Sweden has voted to reintroduce military conscription by 1 July after struggling to fill army ranks on a voluntary basis, citing increased Russian military activity in the Baltics as one of the reasons for the policy U-turn.
In 2010, Sweden’s centre-right government of the time abolished the draft after more than 100 years, arguing that targeted recruitment would increase the quality of a military that had shrunk by more than 90% since the end of the cold war.
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My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
I sometimes wonder how universal conscription would go over in Canada. When I travelled in Europe in the early 90s I met people from Sweden, the Netherlands, etc. who were travelling after completing their military service and before getting into the workforce. None of them said they particularly disliked it. And there were a variety of roles they could go into, including communications, medical, etc. Probably a good thing for social cohesion.
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Originally Posted by fotze
If this day gets you riled up, you obviously aren't numb to the disappointment yet to be a real fan.
I sometimes wonder how universal conscription would go over in Canada. When I travelled in Europe in the early 90s I met people from Sweden, the Netherlands, etc. who were travelling after completing their military service and before getting into the workforce. None of them said they particularly disliked it. And there were a variety of roles they could go into, including communications, medical, etc. Probably a good thing for social cohesion.
I am not sure that the quality of soldier you get with conscription is worth it, couple that with the time it takes to train a soldier vs length of conscription it just doesn't seem like a good idea.
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Captain James P. DeCOSTE, CD, 18 Sep 1993
I sometimes wonder how universal conscription would go over in Canada. When I travelled in Europe in the early 90s I met people from Sweden, the Netherlands, etc. who were travelling after completing their military service and before getting into the workforce. None of them said they particularly disliked it. And there were a variety of roles they could go into, including communications, medical, etc. Probably a good thing for social cohesion.
During peace time, it might not be bad, but conscripts do not always behave well after battles. It takes a lot of discipline to switch to protecting the people who were just trying to kill you. People who aren't career soldiers often lack that.
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"A pessimist thinks things can't get any worse. An optimist knows they can."
I'm torn on the concept of conscription but there are situations where its necessary.
For the most part Conscription hasn't been positive in times of war if you take everyone. The US military during the vietnam era was hardly a professional military and you had a war within the military between the officer and senior NCO core and the conscripts who didn't want to be there.
In Russia the average quality of a conscript was pretty poor, but that was a combination of poor training, poor pay, poor kit and not wanting to be there. Add in the whole glug glug stumble stumble issues in the Russian military and you have problems.
The benefit of recruiting properly is you get soldiers that you want and want to be there. if done properly, where you pay them decently and train them lavishly and equip them properly you can run with a smaller more professional military.
However with smaller countries like Sweden or for example Norway I do think that conscription is almost a necessary thing.
I don't think that there's anything wrong with conscription in exchange for. helping to pay for a college education for example when they leave the military would be a positive thing. Or upping the trades training would be a positive thing so that the kids who leave after lets say three or four years have a step up and some job experience and educational opportunities that won't force them into debt when they're 50.
The biggest failure of conscription though is retention. If you can't find a way to get at least some of the conscripts to stay and take up soldiering as a career then you tend to have an military with ineffective leadership as you don't get that core of strong NCO's or officers.
The Russians or Soviets were the worst for that, they had the whole instant sergeant thing where promising conscripts were sent off to a Sergeant's school so their core of NCO's wasn't more experienced then the average conscript. They were more politically reliable and had better training in terms of leadership and tactics but it wasn't the massive leap that you see in Western armies where your Sergent or Warrant Officer had 15 or 20 years of soldiering experience.
I personally think a conscription in Canada wouldn't be welcome even in a time of war.
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My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
If I was hiring for a job and two candidates were equal, but one had military experience, I would take the military experience. The military teaches good skills and values like hard work, discipline and teamwork.
A general conscription for kids out of highschool is not a bad thing IMO.
If I was hiring for a job and two candidates were equal, but one had military experience, I would take the military experience. The military teaches good skills and values like hard work, discipline and teamwork.
A general conscription for kids out of highschool is not a bad thing IMO.
It would help with the yuge problems of child obesity. I don't think it would be bad in a country like Canada where we don't go actively seeking out wars. But in the US, i would be pissed if i lost a child to fight in those Oil Wars.
I'm going under the assumption that only a fraction of conscripts would be put into combat training, and even most of those would never be deployed overseas. How many reservists in Canada served in combat in Afghanistan?
It would be more of a public service model. Conscripts in Israel can choose to work as orderlies in hospitals, for example. In Canada, people could work building infrastructure in national parks, or in the the North. Fight fires in the summer. Work in nursing homes.
It's probably not practical owing to the infrastructure requirements. But I think it would be a social good.
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Originally Posted by fotze
If this day gets you riled up, you obviously aren't numb to the disappointment yet to be a real fan.
Last edited by CliffFletcher; 03-02-2017 at 09:46 AM.
It would help with the yuge problems of child obesity. I don't think it would be bad in a country like Canada where we don't go actively seeking out wars. But in the US, i would be pissed if i lost a child to fight in those Oil Wars.
Short of WWIII breaking out, I don't think conscripts would be sent to battle. They could do the 1 year or whatever the term is of the mandatory service, then the 19 year old can decide on their own if they want to continue a military career or not.
I'm going under the assumption that only a fraction of conscripts would be put into combat training, and even most of those would never be deployed overseas. How many reservists in Canada served in combat in Afghanistan?
It would be more of a public service model. Conscripts in Israel can choose to work as orderlies in hospitals, for example. In Canada, people could work building infrastructure in national parks, or in the the North. Fight fires in the summer. Work in nursing homes.
It's probably not practical owing to the infrastructure requirements. But I think it would be a social good.
I don't know if I would agree to a entire public service conscription, unless your talking about putting people into menial labor jobs that can't be filled doing standard recruiting. So if we need conscripts to scrub camp toilets in banff, or paint rocks on road construction in the arctic then it works.
I also think that the old axiom about the military is true even in conscription that the military is going to put you where your needed and not necessarily where you want to go.
I would think that a selective conscription would be ok, in that you can be called up, but you can be given the option if the trade that you want is full of not being conscripted, being able to be called up to conscription if the need emerges. Or every years conscription class is put into the combat arms whether is army or navy or airforce. Then for the next 3 or 4 years that's your trade. You get trained to be the best infantry soldier or sailor possible. Then at the end you get three options
1) You can muster out, you get some financial aid for college or trade school
2) you can re-enlist and select a trade
3) you can stay in, keep being a combat trade and get a combat trade bonus whether its a bigger pay increase then the guy who chooses to change trades or a lump sum bonus.
This would allow you to continually be more selective as conscription went on and maybe shrink the size of your conscription class if your retention is good.
I also don't agree with the whole conscription with the agreement of not serving outside of the nations border. We saw that promise with Quebec in WW2 and it almost tore this country and the military apart. One your in you go where your told to go and do what your told to do.
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My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
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Short of WWIII breaking out, I don't think conscripts would be sent to battle. They could do the 1 year or whatever the term is of the mandatory service, then the 19 year old can decide on their own if they want to continue a military career or not.
A one year term to me would be pretty worthless.
I barely could separate my head from my butt hole after my first year. Building a soldier takes a long time and is a combination of absorption, education and training and repetition
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My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
I agree the key is the government in charge of things. I simply don't trust our government that is such a slave to public opinion or worse corrupt to trust them drafting myself or my children. I can't imagine losing a child, sibling, or parent in say Vietnam and looking back on it now as a total waste.
It seems to work in places like Switzerland or Israel, but regardless of the party I don't think I would trust a Canadian PM or American President in my lifetime with this power.
Conscription can, in certain cases, increase the quality of soldiers available. Even though conscription turned into a Canadian political crisis in WWs 1 and 2, there is some evidence that it forced more intelligent and ambitious citizens into the ranks who had held off enlisting in the first place because of work or college commitments.
I'm going under the assumption that only a fraction of conscripts would be put into combat training, and even most of those would never be deployed overseas. How many reservists in Canada served in combat in Afghanistan?
It would be more of a public service model. Conscripts in Israel can choose to work as orderlies in hospitals, for example. In Canada, people could work building infrastructure in national parks, or in the the North. Fight fires in the summer.
It's probably not practical owing to the infrastructure requirements. But I think it would be a social good.
Short answer is as many as wanted to serve. Calgary Highlanders, for example, contributed over 100% of it's strength to the mission:
.I barely could separate my head from my butt hole after my first year.
Sooooo....
Not much has changed?
(Of course it's just a joke, but I realize that since i lurk and read CP way more than I post, I am a lot more familiar with posters like Captain Crunch than they are with me)
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(Of course it's just a joke, but I realize that since i lurk and read CP way more than I post, I am a lot more familiar with posters like Captain Crunch than they are with me)
Hey wait just a damn min . . . . ok its probably true.
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My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
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If I was hiring for a job and two candidates were equal, but one had military experience, I would take the military experience. The military teaches good skills and values like hard work, discipline and teamwork.
Funny, I'm ex military, work with lots of ex military and I tend to swing the other way on this.
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Sweden re-introduces Conscription
