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Re Kenneth Morgan's posting, it's noteworthy that many of the countries in Western Europe that have retained universal military conscription have not actually been involved in any wars since 1945. Conscription was abandoned in Britain in the mid-1950s despite the forces being involved in a wide range of wars against nationalist movements in the former empire. A regular army was seen as more reliable -- there was growing hostility amongst youth against conscription by then, and the military top-brass felt that it wasn't worth the bother trying to train disaffected youth -- and less expensive. In France, conscription continued, but the attempt to use conscripts in the Algerian war in the mid-1950s led to uproar, and most French military involvements have used only regular troops. There has also been a recent trend in Europe to move away from conscription towards professional regular forces, although I can't recall off-hand in which countries it has been replaced. With the deployment of Nato forces abroad, for example in Afghanistan, a hardly popular war in Europe, the move away from conscription will probably increase. It will be interesting to know if any of the Nato countries involved in Afghanistan are using any conscripts as combat troops, as opposed to regulars. Paul F > The French socialist Jaures who was murdered in 1914 held similar views. You > can find more on Jaures concept at the Marxist Internet Archives. If you > make allowances for changes in technology his views aren't that off the > wall. The universal conscription works if it's for a citizens militia, that > is active duty time only enough time for training, which today would average > 4 or 5 months except for some of the more technical specialties, followed by > an extended time on reserve status with refresher training courses. Probably > the best contemporary examples are the Swiss, Swedish and Finnish models. > Even so, due to cut backs in the military since the end of the cold war, > Switzerland and Sweden are inducting far less than the 60% of the manpower > pool prior to 1990. There is debate in Sweden now about abandoning the > historical citizens militia concept and going to an all volunteer force. A > minority position to be sure. > ________________________________________________ Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
