Germany mulls reintroduction of compulsory military service – DW – 12/29/2023
www.dw.com
The Bundeswehr is facing a dramatic shortage in personnel. Now Defense Minister Boris Pistorius has rekindled the debate over reintroducing conscription.

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.

    • RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.worldEnglish
      197·
      10 months ago

      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.

      • orrk@lemmy.worldEnglish
        28·
        10 months ago

        by your logic the North Korean people aren’t slaves, so North Korean labor is fine, got it.

        • RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.worldEnglish
          36·
          10 months ago

          Mandatory service means forcing you to work at the point of a gun.

          What?

          Slavery isn’t always life-long

          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.

        • assassin_aragorn@lemmy.worldEnglish
          3·
          10 months ago

          School isn’t work.

          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.