4 ms·

I can give a bit of context. Mandatory military service in Sweden only ended in 2010, so this is not a huge change. During the cold was period, almost all men

I can give a bit of context. Mandatory military service in Sweden only ended in 2010, so this is not a huge change. During the cold was period, almost all men did ~1 year of military service. After that it was a regular job, but in case of war everyone could be conscripted. By the '90s it dropped to maybe 1/3 of young men. Everyone went to a 1-2 day testing session, and then some were selected. In practice, it became increasingly voluntary. Soldiers on peacekeeping missions in foreign countries are all volunteers. In 2010 mandatory service was dropped completely. I think the Swedish military found it difficult to recruit enough after that, and the politicians now think the military has shrunk a bit too much. I don't think it will be a huge growth (that would cost money), but perhaps a return to early 2000's level. This time it includes women. I am not a big fan of conscription, but I can somewhat accept it as long as it's strictly defensive. One good argument for it is that a conscript army is unlikely to stage a military coup in a democracy. If the soldiers are more or less random people, they will more or less support the elected government, at least a portion of them. But, as military power becomes more about technology than numbers, I suspect this argument becomes less important.

jcranmer 10y ago
> One good argument for it is that a conscript army is unlikely to stage a military coup in a democracy. Turkey has mandatory military service and suffered an attempted coup less than a year ago. Napoleon came to power in France after the levée en masse, really the first major mass conscription act in history. Egypt, last coup being ~4 years ago, again has mass conscription. As does Thailand. And Eritrea, Sudan, Chad, and Equatorial Guinea, although I don't know if mandatory military service dates back before the time of those coups. Coups are often instigated by the officer class, whereas mass conscription is primarily used to fill out enlisted ranks. There's definitely room for the upper echelons of a military to support a coup while the lower echelons remain largely apathetic.
throwaway7767 10y ago
> One good argument for it is that a conscript army is unlikely to stage a military coup in a democracy. If the soldiers are more or less random people, they will more or less support the elected government, at least a portion of them. At the same time, military training involves quite a lot of indoctrination as part of getting people to shut up and follow orders. I'm not sure it's particularly healthy for democracy to send a large part of its citizens to indoctrination camps.

jcranmer 10y ago

> One good argument for it is that a conscript army is unlikely to stage a military coup in a democracy. Turkey has mandatory military service and suffered an attempted coup less than a year ago. Napoleon came to power in France after the levée en masse, really the first major mass conscription act in history. Egypt, last coup being ~4 years ago, again has mass conscription. As does Thailand. And Eritrea, Sudan, Chad, and Equatorial Guinea, although I don't know if mandatory military service dates back before the time of those coups. Coups are often instigated by the officer class, whereas mass conscription is primarily used to fill out enlisted ranks. There's definitely room for the upper echelons of a military to support a coup while the lower echelons remain largely apathetic.

throwaway7767 10y ago

> One good argument for it is that a conscript army is unlikely to stage a military coup in a democracy. If the soldiers are more or less random people, they will more or less support the elected government, at least a portion of them. At the same time, military training involves quite a lot of indoctrination as part of getting people to shut up and follow orders. I'm not sure it's particularly healthy for democracy to send a large part of its citizens to indoctrination camps.