“We need to realistically be in a position to deter an attack,” Pistorius told reporters, in the latest example of how the country is embracing new military and foreign policy priorities.
Under Pistorius’s plan for a “selective military service,” all 18-year-olds in Germany would be sent a questionnaire to gauge their interest in the army, known as the Bundeswehr. Returning the questionnaire would be compulsory for the estimated 400,000 young men each year, but voluntary for women — in line with Germany’s constitution. Pistorius added that everyone who completes the questionnaire would have the legal right to conscientious objection.
About 100,000 men per year are expected to show interest, Pistorius said. Similar to the so-called “Scandinavian model” of Sweden and Norway, a group of 40,000 to 50,000 would then be invited to a selection process. About 5,000 of the most suitable candidates would be be called up for six months of military service — with the option of extending up to 17 months. This would all be in addition to the current 10,000 volunteers each year.
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“We want the best and the most motivated,” Pistorius said.
Pistorius’s goal is to increase the size of the army to 203,000 by 2031, and create a body of reservists of up to 260,000. Germany currently has about 180,000 soldiers and 60,000 reservists.
At the height of the Cold War, faced with the combined might of Eastern Europe’s Warsaw Pact countries, West Germany had a military of 400,000 men and spent about 4 percent of its gross domestic product on defense — double the NATO spending target today. All young men were conscripted from the age of 18 and anyone who didn’t want to serve in the military was obliged instead to carry out a civilian service, such as working at a care home.
As increasing numbers of young men chose civilian service and the military’s personnel needs drastically reduced, Chancellor Angela Merkel ended mandatory national service in 2011 — a move that Pistorius called a “mistake.”
Wednesday’s pitch was just the first step. A fraught debate over Germany’s military service is expected in the months ahead and it is likely to become an election issue next fall. Any final proposal for military service would have to pass parliament.
The governing center-left coalition, which includes the Social Democrats, the Greens and the business-friendly Free Democrats, remains divided on the details and Pistorius has yet to gain the full backing of his own chancellor, Social Democrat Olaf Scholz, who described the Bundeswehr’s lack of troops as a “manageable task.” Speaking in Stockholm in May, Scholz said a return to mass conscription “wouldn’t work anymore.”
Wednesday’s pitch has elicited a relatively positive response from coalition partners, however.
“The security situation in Europe has changed fundamentally,” Green Party leader Omid Nouripour told the German Press Agency. “We must therefore ensure that our armed forces are well positioned. In addition to good equipment, this also applies to the issue of personnel.”
Recent polls suggest that almost two-thirds of Germans support the return of military service, which is part of a much broader shift in German foreign and defense policy that began just days after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which Scholz described as a “Zeitenwende” or turning point.
Andrea Gawrich, a security policy researcher and professor at the University of Giessen, warned that military service was only part of the multifaceted challenge of responding to the threat from Russia.
“Military service can only be a small piece of the puzzle in the answer to this new security risk,” she said, pointing to other challenges including cybersecurity, disinformation campaigns and fake news campaigns, and sending more weapons to Ukraine.
After years of the army being considered a laughingstock, due to a widely reported lack of resources including tanks, ammunition and even thermal underwear, Pistorius has vowed to turn it around and improve its capability in territorial defense with a special $108 billion fund that is likely to be spent by 2028. Germany must be “war ready” by 2029, the defense minister has said on numerous occasions.
Financing the recruiting of new troops, before also housing, feeding and training them, will also be a huge challenge. Eva Högl, a Social Democrats lawmaker and parliamentary coordinator for the armed forces, estimates $54 billion in construction projects will be needed to modernize barracks and improve the appeal of serving in the army — for both new and old troops. The infrastructure from Germany’s previous decades of military service simply no longer exist.
“This must be achieved without simultaneously weakening the Bundeswehr in other ways,” Gawrich said.
Germany is by no means the only European country to consider a return of national service. Across the continent, only 11 countries — Austria, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Greece, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and Ukraine — still practice conscription in varying forms. At the end of the Cold War, the lack of direct military threat became a popular argument for the transition from conscription to voluntary military service.
In Britain, where national service was abolished in 1960, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak plans to introduce a new form of it if his Conservative party stays in 10 Downing Street after the country’s July 4 election. Under Sunak’s plan, 18-year-olds would choose between a year-long stint in the military or volunteer placement for one weekend a month. The Dutch government is also considering compulsory military service to fill the army’s gap of 9,000.
Starting in 2026, Denmark plans to expand its military conscription to women and extend its conscription service from four to 11 months. Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said the government was seeking to achieve “full equality between the sexes.” Women are already permitted to volunteer, and last year they accounted for a quarter of the 4,700 Danes who carried out military service.
Following the Russian annexation of Crimea a decade ago, Ukraine and Lithuania also reintroduced compulsory national service for men ages 18 to 26. According to a 2022 comparative study of European national service, about 90 percent of new recruits in Lithuania enroll voluntarily but the military relies on randomly generated draft lists to select the remaining troops. Latvia also reintroduced a compulsory national military service last year.
