If you want peace, prepare for war. Germany appears to be embracing this ancient maxim with the country’s top general warning Monday that Berlin is ready to bring back conscription.
Carsten Breuer, the German Chief of Defence, told BBC’s Radio 4 an additional 100,000 soldiers would be needed to ensure the country’s ability to defend itself as a belligerent Russia continues to roil the continent.
Defence chiefs have been looking to increase the size of the armed forces since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, but have fallen short of even an initial target of 20,000, as Europe looks ahead to further unrest.
The Daily Mail reports Breuer warned Russia could attack NATO territory in as little as four years and he is calling for a massive troop buildup – achievable, he says, only through compulsory service through conscription.
“We won’t get this additional 100,000 soldiers without having one or the other, a model of conscription,” Germany’s highest ranking soldier told the programme.
Asked whether “some form” of conscription was “necessary” for Germany to defend itself, he concurred: “Absolutely. Absolutely.”
FLASHBACK: A soldier welcomes the first conscripts on arrival at the barracks in Hamburg Rahlstedt on 1st April 1957. Young German men were recruited for Bundeswehr against their will for the last time after 50 years of conscription on 3rd January 2011. (Georg Lehmann/picture alliance via Getty)
“We are threatened by Russia,” Breuer acknowledged in his comments to Radio 4.
“We are threatened by Putin, and we have to do whatever is needed to do to deter, and by building up a strong defence line then you deter best.”
Asked how much time and money was needed to achieve Germany’s defence goals, he said it was “more about how much time Putin gives us to be prepared.”
“The sooner we are prepared, the better it is.”
Defence Minister Boris Pistorius had suggested in December that Germany could increase the size of its armed forces by 50,000 to 230,000 in total.
Between 1956 and 2011, Germany conscripted men subject to mandatory military service.
After a proposal on 22 November 2010 by Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, the German Minister of Defence at the time, Berlin put conscription into abeyance on 1 July 2011.
