Latvia joins ‘other European countries where conscription is already mandatory including Austria, Belarus, Cyprus, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Greece, Lithuania, Moldova, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey and Ukraine. ‘
https://metro.co.uk/2024/02/07/latvia-introduces-compulsory-conscription-men-aged-18-27-20236904/
The UK had mandatory conscription in WW1 and WW2 after which National Service was in force until 1960.
It is reported that, ‘Britain and other NATO allies should consider conscripting citizens into the military to counter the supposed threat from Russia, the Latvian foreign minister told The Telegraph.
Latvia re-introduced compulsory military service earlier this year, in response to the Russia-Ukraine conflict, as Riga strives to increase the size of its “active and ready reserve.” The updated rules oblige all male Latvian citizens aged 18 to 27 to complete one year of service, including those living abroad.
When asked whether the UK and other countries should follow suit, Krisjanis Karins said: “We would strongly recommend this. We are developing and fleshing out a system of what we call a total defence involving all parts of civil society.”
The Latvian diplomat also urged London to raise its defence spending to 3% of gross domestic product, describing the move as “inevitable.”
NATO countries should consider a “total defence” model in which large numbers of citizen-soldiers could be potentially called up at short notice, according to the minister.
Latvia has borrowed elements from the Finnish conscription system, which “could be a very good model for many of us,” Karins said, adding that Finland has a small standing army, “but a very large, very well-trained” war-time reserve “so they can easily call up a 250,000 trained military”.
In January, the UK Chief of the General Staff, Patrick Sanders, called for “training and equipping” civilians for a potential call-up in the event of a direct conflict with Russia. However, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak insisted that there are no plans to introduce conscription.
Britain’s army, navy, and air force had 184,865 active-duty personnel as of late 2023, the lowest figure since the end of the Napoleonic wars. The army has seen its headcount shrink from more than 100,000 in 2010 to 75,983 at the end of last year.
Latvia has been on the frontline of the West’s confrontation with Moscow along with Estonia and Lithuania since the launch of Russia’s military operation in Ukraine. The former Soviet republic, whicho shares a 284-kilometre border with Russia, joined the EU and NATO in 2004, and abolished conscription in 2006.’
Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose !
The following comes from the Socialist Standard, December 1912.
‘The
question as to whether or not conscription will, in the near future,
become a necessity, appears to be once again very much “in the
air." Lord
Roberts
in the course of a recent speech, during which he implied the
failure, and foreshadowed the disintegration, of the Territorial
force, advocated more strenuously than ever his pet notion of
universal military service. In this advocacy he is, of course, acting
quite logically —more logically, indeed, than those “lovers of
peace” (chiefly to be found among the Liberals and Labourists) who,
while upholding and using all their efforts to maintain the present
capitalist social system, at the same time deprecate what is, in
reality, quite in accordance, morally and politically, with the
development of capitalism.
Professor Edward Jenks, in his
"Short History of Politics,” points out that the principle
which binds together modern social groups is military allegiance. He
continues
“In the States which practice conscription, or universal military service, this is very obvious. The most heinous political offence which a Frenchman or German can commit, is attempting to evade military service; or, possibly worse, taking part in military service against his own country. But even in Great Britain, where conscription is not practised, the tie is really the same. It is unquestionable that the Queen,” (this was written in 1900) “through her Ministers, has the right, in case of necessity, to call upon every one of her male subjects to render personal military service; and any British subject, captured fighting against his country, would be liable to suffer death as a traitor.”
To
put the matter clearly, the social group known as capitalist society
is bound together by the tie of military allegiance. Capitalist
society exists, and is allowed to exist, by the will of the majority
of the units of which it is composed. Therefore such units should be
prepared to do their share in the maintenance of the tie which binds
the system together, seeing that they are in favour of the capitalist
system of society.
But to those who happen to loathe
capitalism, and all its insane and unhealthy institutions, and whose
aim is to hasten its downfall in order to raise in its stead what
they consider a rational, sane, and healthy system to the Socialist,
in fact — the whole question takes another aspect.
The
Socialist will ask himself : “What is conscription to me and my
class? Will it benefit me or the class to which I belong ? ”
To a man such as Lord Roberts, who has managed to make a fortune and win a title through professional soldiering, military service will, of course, seem all that is desirable. But what the devil is the poor drudge of capitalism, the wage slave, to get out of it? A fortune and a title? Hardly! At what should be the best portion of his life — his early manhood — he would be taken, numbered like a convict or a beast of burden at a cattle show, herded with his fellow beasts in compounds, trained and drilled and bullied and brow-beaten, taught to walk upright and to handle a rifle, taught to shoot sufficiently straight to kill and maim certain of his fellows (whom he has never seen before and with whom he has no quarrel), coming out of the Army at the end of his term with all the virtues of an efficient, non-thinking, non-questioning wage-slave, with all the initiative and all the self-confidence knocked out of him. Truly a delightful prospect!
Lord Roberts and his co-agitators talk glibly of patriotism, of the duty of defending the Empire, of the glory to be obtained in resisting the encroachments of Germany. Let these people who talk so much about patriotism and duty and glory show, however, how the British working man would be any worse off under the rule of William of Germany than he is under George of England (even admitting the almost unthinkable possibility of a German occupation of Great Britain).
As the average member of the working class has no property to defend, no country to call his own, no prospect of ever being in a better position under capitalism than he is in now, why should he fight to maintain the rights of those who have property, who have a stake in the country, who are in a position of opulence?
It is significant to notice how, not only at the present day, but in all history and through all literature, it is always the man who has something to maintain, something to defend, who talks about duty and patriotism, about the honour of the country and the glories of the Empire. Having nothing, what necessity is there for us to fight in order to defend that nothing?
Still, as aforesaid, if the people of Great Britain are so much in love with capitalism, so desirous of upholding the institutions of modern society, it is their obvious duty to defend their little corner of capitalism with all their strength.
We, as Socialists, for our part, are not particularly concerned with conscription one way or the other, except in its aspect as being a phase of capitalist development. With the downfall of capitalism will fall all the institutions of capitalism — militarism included. Instead of wanting to be trained and drilled so that at the word of command we may slaughter and maim certain of our fellows, against whom we have no cause for animosity and who are all in the same social condition of life as we are, we are training and drilling ourselves to be ready for the time when the workers of the world will unite in establishing a sane, healthy, and joyous system of society the system we know as Socialism. Our object is not to destroy life, but to raise it to a plane where it shall have free play for all its activities. Which is the better ideal, ours or the militarists’ ?
When the question is considered, one feels almost sorry for such men as Lord Roberts, whose only aim in life seems to be the organisation of a universal army of professional murderers. What a glorious ideal of what noble human beings! And what a heaven sent system that breeds such men and such ideals!’
F. J. Webb
https://socialiststandardmyspace.blogspot.com/2017/11/conscription-1912.html
No comments:
Post a Comment