The German Army

[Fader]

Being a big world war 2 buff, I felt like looking up the website for the German Army and found the "German Federal Armed Forces." My German is... well, nonexistant; and the google translation seems somewhat lacking, but from what I gathered, it seems military service is somewhat mandatory in thier country (it also looks like the uniforms and equipment they have are modernized versions of the uniforms and equipment they had during the second world war). Now I know other European nations, like Switzerland have mandatory military service for it‘s citizens. On that note, what do people here think of mandatory military service? Personally, I‘m against it. It‘s something completly unnessesary in a modernized society such as ours.

 

[Danjanou]

I think you‘ll find that mandatory national service is the norm in most countries wheter among the developing nations and/or what would be considered the industrialized ones.

As far as I know the only industrialized nations without conscription of some form or another are Australia, Britain, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, and the USA. Mind I may have missed one or two.

Most of the European nations have it, including what I‘m sure you would consider the more "enlightened" ones such as Sweden, Denmark Norway etc.

 

[Michael Dorosh]

The same people who bitch about youth crime, gangs, etc. are often the first ones to object to compulsory service.

National service doesn‘t have to be military; the Germans had a neat set up in the Reich Arbeits Dienst before WW II; all males went into the RAD and helped build roads etc. before their compulsory military service.

Today, national service could involve such things as tree planting, which many kids do before university any way.

The problem with making national service military only is that it dilutes the talent pool in the Army and instead of gung ho volunteers, you have a lot of whiny, long haired slack jaws who don‘t want to be there.

As fore society being too civilized or modernized ‘for that‘ - you‘ll need to explain that one to the class because on the face of it, it seems rather silly. If you mean we are too fat, lazy and stupid, I could agree with that, but I‘m not sure that the word "modernized" really means that.

 

[Danjanou]

Nice points Michael.

Cuba as far as I know has something similar, in that while the majority go into the military (army, navy, airforce, border guards), others do their mandatory service in other areas such as MINIT (Ministry of Interior) fire department, national police etc.

I presume by Modern, he was referring to industrialized society or natiosn (G8 nations etc.). You know the type where 90% of the youth is out of shape, pasty looking and parked in front of their computers playing games all day long.

Ooops sorry didn‘t mean to start ranting there.

 

[Etown]

As far as I know the only industrialized nations without conscription of some form or another are Australia, Britain, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, and the USA. Mind I may have missed one or two.

Both Spain and France have dropped mandatory service requirements (much to one of my friend‘s delights after having served 2 months in a French prison for desertion). It actually seems that most of the western nations are moving away from conscription. Anybody know what Greece and Italy do?

 

[Etown]

On that note, what do people here think of mandatory military service? Personally, I‘m against it. It‘s something completly unnessesary in a modernized society such as ours.

Well I have mixed feelings about the whole thing. I don‘t believe that forcing people to enlist adds strength to any military, it just lowers the moral of the people that chose to serve...well, sort of.

On the otherhand, having a population that had done some form of military service does have the benefit of increasing public support for military spending. This is good for the military...well, sort of.

Basically you run into the problem of training a significant number of new recruits every year, most of whom will never stay past their minimum required term of service. This is of course not the cost effective way to build a strong military. You also end up with a very large military with very limited abilities, which in turn ends up decreasing support for said military.

Spain is a very good example, under the dictatorship of General Franco, military service was cumpulsory (not surprising). Spain ended up with quite a large military but it‘s resources were drained and throughout Franco‘s rule Spain‘s army lost it‘s strength and its effectiveness. No money was availiable for new equipment, services or operations. Since Franco‘s death conscription was eleminated and Spain has spent the last thirty years rebuilding a smaller but much more effective military. Now the advantage that they had was that they started with a decent budget (the byproduct of a military led dictatorship) and reduced numbers in order to effectively work within that budget even the purchase of aircraft carriers seemed cheap compared to what they were used to. Here we have bigger problems, we have a limited budget and limited numbers.

So where does that leave us? Without public support it doesn‘t really matter what you do and in this day and age public support is more about media and politics than actual reality. Conscription doesn‘t fit into the modern world, in the west we pride ourselves on our freedom of choice no matter how ignorant the basis for the decision. Until the west wakes up I only want to see the guys who want to defend my country standing on the front lines.

 

[Michael Dorosh]

Do we really want to pattern our military on the Italian Army?

 

[Etown]

Do we really want to pattern our military on the Italian Army?

ROTFL

 

[Michael Dorosh]

On second thought, maybe the LSVW (good Italian truck) is only the tip of the iceberg....maybe that was the plan all along???

 

[Bellman]

While national service would give many of our young people many life skills the cost is quite great. Imagine that the average person has 30-45 working years in their life from the age of 18 to somewhere in their late 40s, 50s, or 60s when they retire. Imagine taking several of those years and instead of using them to be productive members of the ecomony have them live off those other working people. It ends up with lots of economic damage, lots of unhappy teens and an uneffictive force of conscripts. While I think that a large portion of the population could use a two year course on taking care of themselves national service and conscription in general is not a viable peacetime alternative for an economy like ours.

Paul Bellman

 

[Danjanou]

Thanks for the update on the French and Spanish miitaries. I‘ll have to let a friend know with dual citizenship he‘s safe to go "home."

I‘d be curious to see the end results of this in a couple of years. The end of the draft in the US in the 1970‘s marked a serious decline in the quality of their army (mind their were other factors too, aftereffects of Vietnam) which took almost a generation to remove as witnessed by their less than good performances in Grenada, and Panama prior to the 1st Gulf War.

Be intereting to see if the French Army becomes worse or better as it goes to an all volunteer force.

 

[greeves]

Keep in mind, France hasn‘t completely eliminated national service, only compulsary military service. Young French men and women are still obliged to attend Defence preparedness courses, register with the Department of Defence, notify the authorities of any change of address until they reach the age of 25. Also, the last part of their obligations is that they must be prepared to be called up in case of a "national crisis" - a nice way of saying your *** is in the army the next time Germany invades...

 

[greeves]

In case anyone is interested - and can read French - the link to the information in my last post is here... French Ministry of Defence - National Service

 

[haplo6]

The German army does have mandatory service but it recent times that service has expanded to include options for doing government jobs and civil service. I think someone down the line probably realized that while instilling a sense of discipline and pride in a nations youth is a good idea, having a weak and unenthusiastic army isn‘t. By doing this Germany has eliminated those that don‘t want military service from those that do while still ensuring that every citizen has done some sort of service for the Government. I think its a rather smart idea that other countries should think of adopting.

 

[Danjanou]

VeryRudeIndeed

Thanks for the link. Interesting site, provided as you said one can muddle along in French.

 

[Gunnar]

Just out of curiosity, what would you say to a way of increasing motivation by following Heinlein and giving a vote only to those who have served?

Not that I support it, but it seems along the lines of the "service to the gubmint" thread. It would guarantee that those who were in the army had some motivation for being there...

 

[Fader]

Who has more taxes per social program? The Germans or us?

 

[haplo6]

Germans pay much less tax then we do however everything is balanced in the fact that they "pay as you go." Meaning that Healthcare isn‘t free, neither are basic things like public washrooms. Its good if your like me and haven‘t seen a doctor in 10 years but bad if your like all the people back home in Ontario who abuse the system by going to the emergency room if they sniffle twice in an hour. Other European countries pay even less tax then Germans but they get less social services. Example, I drove from Lyon to Paris, back through Paris (800km)to Nürnberg and it cost me 60€ (100Cdn) in Autobahn tolls. Everything is balanced out in the end. Personally I would rather pay for that stuff in taxes then be surprised by getting large bills in the mail for stuff I normally take for granted.

 

[riggah052]

The Israeli‘s also have a mandatory service set up, right after high school education, where you have to serve a minumum of two years, after that, you are free to choose to continue your service, or join the civilian populace.

 

[Thaedes]

The reason Canada does not have mandatory military service, and never will is a direct result of the beliefs of which the country was founded on. Freedoms in particular. If its mandatory, then you remove the freedom to choose. How could we allow ourselves to be so hypocritical here in Canada and then go to foriegn countries and prattle about freedom‘s. What credit would we have?

What would be smarter, is to offer incentives. An example would be the Peace Corps in the United States. You do a year or two of service, all volunteer, and you get great benefits for when you return.

Just a thought anyways.