt the origianl post also treat Europe as one country?
Finn here. The willingness to defend the country is high in Finland. For a small country like Finland it's the most cost-effective way to keep up a credible defense. I guess a professional army might be an option now with NATO membership.
And, yes. It feels like the normal thing to do.
My grandfathers did it (and fought in two wars), my father did it, my older brother did it, plenty of friends did it at the same time as me.
It's an experience you can bond over very quickly.
Theres definatly SOME good to it. Hell, maybe that will help reduce the crime rate too*. From what ive heard, you are forced to learn a skill, so more skilled workers.
*Just came back from holiday. First taxi from the airport has dents in the doors from kids throwing rocks. Depressing here
Probably. Pretty much anyone who wants to go career can.
It's 5-6 months for the shortest service. In my case I volunteered to drive big rigs, so 12 months and I got a driver's license that would've required two years of lorry driving as a civilian. It's been my backup plan in case my career in rocket science hadn't worked out.
I think there's value to mandatory military service when your aims are primarily defensive. Country gets invaded and not only are there lots of people in the army already, but also there's plenty of reserves who just need refresher training. When you're the one getting invaded, you usually don't have problems with motivation unless the current regime has really fucked up.
When you try to use a largely conscripted army for invasions, like Russia is doing, people start to wonder why the hell they're doing this.
Conversely, when your country is known for military adventurism like the United States, it's easier to motivate volunteers. They signed up for this, and as fucked up as it is, they almost want to be sent off to war in some far off land. England also has generally used a volunteer military throughout its imperialist history. Giving your citizens the choice works better if you're going to be doing imperialism.
Thanks for coming to my TED talk.
"Take away a year of your life" is hyperbole.
It's not like you're dropped into 70s Vietnamese jungle with a garrot wire and some amphetamines.
It's more like a year long summer camp. Learn basic soldiering, learn some kind of speciality whether it's catering, logistics, or mechanics, and earn a good salary.
Most people go backpacking for a few years afterwards to spend the money they earned.
If you'd rather play games instead it's pretty easy to get an exemption.
Kind of a compromise for smaller countries that want to have a standing army. And some countries offer alternatives like civil service or paying additional taxes instead for those that don't want to serve in the military.
The US having expensive higher education driving poorer people to join the military to afford it is bleaker honestly.
Ugh, there are talks of reintroducing mandatory military service in Germany because of Russia (and a little bit for social services as one can do them as an alternative). Although I see that it might be necessary I hope that my kids won't have to serve.
I don't mind the idea of mandatory service to one's country, but "military" should be optional. I'm sure there's loads of important infrastructure projects that need doing, environment cleanup, various jobs to instill a sense of ownership and belonging while doing measurable good.
At least here in Finland, the military part is optional.
Well the thing is that not rvery country has this.
America here. I think that mandatory service is fine. Living in a largely democratic country should come with a price tag, not just be something that you get for free. E.g., immigrants that naturalize have to put a lot of effort into naturalization; as a result, they're usually much more personally invested in their civic life, on average, than typical citizens. Maybe ppl here would care more about fixing the country instead of just making sure they got theirs if they had to work for a year or two as conscripts.
A year in retail too, while we're at it.
Truth. The time I spent in retail made me much more patient.
Mandatory military service teaches you how kill. Why not build communities by having 1 year social working instead, certainly that teaches you more about your community.
Not just kill; being in the military tends to teach people to work together, even if it for mindless, stupid make-work projects. Hell, most people in the military--in the US--are in support roles, rather than being front line combat troops. That said, I thnk that mandatory service should be expanded to include roles like peace corps, habitat for humanity, food banks, etc.
Unfortunately. Mandatory military service is critical to many countries survival. You NEED to have a population that understand the basics of how to organise a defense.
It's the difference between being a country or being a province.
I will quote a Major in his response to why we don't practise defense coming from the west.
"it's possible we might be attacked from the west, but it would be a very long and strange route for the Russians to take"
The second half of your comment seems disconnected from the first? We are specifically talking about mandatory military service for community building.
No one is talking about that other than you.
Your first part is how mandatory military service is just to teach how to kill. Which is not true.
Most countries don't need military service to work on community projects. Because people already know how their communities work, and there just isn't a need for that type of slave labour.
What the military can get called in for though are things like disaster relief or searches for missing people where you need to look through a whole forest.
E.g., immigrants that naturalize have to put a *lot* of effort into naturalization; as a result, they're usually much more personally invested in their civic life, on average, than typical citizens.
Civic Life: The public life of the citizen concerned with the affairs of the community and nation.
Person above me is talking about community building as well.
I think there should be mandatory service, but not necessarily military service. Something like the old Civilian Conservation Corps.
But I'm also old enough that this policy wouldn't affect me directly, so take that as you will.
Sadly, I am too old as well. I tried to join a number of years ago, but was unable to due to a medication I was on. Waivers would have let me join during GWOT, but I was pretty opposed to our wars of choice.
They already take more years of your life away with school