Sweden need an army ready to counter threats from increasingly aggressive Russia. Today she’s got such an army no. The Swedish armed forces simply bad.
That is why the government of social Democrats and greens decided to return to military duty. This decision means that this summer will be the call for young men and women 1999 and 2000 years of birth.
Despite the word “duty”, call will not everyone. In 1999 Sweden was born just over 85 thousand children, and in 2000 — a few thousand. But only 13 thousand will be called, and only four thousand in 2018 and 2019 will be sent to undergo basic military training. In the future this number may increase if the situation will become worse.
Conscription is the only chance for Sweden to be able to resist foreign invasion. So it’s good that Sweden is ready to introduce conscription. The government’s decision is a way to achieve such readiness, that in future all young people go through compulsory military service.
However, the risk of direct invasion of Sweden today is estimated as extremely low, although Russia is becoming more aggressive. So right now in the universal military service there is no need.
But the army today, a great deal of difficulty in recruitment. She could not hold everyone who passes the training, that is why, the ability of Sweden to defend myself so bad.
In this situation the most logical solution would be to convince people to become soldiers and remain in the army after receiving initial knowledge. One way is to raise wages. And forced to do thousands of young people and soldiers for very low wages force them to pass more than a half-year course that will not help them in their future professional life, is illogical. They have to pay overly high personal and economic cost. However, the government has chosen this path.
Most likely, this great injustice has caused large-scale protests just because military service is still shrouded in an aura of nostalgia: months in the army supposedly “increased cohesion”, “making boys men” and “forced spoiled boys to learn how to make your bed and break away from mommy.” Perhaps these myths have become an important reason for many parties to relate to military service with approval.
It is very strange that such myths run as significant political decisions. Mandatory call to service two thousand people, that is a little more than 2% of the 85 thousand peers, is unlikely to have any impact on social cohesion or the number of spoiled teenagers.
Universal conscription may be necessary to protect Sweden, but it should be administered when there is risk of foreign invasion. Now it is not. About Putin is many things, but on the level of aggression against Sweden, he is clearly not up to Stalin and other Soviet dictators. And conscription is introduced, on the contrary, for the reason that the army is unable to hire enough staff on and around the army inexplicably hovers a nostalgic atmosphere. But these arguments are simply untenable.
