I have mixed feelings about this.
The alternative is unthinkable.
I remember the German draftees at Graf in 1969. I think they had a 1 year term of service. The one thing I remember was that they still wore the traditional “knoebelbecher” boots.
Years ago when I was in Europe for some military meetings, I had a German officer joke to me that they had to do a TDY to France every few decades.
The Germans like their food, their STUFF, food, peace, food, travel and freedom to travel, food, great cars/roads, food, beer, food.
Did I mention FOOD?
All Quiet On the Eastern Front
Richtig.
I have been saying for years that the United States needs to do the same thing. I understand there is some downsizing in the military due to technologic and computerized advances.
However, there is still a need to have a ready force, able to execute multiple battles around the globe at once. This is the ideal. Since we may be ending or misadventure in Afghanistan soon, we can use that freed up funding to train more of our young people. Another reason is, let’s face it, we need to provide gainful employment to the same category of people. The country and culture would benefit from having more Americans go through the discipline of the military, even in it’s diluted form of today, with different rules for different sexes. I dont’ expect any of this to occur until the next President, unless Putin becomes a clear and present danger directly to us. If Putin starts ‘vacationing’ in Cuba, or forms some sort of property use deal with Haiti, we may begin develop a brand new attitude of urgency in the states.
every male on turning 18, should be in the military for at least 2 years....then their testosterone levels would rise to normal levels...no internet porn, no computers in the barracks....
It is not clear that conscription will address that issue, but conscription in the face of a foreign existential threat has always been a means of addressing it. And Putin is conveniently providing that foreign threat - whether it is a serious threat is irrelevant.
A third consideration is that military mobilization has a sad history of mushrooming out of control in Europe. We are at the centenary of such a disaster, where the nationalistic drives of a subject people threatened an ancient, creaking, multinational empire in the Austro-Hungarian, which took actions in terms of mobilization whose reflections in Russia, Germany, France, the Ottoman Empire, and eventually Great Britain, put the entire continent on a war footing. It would not be a good thing to repeat that bit of tragic history.
Nevertheless, aggression never met is aggression never ending. Conscription may lead to war or it may prevent it. It isn't the act itself, but how it is handled. And the European track record in that regard is not encouraging.