The 2014 occupation of Crimea woke Sweden up—but so did basic math. In Sweden’s wealthy, highly individualistic society, voluntary military service held scant appeal. An experiment with part-time professional soldiers was a failure. The military shrank rapidly: By 2013, only 579 recruits completed the full 11 months of initial entry training. On Jan. 1, 2018, Sweden pulled the plug on its failed policy and restored mandatory military service.
Unlike the Cold War system, however, Swedish conscription is now both selective and gender neutral. A hundred thousand 18-year-olds are screened for service annually, but only about 5 percent of this cohort serves. Sweden aims to double this number by 2030. Roughly 10 percent of those serving do so unwillingly, with jail the alternative.
Selective conscription, stiffened and led by a small professional force, potentially offers armies the best of both worlds. Since the military needs only a small fraction of every cohort, it can afford to be very picky—standards are higher in Sweden’s post-2018 force than they were before 2010.
As in any society, this exclusivity functions as a signaling device: Educational and corporate leaders know that successful conscript service marks a young Swede as being in the top of his or her peer group—doubly so for the small portion of conscripts selected for additional training and longer service as junior officers.As in any competent conscription system, Swedish national service has two major advantages beyond the basic manning of the military: talent acquisition and expansion of reserves. On the front end, Sweden can screen all young people in the nation, select the most promising for military service, and then attempt to induce the best to stay on for a military career.
https://foreignpolicy.com/2024/03/15/sweden-nato-military-conscription-model-def...Other smart countries with (selective) conscription: Denmark, Norway, Finland, Switzerland, Israel, Austria and a few others.
It is a good idea if it is done smartly.
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