The new German government, created before the conservative Christian Democrats of Friedrich Merz and Centrolevic Social Democrats (SPD), published a coalition agreement containing plans for new voluntary military serviceaimed at rebuilding the constantly shrinking ranks of the German armed forces – Bundeswehry.
According to Politico, the plan assumes sending a compulsory survey to all 18-year-old men (in the case of women it is voluntary) to assess readiness and ability to serve. Chosen, if they agree, they will be invited to enlist in the army.
Germany focuses on strengthening the army
Current minister of defense Boris PistoriusSPD politician, who will probably remain in the new government in his current position, some time ago defended this approach, calling them a pragmatic step forward.
– Thanks to the new military service, we will ensure both the development and durability of the armed forces – he explained at the meeting of the contact group for the Defense of Ukraine in Brussels last week. – We will make a Bundeswehra more attractive. This is both a preliminary condition and result – he added.
However, due to the fact that it is difficult to determine the number of people who would decide to join the army, in some German circles the warning lamp has already come on.
– if the basic military service fails to significantly motivate more young people to volunteer to the armed forces in the near future, Bundeswehr will not have the necessary number of active soldiers and trained reservists – believes Christian Richter, reserve lieutenant colonel and legal expert at the German Institute of Defense and Strategic Studies, Think Tank Bundeswehr.
In his opinion, this would expose Germany's defense capacity at risk, both in terms of national defense and collective defense within NATO, and these cannot be separated.
Decades of neglect
The Bundeswehr number is not impressive and oscillates within the borders approx. 182 thousand soldiers. According to the annual government review of her condition, last year more military people left than joined, and almost a third of new recruits gave up during the training.
The source of this problem are not only the actions of the current authorities, but the decades of political decisions that pushed the army to the social margin.
After a radical reduction of full -time jobs after the end of the Cold War in 1994, during the rule of Chancellor Helmut Kohl, Military bases were closed, especially in cities. According to Carlo Masali, a professor at the Bundeswehr University in Munich and a military advisor, the army disappeared from public life.
Consumption ended in 2011. In 2018, the Bundeswehr recruitment campaign at the Gamescom game fair in Cologne caused a wave of criticism due to the poster on which the inscription was “Multiplayer at its best”. Critics accused the army of trivialization of the war.
At the beginning of this year, the eastern city of Zwickau banned placing Bundeswehr advertising in public space, called the “city of peace” – although later the municipal supervisory body found this decision unlawful. It is against this background – weakening visibility and political fluctuations – Germany is now focusing on a new, volunteer military service.
European countries are afraid of Russia's invasion
– We need these 100,000 additional soldiers almost immediately – believes General Carsten Breuer, the highest military commander of Germany. However, the long -term goal is even more ambitious and He stops on the number of 460 thousand. soldierswith this number covers active forces, reservists and former military people who could be appointed in the event of a serious crisis.
And this crisis may come quite soon. 2029 became an informal term for Germany – The year in which NATO and German intelligence expect Russia to rebuild its conventional ability after the war in Ukraine to threaten the allied territory.
To compensate for the difference, the new coalition focuses on military service based on free will, loosely modeled on the Swedish Totalförsvar system, or “total defense”.