Western allies weigh up conscription or national service, as the threat from Russia grows.
  • downpunxx@fedia.io
    191·
    3 months ago

    they, like everyone else, can see what’s peering right over the hill, and it’s not a cushy cold war career, it’s a “i really could die, cold, bad, and ugly doing this shit right now”

    • tryptaminev 🇵🇸 🇺🇦 🇪🇺@feddit.deEnglish
      6·
      3 months ago

      I mean also why would someone go to the military when the same education can get them a better paying job?

      In Germany an officer makes about 4k before taxes after his education finished (increasing over time and with benefits adding up). So that is 48k in a year or a bit more than the median income. For someone with a masters degree. With an engineering or IT degree you can find better paying jobs in the private sector.

      The main advantage is that you already get paid while studying, but this is offset by the difficulty later moving from a military to a civillian career, where others have a ten year headstart on you.

      On the other hand it is difficult to find a partner and start a family if you are living in a military camp.

  • Jumi@lemmy.worldEnglish
    8·
    3 months ago

    Shit pay, broken equipment and someone who failed in civil life shouting at you… no thank you

    • Baggins@piefed.social
      5·
      3 months ago

      This is a lot of the reasoning. I left the army in 1997 after 17 years. Should really have stayed on for my 22 to get the full pension, but was so disillusioned that I couldn’t stay. My future was looking like Bosnia, Belfast, Basra and BATUS (UK training area in Canada - nothing wrong with that though).

  • AutoTL;DR@lemmings.worldBEnglish
    2·
    3 months ago

    This is the best summary I could come up with:

    This week, French Armed Forces Minister Sébastien Lecornu presented a talent retention plan to incentivize military personnel to remain in uniform.

    For countries relying on professional armies, the challenge is to make the armed forces attractive — something that’s difficult to do in times of low unemployment, fierce competition from the private sector and widespread use of remote working.

    But the problem is that the terms of service just aren’t that attractive, with chronic overtime, months-long absences from home and missed recuperation periods commonplace.

    “The issue is not recruiting but retention, we need to retain also families,” Admiral Lisa Franchetti, the U.S. Navy’s chief of naval operations, said at a conference in Paris earlier this year.

    In Germany, as part of efforts to beef up national defense, the government wants to get its armed forces headcount to 203,000 by the early 2030s — but recruitment is only growing slowly.

    The Bundestag’s special commissioner for the armed forces, Eva Högl, has said that reinstating some form of conscription is one way to turn things around, but targeting women is a more obvious move to arrest the decline since potential there is “far from exhausted,” the lawmaker wrote.

    The original article contains 649 words, the summary contains 195 words. Saved 70%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!

  • lath@lemmy.worldEnglish
    310·
    3 months ago

    Didn’t the US fix retention issues by granting citizenship to illegal immigrants joining the army and to their families if they opted to pursue a military career?