Resumption of conscription is being discussed in Germany
German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius has initiated discussions about reinstating compulsory military service in the country, which was suspended in 2011. The German government portal Deutsche Welle (DW) reported this on February 4.
However, most politicians and government officials still call such a discussion purely theoretical, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
According to DW, almost a year after the Russian invasion of Ukraine began, at a time when Europe is at war and countries such as Latvia are reintroducing compulsory military service, German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said that “the suspension of compulsory military service service was a mistake."
The Federal Minister of Defense admitted that compulsory military service would not help Germany in the next two to three years.
“However, Germany must openly discuss this topic, regardless of whether we are in a dangerous situation or not. The army, whose actions must be approved by parliament, is the business of the whole society,” Pistorius emphasized.
“We are not considering the possibility of reinstating compulsory military service. The current Bundeswehr is completely different than it was 10 years ago or earlier. We have other tasks that require well trained and specialized personnel. We have different structures, different capabilities and a different operational reality,” a spokeswoman for the German Ministry of Defense told DW.
According to Federal Commissioner for the Armed Forces Eva Högl, the debate on compulsory military service is “theoretical in nature”, for FDP leader Christian Lindner it is a “ghost discussion”, and the representative of the Social Democrats Wolfgang Hellmich said that discussing this issue is “unnecessary "
Over the past two decades, the Bundeswehr has shrunk from more than 317 thousand to just over 183 thousand troops. Compulsory military service in Germany was suspended in 2011. Twelve years later, critics of this decision at the time argue that there is now not a single argument in favor of restoring compulsory military service, writes DW.
“There are no local conscription commissions, no military equipment that could be used to train conscripts, and there are no instructors to train them. There are no plans for what a fair selection of conscripts should look like from the 700 young Germans who turn 18 every year - after all, only a fraction of them should enter the army. But first of all, there are not tens of billions of euros to restart the conscription apparatus for compulsory military service,” the portal notes.
On the other hand, we must not forget that for several months the German authorities have been declaring the impossibility of transferring German Leopard tanks to Kyiv, and now preparations for this are proceeding at full speed. Kyiv officials even publicly joke that “no, no, no” from Berlin means “yes, yes, yes.”
As PolitNavigator reported , Boris Pistorius became Germany's new Minister of Defense at the end of January 2023.
Germany is discussing the reintroduction of conscription.