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Originally Posted by Schroeder
Of course not. Draftees are needed to have reserves in case of a war. Ask your friends whether they would rather face an enemy with draftees and therefore in equal numbers, or all alone.
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Against what bordering enemy? Denmark? Poland? Russia? I see chances for conventional wars inEurope - but these will result from social unrest and resulting civil wars. and that is a scenario for more unconventinal infantry-war or asymmetric war again, not hightech wars with fleets of eurofighters battling against waves of Flankers and tanks engage on the ground by the hundreds and thousands.
My grandfather, by the background of his war experiences, used to say - and many other historic example are in his favour- : badly trained novices to war are cannon-fodder. After the war he was a pacifist, but he also said: "if you want to maintain an army, then give them the hardest training possible for people to bear".
And I have a hard time to believe that 6 months of basic training with all the restrictions you just mentioned yourself could be enough for significantly more than just learning to clean your personal firearms, learning the insignias for different ranks, and how to salute. You get my point. You don't get special forces training for civil amateurs from zero to max in 6 months,. No training for radar maintenance. Commanding and maintaining a tank or operating a self propelled Panzerhaubitze. when I started studying in autumn 1989, I became friend with a guy very early on who just had his BW time behind him. He said they were ordered to run around in the forest during a "manouver", yelling "Bam! Bam!", because funding did not allow to train with real or blank cartridges. his grenade training he said they conducted with Coca Cola tin cans that they threw. 80% of the time, he said, they were bored to death.
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It is unjust for sure and definitely needs to be worked over. Can you look into the future? I can't. If you abolish the draft you will likely never be able to reinstall it. What will be in 20 years? Will Iran be peaceful, will Turkey still be an ally? Will the Balkan stay stable? Will Belarus and Ukraine stay stable? Could we handle any threat of those with only a handful of professional soldiers without the means to increase the size of the army quickly or compensate possible losses?
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then be consistent and train your daftees the way you need to do it. That includes mroe time, and better funding, instead of shopwing them how little they are needed. what is a reaosnable time frame to give basic military training? We used to think that it was 18 months. And regular trainings every one or two years for the next 20 years afterwards, like the Swiss do. but if there are unrests in Belarus or the Ukraine, or a new war on the balkans (it's coming I'm sure), or turkey is no longer an ally (it already isn'T that anymore), ansd iran fires ICBMs at europe, then a swarm of badly-trained draftees hardly can be considered to be the trustworthy defenceline against war coming to Germany. It is no defence against ICBMs, and foreign military invasions haunting german landscapes I really cannot imagine - who would and could do it? BTW, the British have a smaller army already than Germany, by numbers. Still nobody threatens to invade them, at least militarily.
If such a need for drafting would appear again and real war is threatening the heartlands of middle Europe again by foreign invasion, nothing speaks against bringing drafts back. Plus massively increased defence spendings.
Until then, we need to mark priorities that we fincially can afford. the draft is not such a priority. And it only causes costs and produces personell that nowhere is needed and in oversea combat missions is not wanted.
the real reason why the draft is defended is that people fear the conflict about the Zivis and their role in the social service sector.
what do you think is the reason the medical criterions are such that most young men must not go to the military by draft? Because they are not needed - that simple. Draftees currently are a "lästiges Übel" for the BW. Politicians want them, the BW does not need them, they cost money and must get entertained.