"Fully committed to peace" Is it time to bring back conscription in Germany?
-
Highly contentious question, but Germany should bring conscription for everyone (including women) with the option of doing volunteer/civil service.
In my opinion the actual reason for suspending conscription back then was saving money on all the (socially very beneficiary) substitute services you could do.
Now we are reaping the fruits we sowed by kettinga bunch of self serving neoliberal arse clowns run the country for decades.
-
Damn, are we really that afraid of Russia invading Europe? Seems like a short time ago we were mocking their pathetic inability to even conquer a quarter of Ukraine.
If NATO isn't a completely worthless organisation, then Russia will never invade.
Damn, are we really that afraid of Russia invading Europe?
No, we are afraid of Germany having an actual army. But telling the biggest economy to just lay back and chill is no option either.
So we need to find a way for them to waste enormous amounts of money on defense without getting anything to show.
Enter: conscription.
Because this way you can then spend massive amounts of money on infrastructure for a lot of people instead of buying actual stuff like equipment or ammunition. And as a bonus for the country that has perfected keeping the population poor and on low wages while the top 1% make all the money (see: Germany's GDP while at the same time having a median wealth more fitting for eastern Europe), they can get a lot new
slavesserfsforced workerscheap labor from those refusing to serve to optimise corporate profits. -
The constitution is easy to change, it only needs a 2/3 majority, which has been abused to write all sorts of silly self destructive shit into it, like the "debt brake" which has been a major factor in the crumbling of Germany's infrastructure over the past few decades.
Why not write something sensible into it for a change?
The constitution is easy to change, it only needs a 2/3 majority,
Only that Putins party and the pacifist Linke have over a third of the votes. The former has a lot of open facists in its ranks and the later hates the idea of killing Nazis, because that is violent.
-
The constitution is easy to change, it only needs a 2/3 majority,
Only that Putins party and the pacifist Linke have over a third of the votes. The former has a lot of open facists in its ranks and the later hates the idea of killing Nazis, because that is violent.
pacifist Linke
I wouldn't call rolling over and surrendering to the threat of an imperialist invasion "pacifist", but yes, German politics, as politics everywhere, is full of insane crackpots.
-
This post did not contain any content.
I am against bringing back the old-style conscription here in Germany. First, it is limited to male youths only - a no-no in the 21st century. Second, it is designed as "military first, anything else second, and only with a good reason", another idea that belongs to the past.
And, seriously. the German army could not deal with it. Since we halted conscription, the army has done a big and painful transformation into a professional military force, They could not house nor train those masses of unwashed kids anymore, and would basically have to regrow that part from the start.
What Germany could do is install a mandatory service time for all - men and women - with one option being the army, but with a strongly limited number of recruits.
-
I think the concerns mainly evolve around the Baltics as f.e. Estonia couldn't defend alone against the Russian army and the armies of other nations could be to slow/ineffective to respond - before the region has been conquered. However I am also unsure how mandatory conscription could prevent this situation (maybe as a way to recruit more professional soldiers?).
The main point point of conscription is to build up a large number of reservists who will require minimal training compared to fresh recruits when called up in case of a war. This is especially important when a smaller country is attacked by a larger one, because in that case, there is precious little time to react, and no country can afford a standing military even remotely capable of defending it against a much larger opponent.
-
Damn, are we really that afraid of Russia invading Europe?
No, we are afraid of Germany having an actual army. But telling the biggest economy to just lay back and chill is no option either.
So we need to find a way for them to waste enormous amounts of money on defense without getting anything to show.
Enter: conscription.
Because this way you can then spend massive amounts of money on infrastructure for a lot of people instead of buying actual stuff like equipment or ammunition. And as a bonus for the country that has perfected keeping the population poor and on low wages while the top 1% make all the money (see: Germany's GDP while at the same time having a median wealth more fitting for eastern Europe), they can get a lot new
slavesserfsforced workerscheap labor from those refusing to serve to optimise corporate profits.I also agree that investing in training, equipment and deployment capabilities seems like a better option than having a conscription as the number of fighting personnel is roughly equal (and as a defender you need less people for defense). From what I heard the European armies match Russias army in power overall - however I'm not sure if they could be as fast as Putin in getting this power coordinated to the Baltics.
Regarding the median and wealth statistics: I agree that they are concerning especially for a rich country as Germany. However I think that is mainly due to the lower home ownership rates compared to most other countries. So I think it's more an accidental situation (with f.e. historic reasons) than result of more neoliberal policies. Still an important point to highlight and work on.
-
This post did not contain any content.
From what I heard the European armies match Russias army in power overall - however I’m not sure if they could be as fast as Putin in getting this power coordinated to the Baltics (if there was a conflict, then it would take place there). So I think that should be the most important part to work on.
Furthermore I think that spending the money on more advanced equipment is better than a mandatory conscription, which would make the current shortage of highly skilled workers only worse (and there's also the question about how it would affect 18-year-olds personally).
-
I also agree that investing in training, equipment and deployment capabilities seems like a better option than having a conscription as the number of fighting personnel is roughly equal (and as a defender you need less people for defense). From what I heard the European armies match Russias army in power overall - however I'm not sure if they could be as fast as Putin in getting this power coordinated to the Baltics.
Regarding the median and wealth statistics: I agree that they are concerning especially for a rich country as Germany. However I think that is mainly due to the lower home ownership rates compared to most other countries. So I think it's more an accidental situation (with f.e. historic reasons) than result of more neoliberal policies. Still an important point to highlight and work on.
From what I heard the European armies match Russias army in power overall
"match":
And that's before accounting for quality of equipment or training of operators.
-
This post did not contain any content.
Fuck military service! No conscription for any country! If Portugal ever does that in the first to gtfo! I don’t feel like being raped thank you
-
System shared this topic on
