ENDLESS ESCALATION: UK, Germany and the EU Float Military Conscription – Eleven European Countries Already Have Mandatory Service – Hungary’s Orbán Blasts the Idea

ENDLESS ESCALATION: UK, Germany and the EU Float Military Conscription – Eleven European Countries Already Have Mandatory Service – Hungary’s Orbán Blasts the Idea

Paul Serran

All over Europe, we hear unrelenting calls for rearmament and military buildups.

And now, as the countries take stock of their own dwindling human resources for the military, many nations are turning to conscription as a solution.

In the UK, embattled PM Rishi Sunak, on the eve of an expected massive defeat at the polls by the opposition Labour, has said that twelve months of mandatory national service would be reintroduced by the Conservatives in the unlikely event that they win the general election.

BBC reported:

“Eighteen-year-olds would be able to apply for one of 30,000 full-time military placements or volunteering one weekend a month carrying out a community service.”

Sunak said that backing compulsory service would help foster the ‘national spirit’.

“The Conservatives want the first teenagers to take part in a pilot from September 2025, with details to be worked out by a Royal Commission. The armed forces placements would allow young people to learn about cyber security, logistics, procurement, or civil response operations.”

Non-military volunteering would involve 25 days of work with organizations such as the fire service, the police and the National Health System.

The UK is of course not the only European country to debate conscription, with the war in Ukraine leading the continent to re-evaluate the policy.

Euronews reported:

“Tucked on Russia’s border via the small enclave of Kaliningrad, Lithuania recently began drafting reforms to its conscription system, which could see people living and studying abroad called up.

One option in the proposals is to enlist recruits voluntarily for one-month training sessions every summer for three years. They would in theory then be ready for battle.”

France in 2019 launched a form of ‘soft conscription’, with young people offered voluntary civic service.

“One reason Europe is resorting to conscription – where men and women are typically legally obliged to fight – is that conventional recruitment drives aren’t working.”

And of course, Germany has joined the war bandwagon.

El Pais reported:

“Germany’s military rearmament, in addition to a representing a major financial outlay, also involves solving a pressing problem: the shortage of soldiers in the army. Defense Minister Boris Pistorius has been discussing possible models to revive compulsory military service for some time and now more and more political figures, both from the Social Democratic Party (SPD) and the conservative CDU/CSU, are preparing the ground for what already looks like a probable reintroduction of conscription.”

Pistorius said that to abandon compulsory military service in 2011 was a mistake.

If all that was not concerning enough, the European People’s Party (EPP) leader Manfred Weber has now defended the idea of an Europe-wide ‘general conscription’ as a part of broader plan to create an EU Army, common missile defense shield, and a nuclear umbrella to “deter” Russia.

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