Pistorius greets the last soldiers who returned from Mali
Image: Reuters
Pistorius has models for compulsory service examined. Whatever it looks like, it would be an infringement on the freedom of young people. That is reasonable.
AWhen conscription was suspended almost thirteen years ago, there were good reasons for it. The time of bloc confrontation was over. Numerous NATO countries had already switched to professional armies. Conscription, it seemed, was the model of a bygone era. From today's perspective, that was naive. And yet the black-yellow coalition left a door open in case the worst came to the worst. Conscription was suspended, not abolished. Is it time to open this little door?
One thing is clear: reinstating compulsory military service is structurally difficult to implement. It would result in another massive restructuring of the Bundeswehr. And there are no political majorities for it anyway. But the times of peace and security that the fall of the Iron Curtain once promised are now long gone.
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