While instinctive behaviour can be observed in humans too - like the urge to protect small children and cute animals from harm - all of us grow into a culture with its own constructed logic (and paradoxes).
To return to the topic of the article: If drafting is a thing or not is a question of the culture you are living in. As long as a society is administering itself by voting for those who decide about the set of rules (laws) for everyone, it is the responsibility of everyone to discuss the rules, ask for adjustments and vote accordingly.
As I am a late child my parents were both born in NAZI-Germany. My mum in Düsseldorf (Germany) and my father in Innsbruck (Austria). Their fathers and brothers were drafted to fight the Allies. No matter what their actual believes were. My grandfather was the only child of many to survive the first world war. He was orphined as a toddler.
You can imagine that "calling to arms" has no positive reputation in my family. And still I see a point in drafting, if it is about defence. But (and that is a huge BUT): Going to war means to violate existing international laws (remember: human made). Therefore it can't be won (it is not a game, there is no judge or score that defines the rules for winning and loosing). It can only be ended by decision! That's why it is called peace treaty and not win-certificate.
As both - peace and war - are not natural laws but human constructs, it is the responsibility of those who (co)decide about the culture they are living in.
Most people on earth will agree that breaking peace is a bad thing and the ability to keep peace is a sign of strength. To change the mood of a population to pro-war a lot of time and money has to be invested in lies and propaganda.
If our government is weak and struggles to keep peace we can vote for a better one. If your society doesn't allow votes, there is the right to revolt to (re)establish a government that serves everyone (not rules everyone). (It's not a human right per se, but e.g. Germany has the right to revolt in its Grundgesetz/constitution due to what its people learned from the past).
As the executive power (police) needs to be counterbalanced, I am strongly pro professional armies and vice versa. Police must be strong enough to protect the government from the army, just in case of an attempt to establish a dictatorship via armed forces. (Power makes corrupt, societies have to be resilient against corruption).
But what I find lacking in all those discussions about drafting, (re)arming and warfare, is an honest discussion about peace keeping.
Peace keeping needs all of us. It is the true sign of a powerful society. It needs the ability to listen to everyone, no matter how far left or right, to identify the actual needs and find solutions that don't involve the abuse of power. It is easier as it sounds. Most societies are (still) peaceful even when facing many (resource based) challenges.
Humans don't like to kill other humans, if they know them. If our societies would agree to include spending for peace keeping into the budget for wars (let's say half of it), I am sure (opinion!) most conflicts wouldn't result in open war.
Just imagine what would happen, if the EU would invite the whole russian youth for a summer holiday at host families within all EU countries? Would they return and confirm that "we" are all evil fascists" as the propaganda states? I doupt it. Naive, you say? Take an example from history: After WWII the French and the German decided to end the centuries long Erbfeindschaft (inheritance of being enemies). One of their measures was to establish pupil and student exchange programs. Also cultural "clubs" like brass music groups established exchange programs. It didn't matter that they were not able to speak each others language. Food, drink, music, socialising, playing games and sports together - there are many ways to interact even without a common spoken language. With todays technology even (simple) conversations are possible between "strangers" (or "aliens" as the current wording tends to frame it).
Just look at this platform: many people from many countries interact respectfully. Why? Because it is each persons decision to keep peace.
So much from me. Sorry if my contribution happend to be a bit long. May peace be with you.
> Russia was a long term ally with Ukraine, much like the USA and Canada and then out of nowhere they are in a "soft war"
First off the history between Ukraine and Russia is nothing like between USA and Canada. Russia killed millions of Ukrainians in 30's by starvation, known as "Holodomor".
Secondly Ukraine voted for independence immediately after Soviet Union collapsed.
Most egregious claim is the "soft war" one. Russia attacked to Ukraine in 2014 and started full scale war in 2022 that has led to close to two million casualties. What the f*ck is "hard war" if this is "soft war"?
- Universal Declaration of Human Rights
https://www.ohchr.org/en/human-rights/universal-declaration/...
The UN acknowledges this conflict to some extent; https://www.ohchr.org/en/conscientious-objection
And as per usual because its harmful to men no one cares.
> "Since military service under current law is based exclusively on voluntary participation, such permissions must generally be granted,” the official added.
> When asked, the ministry spokesperson pointed out that "the regulation was already in place during the Cold War and had no practical relevance; in particular, there are no penalties for violating it.”
Same for conscription laws in the Netherlands, which are also still active. They just don't ask anyone to report for conscription. It was even expanded a couple of years before the Ukraine war to also include women.
New. Not cold war. This didn't exist before.
The change this year was to make it applicable regardless of those conditions: “Outside the tension or defense case, §§ 3 [...]” shall apply.
"Tension" is defined by an imminent threat (e.g., invasion) and must be explicitly invoked by leadership. "Defense" is actual ongoing attack of territory, and must be explicitly invoked by the Bundestag.
I have used https://www.fr.de/politik/drastische-wehrpflicht-aenderung-m... to form my understanding. Can be read freely by prepending archive.is/newest/ to the URL.
Because you're not a citizen. When you become a citizen you get more rights, but also some duties.
Would you agree? I don't know your exact situation and I may assume things that are not true here.
Only volunteers can be send outside Germany, everyone else stays in Germany for defense
Just like when Ukraine did this, nobody cared. No complaints in the media at all.
They always want more women in the offices too, never in the coal mines.
really for some people the concept of equality is a transaction, when you give me is ok when is my time I'm distracted... "is all a construct" until "this is the traditional way bro come on", disgusting.
Article 20 Everyone is equal before the law.
Article 21 1. Any discrimination based on any ground such as sex, race, colour, ethnic or social origin, genetic features, language, religion or belief, political or any other opinion, membership of a national minority, property, birth, disability, age or sexual orientation shall be prohibited.
Buckle tf up.
On one side, we have X/Twitter far-right state media from the USA, and on the other, we have Telegram far-right from Moscow. Our youngest are effed, while watching the CCP's TikTok, and we choose to do nothing about it.
Meanwhile: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xqohApD6Ng8
Is there any unforced conscription? By definition conscription is compulsory.
Usually when your country is invaded you don't stay in your silicon valley privileged mindset and you go to conscription willingly
The famed German rule-following in action. This kind of routine violation of regulation is what led to Dieselgate. Social norms in places like this rarely support rule of law. There's a reason the EPA was the one which blew this wide open. Local regulators follow these norms because that's what German cultural norms are.
EU law trumps German law.
In US terms such a requirement is not “constitutional”.
Then what is the selective service?
See my other comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47653207
Fashism -> War -> Democracy —> Fashism -> War -> Democracy
Change democracy to other stable situation and we look at last few thousend years of humans on Earth.
Rulling caste uses it the same way over and over. Profiting on each change.
TBH with current tech advancements it may be the moment we really should give out freedom of our choice to a smarter being like AGI.
Humans are too stupid to decide about ourselves.
This police ordinance from 1800 was abolished in 2013
> requiring permission of the husband to work
Repealed in 1965
[1] https://old.reddit.com/r/luftablassen/comments/1s33z9v/wtf_g...
The country is already in a slow burning crisis due to the political and economic results of its demography, and a war coming to its own soil will send the walls tumbling down.
I have seen people acting really erratically just after a few hours without electrity and internet. Most people are so clueless they would quickly put their home on fire because they do not know how to safely use candles.
Also, just looking at what would happen to a large part of the population once they would run out of meds is terrifying. Heart medications, SSRI, anti psychotics. etc.
There is not gonna be a war in Europe like how WWI and II was described to us. It is gonna be far less heroic.
Here's a story from 2002 about how the supreme court there upheld the legality of a military draft:
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2002-apr-11-mn-37321...
anyway, if you refused to be drafted and did not want to go to jail, you had to more-or-less stop using any government services, rent with roommates, avoid using a credit card etc. until you've reached some age, and then you could emerge again because the duty to serve expires at that certain (not very high) age. It was cuh-razy.
Also at that time only some people had to go to the draft, because they had not the capacity to take everyone. That made it likely easy for them to let go of suboptimal candidates.
I believe jaywalking (or crossing a red light as a pedestrian) is prohibited, but you would have to do it in front of a really motivated cop (or cause an accident) to actually get a ticket for it. It is common and no one really cares - but if you were to do it in front of children or a school you will probably get disapproving looks or a somewhat stern talking to from others around you.
I think the image of the "order-loving german" is a bit of a stereotype. Some people overdo it (Calling the police for noise harassment if you still mow your lawn at 20:01), but they are generally not popular with their neighbors (or the police...)
This is not to say that the government should get blind faith, but some notions that the collective good has any value is alien to many people here.
Libertarianism is a societal disease. "Fuck you got mine".
so are you surprised?
id rather be left alone as much as possible in my pursuit of happiness. On my own terms!
It’s a common fallacy of performative US leftism that believes the world can be divided neatly into blue vs red.
To put it another way this forum skews selfish.
The change this year was to make it applicable regardless of those conditions: “Outside the tension or defense case, §§ 3 [...]” shall apply.
This is a significant change from the previous Cold War policy. I have talked about the definition of these terms in another comment, with another news article as source.
Women have no incentive to change that, and the small fraction of men powerful enough to change it can already exempt themselves from the meat grinder. The remaining men's opinions don't matter.
The ends don't justify the means. Conscription has no place in the free world. It's slavery, plain and simple. Going into the military should be an appealing career choice. Our soldiers are supposed to be highly skilled professionals, not cannon fodder in large quantities.
I was looking in Google news for other reports about this, but only found an article from Berliner Zeitung published 5 hours after this article from Frankfurter Rundschau.
I am worried about what other information which could be important to me, the news did not report on.
As far as I understood the law the article from FR is correct: https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/wehrpflg/__3.html
A functioning "fourth estate" would have reported on this *before* the law was passed.
That's one way to put it. The other would be 1 year of paid community service (which the alternative services ALWAYS were).
See also the complete version from 2008 here: https://www.bgbl.de/xaver/bgbl/text.xav?SID=&tf=xaver.compon...
This new law removed this condition and preemptively "activated" the requirement even before the Spannungsfall was declared.
legal jaywalking is by definition not possible. what is however possible and legal is crossing the street away from a marked crossing. at least in europe and in most places in the world except the united states.
"... a reasonably careful person would realize there is an immediate danger of collision with a moving vehicle or other device moving exclusively by human power"
Turns out the police were mostly stopping non-white people for it
I happen to believe it is pointless to "fight" the former, while governments/societies who put in place the latter are just hypocrites.
But hey, don't let facts and logic stop you in your crusade :)
No it's not without purpose at all. The purpose is to know who could be drafted in a timely manner should the need arise. There's currently 2 major wars - sorry "special military operations" - happening, one of which in Europe.
A certain government involved in one of these simultaneously calls for allies to assist while at the same time openly questioning half a century of military alliances. So maybe this helps to understand why regulations like this make sense - even for people who never lived through a time when there was mandatory military service and take their own security for granted.
This is very much untrue in terms of being a soldier in a high-functioning military.
Technically, you’re not wrong (at least for lighter weapons). That said, there are many more physically demanding things that are involved in doing infantry things (which is what you’re describing) other than running and pulling a trigger (and ideally hitting the target).
> or do all those technical jobs.
Depends on the job, but much more likely.
The vast majority of the jobs in the military are not infantry or infantry-type jobs, so I can see a lot more scope for drafted women who aren’t cut out for infantry doing these things.
Exactly.
The feeling of defending territory is natural and is not words
Only what constitutes the territory to defend has been warped by words.
Human food preferences are also just an idea by this standard.
A hunter gatherer tribe failing to defend its territory could result in its death just the same as not acquiring and eating appropriate food.
Not true. Patriotism is very real. It's an affection for a group of people and for the ideals of those people. To some lesser extent it's also love for the geography of your land. But patriotism is rarer in the west than it once was. Also, if a country's territory is invaded by an enemy, at least some of its people will go to fight to protect their families from the oncoming enemies.
The cold war has been over for a very long time. The whole process was reformed in 1984 by removing the mandatory oral hearing. Sources say that acceptance rate was above 90% after 1995. That's not good enough (should be 100%), but not terrible either.
For example, I don't think it's in my interest to defend or die for the German state. However, I would use violence to protect my life if someone tried to kill me or threatened my life directly. The German state would interpret this as a political objection rather than a conscientious one, since I am willing to use violence in principle. If I could convince them that I would let someone kill me without defending myself because I categorically reject violence for any reason, they might consider that a conscientious objection.
> Sources say that acceptance rate was above 90% after 1995.
Yes, as I said, after the Cold War, Germany no longer wanted to maintain such a large army, so they started accepting any reasonably well-written argument. But in any war, you can see that nation states will start struggling to recruit new soldiers as it becomes obvious to the population that it's a rather pointless endeavour to die for their state. So, they start forcing people. We've seen that in Russia, Ukraine, Israel, USA, etc.
That is a complete fantasy of yours. Political convictions are explicitly stated as a valid type of justification for conscientious objection by the Act on Conscientious Objection to Military Service. It even states the reasons do not have to be logical or objectively comprehensible, which easily covers your "I'm not opposed to all violence in all theoretically cases, but I fundamentally reject service for the German state".
This is an explanation, not a justification.
with the right level of public exposure citizens would surely have been able to put enough pressure on the government to make this happen. But instead zelensky kept repeating the talking points that we should not be concerned about the war because the risk had not changed since 2014. Near-zero effort was made to evacuate ukrainians living near the russian border or those who would be in the way of russian troops. The intelligence had been there for at least six months before the war began
> and the government was already struggling with making a law at all
what do you mean?
The modern answer would be immigration, and that’s gender-agnostic.
The need to defend might be a necessity for survival, but the desire to defend additional territory and resources has existed ever since humans have acquired the power to achieve more than the means of mere survival. Similar to food preferences, which become peculiar if there is plentitude, basic if tight, and sub-par in emergencies: during famines, sometimes people resort to eat grass to sate their feeling of hunger even though digesting it is an energetic net negative.
ps: There are 8 billion people on this planet, and I've never had any serious issues with any of them, much less a reason to start a war. Governments are always the cause of everyone's misery. Beware of yours!
And now the regime wants them to voluntarily sacrifice their lives for it.
It's not only moral and compatible with human rights in the free world, it's also far more effective.
However, if I think through what this process would look like under modern living arrangements, what would happen? Intensified serial polygamy with a massive increase in single motherhood? Full on polygamy?
Our social structures aren’t really set up to handle that. It seems like it would be so bad for society that I wouldn’t really say men are “disposable” under the current arrangement. More like they are the roof and women are the foundation, maybe.
It’s better to lose your roof than your foundation, sure, but losing your roof is still really bad. It does not really compare to, say, throwing out a paper coffee cup.
Yes in theory, no in practice for Europe.
Europe population and society collapsed 2 generations after WWII. We are literally discussing the consequences of the collapse here and now.
People also forget European societies were already starting to collapse after WWI as the consequence of a large proportion of the men population being killed or wounded.
A nation wouldn't lose anything for not having personal to do all those comfy PR, HR, "therapist", etc, etc, jobs created for modern "progressive" societies to pretend women are just as indispensable in the work place as men.
But it would be completely wrecked if there weren't enough men to build and maintain houses, habitation, do the all the heavy jobs, take care of waste, infrastructure maintenance, work on the energy industries, etc, etc, etc.
Women's lives are valuable, men's are not. This has been the case across basically all societies in human history. Losing a ton of men really doesn't matter too much - especially young, family-less men.
Losing a lot of women, though, is really really bad.
This isn't sexist, it's reality. It's the rationale for male conscription and male disposability.
Means total dependence on their husbands. If they get a divorce they have nothing.
First one is definitely true and isn’t emphasized much and tbh I feel like that demand wasn’t unreasonable. Shipping people and things and providing defense would be a lot harder to an exclave than to contiguous territory. They did seriously overreact by invading, of course, and it seems like Mr H had some serious temperamental issues.
Second one I’ve never researched enough to know if it’s true or German propaganda.
I don’t recall the Germans ever claiming that Poland was about to invade them? Maybe I missed it.
Poland never attacked any country first.
'pesky' it's quite easy the russian point of view !
- and vasac is spreading disinformation accordingly, here on HN.
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=Poland+ever+attacked+any+country+f...
(downvoted below for calling it: some nonsense propaganda ? - what it is indeed !)
https://www.ushmm.org/online/hsv/source_view.php?SourceId=42...
Of course, this is old times now, but here is the same, there is no benefit to register, and you increase your risk to die.
Don't do it.
It was suspended for the last 15 years! Surely it was easier to leave it suspended and unsuspending it is a conscious choice.
ex:
overstaying in Thailand results in a on-the-spot fine
China lately has exit checks when traveling to SEA (they try to intercept people traveling to scam centers)
This still does not prove the very general statement GP made, which doesn't align with draft reality in historical wars
Most of our ancestors did join a draft, as it was universal, be it the Napoleon wars, WW1 or WW2. This interpretation of history is highly creative I will give you that
Most armies in Europe, especially in post-Communist part of it, are nepotist corrupted structures. People go there for tax and housing benefits and early retirement. They are not even particularly fit, skilled, or trained to fight with an invader. Especially in these countries men aged 18-45 have absolutely nothing to fight for.
Yes. Nobody directly enforces the policy papers or the Declaration of Independence. That doesn’t mean they don’t have corporeal value. In part, due to being translated into laws.
war is shit on all sides and thinking one or the other suffers less because you dont like their colours is very short sighted.... i think we had enough time by now to realise it.
and dont call it cowardice if someone doesnt want to fight for a bunch of 'rich pricks' playin with their money while normal people get to die in the streets. It has never been good or normal and should never be.
To boot, many Russian men have been paid handsomely for their participation in the SMO and get to live nice lives abroad.
Isn't that reinforcing a gender stereotype? I was told we were against that kind of things around here.
> very few were able to hide
Not sure what point you are trying to make. Does that justify the law and its consequences? Does that mean people who did not register were doing something wrong or stupid?
Russians talk about further expansion too.
also check who are these refugees abroad: mostly women and children. How many will return? No one knows. Also what’s the incentive for women to return knowing there are far less options to marry?
who will be working hard jobs where men are prevalent?
what about the current generation? Who will be rebuilding the country from ruins? I’ve never seen women working in construction in ukraine
also this is cynical, your position assumes it’s either men or women, not sharing the military service duty
go learn the history and then come here to comment on the matter
This has long been the argument for a male-only draft.
One woman can make 1-2 babies every 9 months on average. It is difficult and expensive to speed that up; you can implant quadruplets and induce labor at six months, but that introduces all sorts of other problems. Sperm is much easier to obtain.
> who will be working hard jobs where men are prevalent?
Women, if too many men die in the war.
> I’ve never seen women working in construction in ukraine
This was also the case for the US in the 1940s. Women entered the workforce in large numbers for the first time. Plenty of predecent for this sort of shift.
> go learn the history and then come here to comment on the matter
As you can see from the above, this is perhaps advice you should follow first before yelling at others.
this argument is detached from ukrainian realities. Can ≠ will. Also have you checked the birth rate? Do you expect it to grow in a post-war context?
> Women, if too many men die in the war
so who will then raise these 1-2 babies every 9 months on average? If women need to replace men in the workforce, first they need to go through education and training. Along with having children, it’s incredibly hard to accomplish
> Women entered the workforce in large numbers for the first time. Plenty of precedent for this sort of shift
in the same sentence you say ‘for the first time’ and then ‘Plenty of precedent’. You either have no idea what ‘plenty’ means or you contradict yourself
the states weren’t ruined like europe was. The large numbers you are talking about are only large compared to normal historical numbers and female population percentage
also you completely ignore the cultural context, ukraine is not the states. The story of your country, which seems the only one you know, isn‘t as relevant as, for example, the history of ussr. We didn’t have a boomer generation. There are way too many differences for me to continue, so surely you are uneducated on the ussr history
> yelling at others.
yelling? Not a single exclamation point but still yelling? You have a rich imagination for sure
edit: formatting
Yes, birth rates tend to go up when wars end.
> in the same sentence you say ‘for the first time’ and then ‘Plenty of precedent’. You either have no idea what ‘plenty’ means or you contradict yourself
This is baffling.
Women entering the workforce in the 1940s due to the war is the precedent. It happened throughout the developed world. We are now eighty years past that demonstration.
> The story of your country, which seems the only one you know, isn‘t as relevant as, for example, the history of ussr. We didn’t have a boomer generation.
There was indeed a birth rate spike in the 1940s in Russia.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1038013/crude-birth-rate...
Unfortunately… Stalin.
Side note: I have dual citizenship, so I’m not sure which one of them is “the only one” I know.
It was very unpopular, lead to people fleeing the country, and was pushed out of the public eye as soon as they figured out how to forcefully volunteer people instead.
It wasn't hard to dodge; you could just refuse to take the papers pretending it's not you or get sick the very day or something like that. The system had a number and once it was reached (very quickly) no further action was necessary. The only change so far us that the employers started to follow their military tracking procedure to the letter; before that it was required but not really enforced, but now all the paperwork gets done by the book.
Some people indeed left the country but those are the kind you don't want to have your back anyway.
Forceful volunteering is pure imagination. At most it's intensive persuasion or a new way to get out of jail, but if you don't want to go, nobody will force you.
Around the Moscow elite, no. In the outer provinces, we have ample evidence of forced conscription.
Are you implying that the fact there are no common soldiers famous for liberating concentration camps, means that saving further millions that would be killed by the eventual Nazi occupation of Europe, is in vain?
To most people, these soldiers are just part of a nameless and faceless mass of flesh and meat to be utilized and expended.
Who would want that to be his destiny? Certainly not you, because you are here on HN typing and not putting your life on the line to defend innocent people in Ukraine, in Haiti, in Africa, and so on.
You don't have to be the famous astronaut to be an anonymous part of the space program and participate in doing something worthwhile like getting a man to the moon. I am having trouble understanding your all-or-nothing argument, and apparently your need for worldwide recognition for an action to have meaning.
In any case, I am sure you have done something in your life as worthwhile as the anonymous https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roddie_Edmonds
Wars are messy and have always been. Military actions are to be decided by the governments. Those who have resources are more willingly to use it, west or east.
- Iraq: 1) to expel Iraq from Kuwait, and 2) weapons (though this turned out to be mistaken) after the 9/11 attacks
- Iran: we don’t need another nuclear nation
- Syria: destroy terrorists (ISIS), enforce the red line on chemical weapons, and to protect US troops (when we attacked Iran-supported militias)
- Vietnam: to stop the spread of communism and protect neighboring nations
I can’t be like “it was self defense” if I beat somebody up because they are getting too big at the gym and they could beat me up later if I don’t beat them up first.
That doesn’t mean such a thing is never ever justified, in international relations, it just ain’t “defense”.
I guess that dogemaster2026 wanted to express this in a little bit more indirect way. :-)
Also it’s not defense. It’s national security what matters.
Prior to WW2, almost every nation called it “ministry of war.” The defense branding is a modern woke framing to appease the masses.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Armed_Forces_casualties...
Germany was also directly involved in the NATO campaign against (former) Yugoslavia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NATO_bombing_of_Yugoslavia
and finally, Germany hosts large contigents of US forces, including air forces likely involved in the current illegal war against Iran.
Then a month or two before my 18th birthday, I got a postcard saying I had been auto-registered. It was a rather disappointing denouement.
It’s the same reason there is a different legal system in the military than for everyone else.
Sometimes, you need to round up all the men and start killing folks - or everyone else dies. Such is life. Making it easy to find them is a basic operational best practice.
If it hasn’t been used in 50 years, is there some other use for the registry or the organization or why hasn’t this been cut yet?
Informally, it's put forward as one of the most successful government programs in history: it succeeds at all it's objective, comes in at or under budget, employs few people, and avoids the scope creep that kills other successful programs.
It's only shortcoming: it doesn't actually do anything.
The Selective Service auto-registers people from various data sources.
But this puts me in a weird spot: I've never actually registered. I am registered. But I did not register - which is the requirement.
There are Kafka-esque parts of the US government where this distinction could matter.
Every man who refused to go to war and has progeny living today did something more worthwhile than those young soldiers - many of them true heroes - who died in the mud or the snow without having any kids of their own.
But I'm not anti-military, rather the contrary. But it should be for those who want to fight from their own free will - like many of the most successful armies through history.
In a divorce, they typically get half of all assets, child support and alimony. Like I said, it's a terrible system, but you're also terribly misinformed.
There is a reason why so many women face poverty when they retire.
The system isn’t flawed, it’s skewed on purpose historically.
Ah yes, it's a conspiracy.
A quick google search shows you that the average is 50/50 when it comes to the division of the assets.
Why do you feel the need to lie about something so easy to verify?
Most people don’t have that many assets to live from when they (have to) retire.
Why do you feel the need to change the subject?
Try googling Pension entitlements women vs men.
Says the person who came here to derail the entire conversation.
You turned a men's issue into a dozen different women's issues (some real, some not).
EDIT: I moved in 2000. I finally took a call from the military police the day I landed in London, to gleefully tell them I'd left - the practice was that draft notices would not be delivered abroad, so moving effectively put an end to the matter. Norwegian law also required notifying the military if you left for more than 6 months, and provide evidence. I sent them a letter; they sent me one back demanding evidence. I told them the fact I'd received the letter was evidence and to stop bothering me. They did.
Basically, for the Americans who find this weird: In the countries in Europe where this is still a thing, this is a cold war holdover most places. When I was growing up air raid sirens were being tested monthly, and my primary schools' basement was a bomb shelter. It took a lot of time before things were relaxed after the fall of the Soviet Union.
When I was in Asia two years ago, as an American, every time I met a young Russian man escaping conscription, drinks were on me as appreciation to their commitment to world peace. I'm in South America now and it is being inundated with young Israeli men running like the Russians were. Nonetheless, I'm on the fence about how I feel buying them drinks.
If any claim ever required "citation needed", this one is the biggest.
I've never seen feminists fight for duties, only for privileges.
Not heard anyone fight for that once. The more pressing issues seem to he "mansplaining" and men being shirtless in the summer.
> Nonetheless, I'm on the fence about how I feel buying them drinks.
Why?
You have a group of citizens who are expected to perform military service, and another group who aren't really invested in the country and don't have to serve.
Why do we need this concept? Find a country you can be proud of, become a citizen, join its culture, and defend it when it is threatened. Don't go live somewhere or get citizenship just because it's convenient.
This seems very misinformed at least when it comes to Sweden. Upon war, everyone is obliged to defend the country. Nobody can leave unless you have a good reason.
If a woman wants to fight, that's another story entirely. But conscripting women? That's poison.
I would rather both genders get drafted than be in a Ukraine situation where millions of women leave for richer countries while I am pulled off the street to go eat FPV drones. What's even the point? Why not surrender? What am I protecting or preserving?
I would sooner die for my family and my country but I wouldn't lift a finger to save the lives of refugees/immigrants.
Why not? If the male side has "getting droned your legs off and people watching it in 4k", surely everything less than that has to be on the table for the female side. Not being able to vote physically yourself (you can still influence public opinion, eg through social media, imo a far more effective action than casting 1 vote)
The risk to feminism would be that this becomes so blatantly and obviously not true that no one can take it seriously. I don't think the continued draft of men would impact this because it's not a change to the status quo, and it isn't changing opinion in Ukraine.
Here's the main reason I think most people are going to try to avoid a draft. Politicians have destroyed Germany and its future while they enriched themselves and their rich friends, for example [1]. They have lured in a flood of migrants against the will of many natives. They have been transferring wealth of the natives to the migrants by printing money to give to the migrants, thereby generating inflation while overloading all kinds of services. Even medium-sized cities in the east of Germany are infested with unwanted, culturally incompatible, sketchy male immigrants loitering around in groups, making people feel unsafe in their own cities. These people are disproportionately more responsible for violent crime, such as knife attacks or gang rape. You could halve gang rape by throwing out certain migrant groups. Yet nothing effective has been done by the government. Recently, there was a case in a youth club in the notoriously high-immigrant Berlin district Neukölln, where a 16-year-old girl said she was raped by a Muslim male. She said this was video recorded and used by a group of boys to extort her. The Jugendamt (child protective services) was informed, which is reported to have refused to file a charge with the police "because it marginalizes the perpetrator group" and "the Muslim boys are already under enough police scrutiny".
Who wants to fight for that? There is little patriotism. The rich live lavishly off their Rheinmetall stocks, many refugees live very well from welfare and child benefits, and the immigrant criminals live off their ill-gotten gains without effective prosecution or punishment. None of those will be drafted; only the ordinary German will. Many of them are furious; the others are misinformed or uninformed. If the politicians try to draft the really angry people, the angry people might decide to pay them a visit instead.
[1] (in German) https://correctiv.org/thema/aktuelles/das-spahn-netzwerk/
The consequence is you violated the law, and they can have you at any time, even retroactively, for that.
That they don't is merely a detail. If it really has "no consequence" they should remove it.
I think it's clear that the interests of citizens and their state typically do not align. Unfortunately, most states have cultivated and propagated a different idea for decades, which is why so many people have a different perception of their state than the reality.
Instead, my 2c, should have changed it to a notice you have to send the military, at most.
NATO doctrine is basically air superiority against any invading force, with the ability to wreak destruction far behind the front lines.
Conveniently the Iran war has depleted stockpiles of almost everything.
The reality is NATO is vulnerable on two fronts.
The first is that NATO has no defences against the kind of drone and missile waves Russia has been using against Ukraine. A surprise attack could easily take out a large part of NATO's air superiority and do significant damage to arms factories.
The second is more serious - capture of the independent nuclear deterrent. The US is clearly giving up on defending Europe, the UK's deterrent is barely functional, and only France has a truly independent deterrent.
Russia has spent a lot of time and money trying to get a puppet government elected on France, along the lines of the governments in Hungary, Slovakia, and the US.
If France stops being a deterrent Russia would be able to nuke Brussels - and perhaps a few other capitals to make the point - and likely force immediate surrender.
The question is really whether Russia can hold on until the French elections next year.
Ukraine isn’t under anyone’s nuclear umbrella, but Russia hasn’t done more than threaten to use nuclear weapons in that war. Probably because it’s not at all clear that it would actually force a surrender.
First of all, there is no process yet for exactly requesting permission, secondly, the army already said they will not enforce the rule unless the Parliament declares combat readiness is necessary, and lastly, there is no punishment for not asking permission at this point in time.
And to be completely honest, if more people made use of registering for the damn ELEFAND emergency contact list, this rule wouldn’t be necessary in the first place.
So, men are kind of responsible for this themselves by being lazy.
I had to help exfil Germans in Kabul when the US decided to pull out without telling all of their partners in time.
Everyone wanted to be rescued, but you have no idea how many German idiots travel to foreign countries, not even taking five minutes to let their own government know how to reach them and where they went in case of an emergency.
It’s super fun to drive around Kabul and pick up 55 years old complaining male Germans yelling at me because I told them I transport people, not their fucking luggage. Two even sued me afterwards for leaving their expensive camera equipment behind. A dozen complaints about my behavior.
Sometimes it’s really annoying to protect the average citizen. Luckily, I understand that it is an extreme situation for them. Just like some people sue nurses after they broke their ribs reviving their dead ass.
It’s a good thing all these idiots now have to ask for permission in the future and likely need to leave the data necessary so it’s known where they are, for how long and how to reach them.
Countries do not own their citizens, citizens own their countries. Countries are a technology - albeit an old and sometimes useful technology, but a technology. This is like an iPhone requiring your permission to leave it on the counter for a day.
This idea that you're not allowed to travel without a permit is a perverse inversion of reality. People are not property and the idea that a "country" can feed human beings into one meat-grinder or another at will in order to preserve itself is the very thing that the AI safety people are panicked about. It's the paperclip maximizer, but instead of making paperclips it tries to grow and expand it's influence into all aspects of the human experience. Increasingly this disgusts me at a cellular level.
It distresses me a bit.
The last time Germany had that much of a majority, it was under Bundeskanzler Kohl and Schroeder if I remember correctly. So like ~25 years ago.
Bundestag seats (from 2002 onwards):
2002 (15): https://www.nls.niedersachsen.de/html/pressemitteilungen1.ht...
2005 (16): https://www.nls.niedersachsen.de/html/presse_lwl_bw2005.html
2008 (17): https://www.bundestag.de/parlament/plenum/sitzverteilung17-2...
2013 (18): https://www.bundestag.de/webarchiv/textarchiv/2013/sitzvert_...
2017 (19): https://www.bundestag.de/278118-278118
2020 (20): https://web.archive.org/web/20211102103524/https://www.bunde... (couldn't find an article on the Bundestag website, got deleted. Web archive version is a little broken)
2025 (21): https://www.bundestag.de/parlament/plenum/sitzverteilung
This is not true. After the last election the old parliament made a deal to change the grundgesetz with 2/3rd majority to allow the new parliament to take more debt.
> (3) Außerhalb des Spannungs- oder Verteidigungsfalls gelten die §§ 3, 8a bis 20b, 25, 32 bis 35, 44 und 45.
The quotes very much read to me like someone realizing what the change of Paragraph 2 means to Paragraph 3 means in real time and having to figure out what to answer to journalists.
I’m curious how that would work administratively though - would they require you to have that when trying to do Ausmeldung? And what about those who moved out before this law got changed?
Technically, do I need to go Bundeswehr office when I come back next time, to get the permission?
I _want_ to believe if this was a deliberate change that someone cared about; we wouldn’t be having this discussion right now because there would be clear answers to the very obvious questions here, but maybe my hope is misplaced.
So if german consitution sayed, starting in cold war era, what this law states, then the newer joining into EU made a new law, bringing freizügigkeit ("feedom of movement") to superseed even our Grundgesetz.
Otherwise everyone with good education will leave.
Oh the uproar.
For decades they have alienated their own native population, especially men. And now they want to conscript them as their approval ratings are around 15℅.
Think about it, Trump approval rating fell sharply but is still at about 40%. Merz is at 15% and most of those 15% are probably boomers in a nursing home. He is probably closer to 0% within the demographic he is trying to conscript.
The only war you're gonna get in Europe is a civil war.
In particular concerning the military conscription (laws), there exists a cross-generational opposition to these.
I just post two famous songs concerning this topic (if you know German):
Franz Josef Degenhardt - Befragung eines Kriegsdienstverweigerers [40 Interrogation of a conscientious objector] (1972)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDTtMTcj8X0
--
Reinhard Mey - Nein, meine Söhne geb' ich nicht (1986)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e0qPsYTBCtQ
Reinhard Mey & Freunde [Reinhard Mey & friends] - Nein, meine Söhne geb' ich nicht [No, I won't give my sons] (new recording; 2020)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1q-Ga3myTP4
See also https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nein,_meine_S%C3%B6hne_geb%E2%...
To be fair going against the demographic where you have a 0% approval rate does not lose you much.
why only locals, but no migrants?
Even if they are included, they wouldn't join up.
More British Muslims joined ISIS than the British military. <https://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/19/magazine/her-majestys-jih...>
Almost like by design.
Oh yeah and the obvious discrimination. If you change your gender on paper now you probably won't be affected, but you will be affected if you change it short-term.
> (2) Männliche Personen haben nach Vollendung des 17. Lebensjahres eine Genehmigung des zuständigen Karrierecenters der Bundeswehr einzuholen, wenn sie die Bundesrepublik Deutschland länger als drei Monate verlassen wollen, ohne dass die Voraussetzungen des § 1 Absatz 2 bereits vorliegen. Das Gleiche gilt, wenn sie über einen genehmigten Zeitraum hinaus außerhalb der Bundesrepublik Deutschland verbleiben wollen oder einen nicht genehmigungspflichtigen Aufenthalt außerhalb der Bundesrepublik Deutschland über drei Monate ausdehnen wollen. Die Genehmigung ist für den Zeitraum zu erteilen, in dem die männliche Person für eine Einberufung zum Wehrdienst nicht heransteht. Über diesen Zeitraum hinaus ist sie zu erteilen, soweit die Versagung für die männliche Person eine besondere – im Bereitschafts-, Spannungs- oder Verteidigungsfall eine unzumutbare – Härte bedeuten würde; § 12 Absatz 6 ist entsprechend anzuwenden. Das Bundesministerium der Verteidigung kann Ausnahmen von der Genehmigungspflicht zulassen.
See: https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/wehrpflg/__3.html
This was not changed.
The article 3 of the Wehrpflichtgesetzes was previously only active in a war or close to war situation (Spannungs- oder Verteidigungsfall). Article 2 said this before:
> § 2 Geltung der folgenden Vorschriften
> Die §§ 3 bis 53 gelten im Spannungs- oder Verteidigungsfall.
See: https://github.com/bundestag/gesetze/blob/master/w/wehrpflg/...
Now it says this:
> § 2 Anwendung dieses Gesetzes
> (1) Die nachfolgenden Vorschriften gelten nach Maßgabe der folgenden Absätze.
> (2) Die §§ 3 bis 52 gelten im Spannungs- oder Verteidigungsfall.
> (3) Außerhalb des Spannungs- oder Verteidigungsfalls gelten die §§ 3, 8a bis 20b, 25, 32 bis 35, 44 und 45.
> (4) Die §§ 15a und 16 sind nur auf Betroffene anzuwenden, die nach dem 31. Dezember 2007 geboren sind. Satz 1 gilt nicht im Spannungs- oder Verteidigungsfall.
See: https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/wehrpflg/__2.html
This law changed it: https://www.recht.bund.de/bgbl/1/2025/370/VO
Is the a up to date git repository with all German law changes? The one I found was last updated 4 years ago.
Edit: actually, we'll merge them hither instead of thither since current article is in English.
(We have deep respect for other languages, but HN has always been an English-language site - https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...)
At this moment, changing the constitution is not possible, there is no majority for this. So that pretty much took the option to change the broader parameters out of the discussion entirely.
It's always weird to me how surprised women are that every single man they know has had to specifically, actually physically ink paper to sign up for the draft. It definitely feels weird/spooky when you do it, given the implications and that despite being compulsory it's not automatically done for you.
I though it was weird that the United States had a requirement for people to physically sign a paper to do it. It looks like only this year they made it automated.
> Beginning on December 18, 2026, the Selective Service System will be required to identify, locate, and register all male (as assigned at birth) U.S. residents 18 to 26 years old on the basis of other existing federal databases. Men will no longer be required to register themselves or be subject to penalties for failing to do so. This was noted to be the most significant change to Selective Service since the self-registration system began in 1980.
Specially article 12a Paragraph 4: https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/englisch_gg/englisch_gg.h...
Specifically it says:
If, during a state of defence, the need for civilian services in the civilian health system or in stationary military hospitals cannot be met on a voluntary basis, women between the age of eighteen and fifty-five may be called upon to render such services by or pursuant to a law. Under no circumstances may they be required to render service involving the use of arms.
The intersection of parties wanting to reinstate compulsory military service and parties supporting gender equality doesn't currently have the necessary supermajority to change the constitution. So we get a wishy-washy compromise, as is so often the case in democracies.
Women in the civil service, law enforcement agencies, or those registered in the military and serving under contract may face restrictions on traveling abroad, particularly for non-official purposes.
Look at $$4. https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/gg/art_12a.html
You could of course require women to register, too. In case of war, they'll be drafted into hospitals. They just don't want to.
In the military context, almost every job must be performed in the field or in the absence of (working) machinery. You still must be capable of carrying the equipment load-out for your role on your back. The inability of women as a class to do this effectively has been a longstanding issue. Everyone is at risk of being thrust into combat situations due to circumstances beyond anyone's control. The "rear echelon" can suddenly find themselves no longer in the rear.
All of which is separate from the question of the use of conscription generally.
In the US there is a separate gender-agnostic authority that allows the US to impress someone into non-military service for (IIRC) 6 months.
The registered gender is the one that counts.
The actual answer is because the constitutional instrument that allows conscription (Artikel 12a Grundgesetz) is explicitly limited to men. Therefore women are not subject to conscription in Germany, unless the constitution is changed.
Perhaps if the constitution were written today instead of in 1949 it would include women too.
In addition to the legal point regarding the constitution: A lot less people in those roles you listed, die. The compulsion is necessary for the state to get enough people to go die - or at least, seriously risk their lives - for it on the battlefield.
And the answer is that women are equal to men in all things, except when things get serious, and then all of a sudden biology matters again
1) Women can have children, and after a major war a large section of the population may be killed, and its better to have more women than men, since you can repopulate faster.
2) Women take over a large share of industrial labor during wartime. This was a mistake the Germans made in WW2, because they were so mystified by Nazism. But in the US, women basically took over all the manufacturing jobs that men left when they went to war, and it helped shore up the industrial base and, in the end, helped lead to an allied victory.
In a place like Israel, there are so few people that it doesn't make a massive difference. If half the men get taken out, its not like the 2-3 million remaining women are going to be able or even want to "repopulate" so rapidly (not to mention that Israel has an interesting setup where a small section of the women make up the majority of the births--the ultra-orthodox--and the majority probably aren't having kids anyway).
Factor #2 is no longer true, nowadays more and more stuff is being produced by machines. Moreover women can pick up guns. Drones can be piloted. Lethality is only going to go up.
No one sane would want to go fight in a war where lethality is high. Nor train for something that requires looming, recurring obligations for a good 10-20 years of their life. This is real sacrifce. If you want respect, at some point you have to put skin in the game.
This is Europe. Women won't have more children, they'll just vote to import another 10 million MENA migrants.
>Women take over a large share of industrial labor during wartime.
This is Europe. Women won't take over a large share of industrial labor, they'll just vote to import another 10 million MENA migrants.
Oh and they've added a very political clause: the government can activate conscription WITHOUT a parliament vote. So most political parties who have voted in favor of conscription want to be able to claim "it wasn't us, it was Merz" (ie. CDU). In reality CSU and SPD have voted to effectively conscript German men between 18 and 45.
In other words, Germany expects to be in open war in a matter of months to years. Like every country before them they've decided young men are cheaper than actually investing in military equipment (they're investing in military equipment, but they just won't have it in that time period)
This probably means that if you can get out, get out, because it's not like being 46 years old will protect you from the impact of that, and yes it's not clear what the timing is going to be, and they're not being very forward about what the reason is for conscription.
So that's why 45. Because the existing conscription law (1954 + 2025) allows for conscripting every German male between 18 and 45.
But the US, for all its militarism, and all its military adventures, has not used the draft since Vietnam.
So I would say that Germany sees the need to be in a position where it can respond quickly if they need it. Well, given current events in their neighborhood, I can see their point. In fact, I would say that they are probably at least three years late in doing this.
Also the main reason russia is still slowly gaining land in Ukraine is because there are not enough people to man the frontline.
Cynically speaking: the people making those laws probably don't want to be impacted by it. And Germany is effectively a gerontocracy.
CDU are losing popularity if we are to believe press, so that is one of the populist ways to boost some numbers for elections.
A friend from the US sent the link to this thread to me, asking about it.
The source website has no ability to be switched to English language, so all information my friend got was from the headline, which without context was misleading for him. If it was clear people wouldn’t ask German-speaking friends to explain this to them, don’t you think?
And if we are really precise, right now German men don’t need to request permission, because there is neither a process nor any paperwork in place to request permission.
Without being able to see and understand the context, the headline on its own is misleading in my opinion.
Just do an experiment for yourself.
Take the original transcript from any trump speech during the Iran war and put it in a German translator. You will understand it’s about the Iran war but you will be surprised how insane those speeches sound if you are not able to understand English and rely on Google Translate to understand the context.
Previously this article 3 was only active in the "Spannungs- oder Verteidigungsfall" which the Parliament has to declare. The law was extended with: "Außerhalb des Spannungs- oder Verteidigungsfalls gelten die §§ 3, 8a bis 20b, 25, 32 bis 35, 44 und 45." so this article is always active now.
Also: Our law only knowns in this regard only knows either peace and wartime, but no in-between state of state financed propaganda or partisan/guerilla warfare that could already be our current status quo.
Propaganda of course is very legitimate in peace times. Digital attacks might always be criminal action or plausibly deniable. Recruiting civilians happens by both e.g. Russian Federation for sabotage and Ukraine for printing missile, drone or mine parts, see drukarmy. But when one group of allies and another state behave the current way, "Spannungsfall" might be reached easily when policy makers declare that has now happened once again after the fall of the eastern block wall.
I grew up in the Middle East and I can tell that cultural differences and values were more smooth and compatible than what I saw in Germany. Conscription requires a degree of trust in the people you give guns to and expect to fight on your side in case it is needed, that is mostly not true with immigrants in all times and all countries.
More British Muslims joined ISIS than the British military. <https://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/19/magazine/her-majestys-jih...>
Some countries may conscript non-citizens or allow them to serve voluntarily. Often because they are more likely to use the military as an extension of foreign policy rather than for defense. Others may see it a waste of effort, as those people are probably not sufficiently committed to the continued existence of the country.
I don't know why immigration is brought up in this conversation at all.
There is a reason why Elisabeth Selbert, Helene Weber, Frieda Nadig, and Helene Wessel had to fight in the Parliamentary Council of 1948–49 to add the phrase “Men and women have equal rights” to the constitution despite initial resistance.
It took another decade before women could have bank account or a job with their husbands' permission.
It took until 1997 before martial rape was a officially a crime.
And even now where we have an alleged case of fake porn and identity theft by the husband of famous woman, is the first reaction of the CDU deflection: We can’t discuss violence against women with considering the image of women in Islam.
What a bunch of nonsense. These are distinct problems that can easily handled separately.
But it’s always the same pattern, the scapegoats are either poor, jobless or migrants but don’t ever touch the real problems.
These days it’s only social-media driven culture war of hateful men that blame all the problems of the world to women vs hateful women that blame all the problems of the world to men.
The way out is not “manosphere” or “feminism” but understand that 1) we are different despite the claims to the contrary and 2) all are deserving of respect and we need both to have a healthy society.
We won’t get there with DEI initiatives, female quotas and remaking movies with a ‘diverse’ cast, that’s just posturing and stoking the growing fires of culture war to the benefit of social media operators.
I agree with you, and I think a lot of the west's issues with immigration stem from not demanding this of immigrants past and present.
But the left isn't engaging with this conversation, and the right are just making hay with the fact that 'immigration isn't working'.
So yes I agree, but that isn't the conversation anyone else is having.
Do you agree that women and men should serve equally in front line combat?
I'm more thinking about leaving asap.
The U.S. Army is the permanent, professional standing land force (Regular Army, Reserves, National Guard),
while the Army of the United States (AUS) was a temporary, authorized component used primarily during major wars to rapidly expand forces through draftees and volunteers.
In front of a blood-stained chessboard littered with mutilated chess pieces finely dine two royal couples - black and white - cheering their endgame.
To clarify: every young person regardless of gender is legally obliged to go through fitness testing for conscription and if deemed suitable must go through it if selected. I imagine it’s roughly similar in Denmark?
Up until the fall of the USSR ~all men did go through conscription/basic military training. After the fall only the ones that wanted to and were selected did. Now it’s ramping up massively.
I thought it was obvious with the second paragraph
I am against all conscription on principle but I know why militaries made the pragmatic choice to selectively target men even if I don’t agree with it. These things have been studied to death, been put into practice by many countries, and the solutions are all quite bad in their own way.
Strict gender-blind standards drives strong gender segregation by role which in practice produced adverse second-order consequences. Also political blowback in a number of countries because the roles most women could qualified for in practice were perceived as lower status. Unequal standards create a whole raft of other social and operational problems.
To put it another way, all of these problems exist even in the absence of conscription.
This is false, overwhelmingly MALES. For a time, males couldn't leave Ukraine, while females could. Those who go to die on the front in all wars are mostly males. Doesn't mean that females aren't casualties as well, they are.
https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/englisch_gg/englisch_gg.h...
So that article can in theory be used to conscript any man, citizen or not, living in Germany or not.
The Wehrpflichtgesetz, which is a simple law and requires just the 50% Bundestag majority to have it changed, refines this very wide constitutional power in article 1, to require men who hold German citizenship above 18.
https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/wehrpflg/BJNR006510956.ht...
Article 3 refines it even further to folks below 45 or 60, depending on the severity of the situation.
But yes, in theory it can be changed to include any non-German citizen man, people aged 80, living inside of Germany since a while or never having been to Germany ever, or just random men who happen to change flights at FRA.
The thing is that when you have a huge non-citizen percentage of the population that is actively drawing taxpayer money out of the state to the point where the social welfare system is beginning to break down, and you have the working citizens of the country being taxed at 50% or more to support that during an escalating global cost of living crisis, you have effectively destroyed the social contract around citizenship that permits this system to function. For the massive aged population that's drawing retiree benefits, there's at least the justification that they paid into the system during their lifetime, even if the equation that makes the retirement system work increasingly doesn't work anymore.
Now the young people are being told to go die to keep that system alive. I wouldn't be surprised if most don't.
> Why not surrender? Surrendering is not always practicable. You will get killed if you're a liability to your captors.
> What am I protecting or preserving? That's really only yours, and yours alone, to consider.
Any ruler wants active units of production (humans extracting money or gold or food), and for that it has to bring some sort of stable life environment and not be too greedy so people don't try to revolt.
Whether you get such through political negotiation before or after a war, or through a vote, or through a revolution, is the same as the end.
Definitely going to have to disagree there.
And no, Germany does not allow retroactive criminal punishments. That’s more something that happens in Russia, China and probably soon America
But at least it seems they didn't go for the easy solutions that is mass immigration, so hopefully their children's "seats" won't be taken when they finally wake up.
On the other hand, as someone living in Central Europe, it's obvious our society is heading towards a radical change. I don't know what will happen, but I don't recall ever reading about a indigenous population becoming a minority being a good thing for them.
Let's start with an easy one: Will Germany be ready (war is more than cheap bodies, after all, equipment, plans, ...)? No, they won't. They've never been ready before.
Will the US help? That was a given even just 1 year ago, but now is strongly in doubt.
What will Germany's reaction be to the European states that just don't help?
What will happen to world trade? The question is who will save it, because the historical answer was of course US.
>Will the US help? That was a given even just 1 year ago, but now is strongly in doubt. With the current commander in chief, the US will do nothing except talk a lot of nonsense contradicting itself daily.
>What will happen to world trade?. World trade as we know it is done. National security interests will force strategic industries to be on-shored. New trade deals will only be made with a short list of trustworthy allies.
If Russia does attack, the US will take 1+ years to ramp up and we will take a long time before we reach Europe in large numbers. The rapid reaction forces we have are not prepared for the new way of fighting we see in Ukraine.
I trust humans. I don’t trust machines. You do you.
Thank you for the exchange and pointing out my inaccuracy. I will try to do better next time.
Have a good day and enjoy your Easter holidays if you’re Christian.
Wouldn’t you do that to protect your family and your home, now and into generations? I think I know the answer.
- Iraq (Gulf War): 75-80%
- Iraq (2003): 65-76%
- Syria: 35-50%
- Vietnam: 65-75%
- Iran: 42%
Alexander Hamilton wrote that governance should involve people with “wisdom to discern” and “virtue to pursue the common good”. The US is not a direct democracy; it is a constitutional republic. The definition of what constitutes American interests is literally whatever the United States federal government says it is.
SOURCES:
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_War
- https://news.gallup.com/poll/8212/only-americans-believe-war...
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/US_domestic_reactions_to_the_2...
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opposition_to_United_States_in...
- https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2026/04/01/iran-war-...
With your logic, Russia is also acting in a defensive manner.
Russia absolutely has reason to not want Ukraine to join NATO. I'm not condoning the invasion, but I say it absolutely makes sense for Russia to carry it out. Not a reason to commit war crimes, or to cause any more suffering than necessary, but from a national security perspective it makes sense to want to disrupt the process of Ukraine joining NATO.
A former Russian foreign minister has labeled NATO "free-of-charge security" for Russia, because NATO membership requirements turn a country into a stable and predictable place. The best neighbors Russia has are in NATO, and much of that stability is directly attributable to their membership.
It's not the case with 1 woman and 20 men.
Or we could embrace equality and send 25 men and 25 women, leaving behind 25 of each to do whatever they want.
Women need to pull their weight. And since they aren't doing that from the evolutional POV, neither in practice (birth crisis) nor in theory (not like giving birth is a legal duty, unlike a draft), then they can at least be useful for a society as a cannon fodder. The more women start pulling their weight and contribute, the less weight there will be for men to pull. What not to love about this equality!
If you don't expect males to voluntarily sacrifice and die for the country, why would you expect women to suffer nine months of body horror (provocatively stated) and expend multiple years of full-time care to raise children?
> And since they aren't doing that from the evolutional POV, neither in practice (birth crisis) nor in theory (not like giving birth is a legal duty, unlike a draft), then they can at least be useful for a society as a cannon fodder.
Women already contribute to society by being in the work force. If you think that's not enough, then you should probably think about rewarding them for doing something else.
Are you really for equality? Did you support women in this for the last couple of decades? Please be honest.
No, it's equality.
Taken to its logical conclusion, you cannot have gender equality without either making the draft cover everyone or abolishing it entirely.
The fact that women losing their lives is so much larger a risk for the nation only serves to test the resolve of those people claiming to want gender equality, but this is not the only time you'll find a conflict between idealism and reality, even within the scope of gender equality.
But young men maybe dying after being forced to fight against their will? Completely fine.
It's honestly just very telling how in modern Western egalitarianism, gender essentialism is factually wrong and evil unless we're explaining why men need to die for their country.
Footnote: But not necessarily felt to be correctly labeled men, ever in life.
It wasn't until the scam of 'democracy' fooled people into thinking war was against the actual people of the other country that they not only scammed everyone into having such buy-in and stakes for the war but also to view the other countrymen themselves as the enemy. People started viewing the nation of themselves because their laughable miniscule influence of their vote somehow means the government is of them. (Note this was a resurface of course, there were times in history where war was seen as against a peoples rather than of the elite).
I’m assuming non military casualties were evenly spread between male and female.
3.7 million served in the Army, which is a fairly high proportion when compared to the age range suitable for military service. Add in the Navy and RAF and you get to nearly six million. Those that didn’t serve were generally needed at home - roles like doctors, miners, police, or were too young or too old to fight.
The British, unlike many European countries, had time to mobilise those forces. Had they lost the Battle of Britain and had Germany commenced a land invasion of Britain then it’s likely the numbers would have been a lot lower.
Cold comfort. Just decide to not be of Jewish descent then. Who would have known it's so easy to escape the attention of the Gestapo! /s
Of course, at the beginning of every war, some people genuinely believe that joining and defending the nation they live in is in their best interests, but these numbers quickly drop over time. As history and current events show, states start to use forced conscription in every prolonged war at some point.
It probably makes more sense to ban birth control at the same time men are required to die for the war machine as both would then be playing out their slavery-induced biological role in ensuring survival of the nation. That is if you're down with the whole slavery for war thing.
How so? Why isn't the question 'Why is anyone being forced at all?' Their question assumes that someone has to be forced, which I fundamentally disagree with, so they should justify that assumption first.
> And the answer is that women are equal to men in all things, except when things get serious, and then all of a sudden biology matters again
Correct. They are equal, so I don't think either men or women should be forced.
Fixed that for you.
When things get existential, the jobs favored by men multiply and the jobs favored by women decrease. And nowhere more than in countries and societies which are highly feminist and supportive of women, which seems counterintuitive but isn't.
If you all agree to refuse to fight, you win.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner%27s_dilemma
The key here is to refuse fighting. Nobody becomes a hero by becoming a murderer whose goal is to defend the political power of Stalin, Napoleon, Bush, or whoever.
Such was the way in the old times. At the same time when women were taking their own feminine role and were giving birth.
But this does not apply anymore. Check the population pyramids for various countries. Having a lot of young men that need their energy to be put somewhere is not a problem in modern Western societies.
My morals are not that hard to understand.
This is not an argument, neither from theoretical nor practical point of view. This is akin to saying "Yeah, you want a universal health care for everyone, but I want everybody to be so rich that they can buy any insurance and bear any sudden health-costs". Not an argument, is it.
The reality is the way it is. Wars are always going to be fought and no amount of toxic peace wishing will change that.
If anything, adding women to the equation would:
1. make the force stronger. Therefore, a higher probability of not being attacked, and a higher probability of dominating the enemy (thus decreasing the total amount of victims).
2. make the political decisions to start wars much harder (in a good way).
This is exactly the reason why I am against the current American fight-for-money military and am for compulsory army service (like Finland), and for both sexes at that.
> If you don't expect males to voluntarily sacrifice and die for the country, why would you expect women to suffer nine months of body horror (provocatively stated) and expend multiple years of full-time care to raise children?
That's my point exactly. If women are not doing their evolutionary job, why should men? There can only be 2 possible solutions:
1. no sex has any sex-specific obligations (be it giving birth or going to war)
2. or impose similar sex-specific obligations to both sexes.
Men already contribute to society by being in the work force (and do a much more important foundational work than women), and it is unfair to impose additional unilateral sexist obligations on only one sex.
However, the matter has been heard in the European Court of Justice in 2002, and the short version is "Community law does not preclude compulsory military service being reserved to men."
For more details, feel free to study the legal opinion behind the ruling: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CEL...
In practice, this draft is not a real draft yet. Nobody is actually drafted, so there are almost no practical consequences. If there was an actual draft, I'd expect to see a challenge to this.
Yeah, the law is unjust but spare even this part of the population this unnecessary risk. It's not like they can't join if they want to but why put force on it? So everybody feels miserable? What's the point?
And yeah, ich habe treu und tapfer verteidigt...
COVID-19 has proven that if anything, the European Union tends to spread national initiatives among other countries (and Germany is often a leader in EU).
In this specific case, the EU is more likely to be the type of organization that would think about how to create a unified permit
-> as they did with the EU Digital COVID certificate; some sort of "I am in the register of mobilization" / "have a temporary travel authorization".
So, EU might be an enemy that pretends to be your friend there.
Yes, there is the common security and defence policy, and the Article 42 of Lisbon and all that, but it all still relies on national systems.
> 18 April 1951 – European Coal and Steel Community
> Based on the Schuman plan, six countries sign a treaty to run their coal and steel industries under a common management. In this way, no single country can make the weapons of war to turn against others, as in the past. The six are Germany, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg. The European Coal and Steel Community comes into being in 1952.
https://european-union.europa.eu/principles-countries-histor...
Why wouldn’t a unified permit to prove you registered for mobilization be relevant to what the EU is for?
There is a new military Schengen project to make troops and unified military documentation across whole EU.
Obviously there will need to be a registry of personnel there, so these people can be prevented to leave.
On the side you have SIS Schengen, where you can (already) have an active arrest warrant for desertion.
Nothing indicates that European Union is going to fight against such registries. It's even the opposite.
Defence and the military is a sovereign matter that has nothing to do with the EU... except we are seeing that this is changing without democratic national mandates.
This is the EU describing its own history and beginnings.
I can only repeat that defence is a sovereign matter in which the EU has no power, but there is a trend of changing this by making it happen as "fait accompli", especially since the war in Ukraine, which is used as pretext.