I see this morning that both Poland and Germany are seeking to bring back conscription. It is only fair that they start to man up just in case a war or something breaks out in Europe among NATO members because there are certain signs and portents that not everybody is getting along well. It does make me laugh.
They are both talking about another one of those completely fair conscription scams where they stuff recruits into boot camp via a fair lottery system that will of course exclude all immigrant muslims and africans and you will never ever see the sons of billionaires or millionaires or politicians or knights of the holy roman empire drafted into the army.
The really serious problem I have with conscription is the illusion that it solves all problems because once you have men on the job, your problems are solved. This is nonsense in military terms because what you need more than fodder for the war machine is senior leaders who know how to wage war, junior leaders who know how to do it, senior noncoms that know how to motivate men and junior noncoms that know how to get the actual job done. Privates are about the least part of the problem because we haven't even addressed having the weapons, doctrine, tactics, techniques and training to make it possible for modern armies to successfully engage in combat operations without getting destroyed.
There is no sign at all anywhere in Europe that they have even started to think about the last 5 items on the list. Their great grandfathers could be sent into the line with nothing but a rifle and a handful of bullets but that just hasn't been a thing since 1950. Seventy years of taking a vacation from all things warlike and military has left a vacuum in Europe that only one thing can fill and they don't know it and would never allow it and I doubt they could afford it. Yeah, mercenary armies and condottieri like the good old days when states could wage war to the hilt without all that messy raising armies nonsense.
Well, good luck with that.
17 comments:
The Ghost of Machiavelli SIGHS...
Pax Americana in Europe is over.
I worked with conscripts in the German Luftwaffe back in the 1980's. They were the least motivated, poorly trained personnel I have ever met. Not to say they weren't friendly or easy to work with, but when it came to the level of professionalism and training they were useless.
Most sat around the barracks drinking on the weekends and were only there because they had to be. The conscripts wore used uniforms since they military didn't have the funding to issue brand new uniforms like they do with new recruits in the US military.
The general German population has always looked down on anyone who serves in their military which is why culturally German youth avoid the military as a career. Those that do usually come from the lowest social rung on the ladder; either high school or trade school drop outs.
Prior to 2011, Germans had the choice to either go in the military for 18-months or or 2-years doing social service (working in hospitals, old age homes, etc.) That program actually provided much needed help for those providing health care so most Germans would agree it was a pretty good system since no one wants to work in hospitals.
Generally speaking, I found most of the NATO personnel I worked with on multiple NATO exercises were not very well trained or motivated with the exception of the professional NCO and Officers corps. The average conscript was there because he had to be which is no place for people who's lives depend on each other.
When was the last time men went into the line with a handful of bullets?
I'm guessing 1865.
Training actual Germans may prove useful once they decide to "decolonize " their own country
I read The Village at Fort Riley shortly after Bing wrote it and it really looked like that was our approach to our soldiers there working with the ARVN. I 5hink the REPL worked just like rpthat for several hundred thousand GIs thrown at the front during the Ardennes and Battle of the Bulge. Up on Failaka during Desert Storm there was 40 of us armed with M16s and nothing between us and Iraq but the khor abd alla.
The Germans are too busy filling their old Kassernes and ex-British, French and US military bases with refugees to ever get serious about training. Add in the hard left liberal anti-military government coalitions and you can forget it. Germany, like the rest of Europe is done. And it's nothing new, the immigration problem started 40-years ago, they simply out birthed everyone else which is easy when they're all on the dole.
The UK is the shining example of where Europe is heading as their industrial bases continues to collapse, while taxes and spending on social services sky rocket. Germany, France and the rest of Europe is right behind in economic decline. They all thought setting up shop in China was a brilliant idea, but now with energy costs through the roof, and lack of trained employees, it's impossible for industry to return to the EU.
Germany recently increased net borrowing of approximately €81.8 billion for 2025 no thanks to Ursla van der Leyen castrating the German military under her term as minister of defense from 2013 to 2019. It's hard to take a military seriously when half their weapons systems don't even work.
"Of the various helicopter models belonging to the navy, just 30 percent at most were available in mid-November, as were a third of the military’s ancient Tornado fighter jets and just over half of its Marder infantry fighting vehicles. Only half of the CH-53 heavy transport helicopters, also ancient, are operational. Just a shade more than half of the Bundeswehr’s Panzerhaubitze 2000 self-propelled guns are available, two thirds of its frigates and half of its submarines."
https://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/the-bad-news-bundeswehr-an-examination-of-the-truly-dire-state-of-germany-s-military-a-df92eaaf-e3f9-464d-99a3-ef0c27dcc797
We are an inherently violent species. And it's been 80 years since we've had a MAJOR conflict. Most of the people who remember that conflict are gone. So it's now time for humans to get reacquainted with widespread violence and misery. We are a clever species, not an intelligent one.
Yep, you know what he thought of the mercenary armies of his time. The only 2 of modern times that anybody might recall are Wagner and Michael Hoare's..
It died with Yugoslavia and oddly, nobody in Europe ever noticed.
I didn't serve with NATO but spent a month in Spain coming home from the Middle East and saw that the local draftees were wearing old horseblanket uniforms that had actual holes in them. This was the levee en masse that NATO was bringing to the table in a potential war with the Soviet Union.
And yet they only count noses and care not that the noses are diseased and runny and cannot draw breath.
If you look at recent history, say back to 1815, the country with the most active military in the various interregnum were the winners when it came to tussles in Europe. Recall that Germany blooded its army and air force in Spain all through the Civil War while the various allied armies rotted on the beach and didn't even start to procure weapons until after 1936. By then it was too late for France and England and the Poles went to war with cavalry. Arguably, they all did but still, ages out of date and useless and worse than useless.
I shudder to think what the first encounter between junior infantry NCO and his recruits would be like. The weeping and gnashing of teeth at being shouted at. Downhill from there, until Corporal Punishment plucks and eviscerates one or two pour encourager les autres. Wait....there probably aren't any corporals like that anymore, and if there were, would be hounded out or locked up.
I'm just imagining that NCO trying to convince the new guys the he really really means it when he tells them to leave their damned cell phones at home.
I remember Iraqi "soldiers" trying to surrender to a news camera drone. Putting uniforms on warm bodies doesn't mean an effective fighting force.
John Ringo has some insights into what makes soldiers in some of his books. It is pretty obvious that most regimes really don't want any kind of effective military. In most countries, whoever controls the guns is actually the one who is running things and everyone knows it.
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