Topic for argumentative essay: Should compulsory military service be abolished?

Hello! After a nice chill-out session for a week, we made a quick return today and delved into argumentative essay, analyzing one about conscription in our white book. I asked you what you thought about it and you came up with very good arguments. Well, having spent some time on the net, I have learned that Sweden abolished compulsory military service on July 1, 2010 and Germany is planning to end it next year, while some other countries still stick to it. As you all know this is now a hotly-debated issue in Türkiye, too. Anyway, here's an article for you to read and comment on. 

Germany to abolish compulsory military service

  Biggest postwar modernisation of German Bundeswehr aimed at reducing €8bn off the defence spending budget

 Kate Connolly in Berlin

 guardian.co.uk, Monday 22 November 2010 16.15 GMT

 

Conscription may be removed as part of a radical overall of the armed forces. 

The German government has announced plans to abolish compulsory military service by next summer, marking the most radical overhaul of the armed forces since its postwar founding and a major change to German society. Under the reforms, which will transform the Bundeswehr into a fully professional defence force by July 2011, the size of the existing military and its inefficient bureaucratic apparatus will be considerably reduced as part of a cost-cutting exercise aimed at shaving about €8bn (£6.8bn) from the defence spending budget. Speaking on the sidelines of a Dresden conference about the status of the military defence minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, called the decision "responsible and right". The changes follow recommendations by military experts who have called the armed forces "ineffectual" and "in desperate need of modernisation". Guttenberg said he envisaged the launch of a voluntary programme open to both men and women who will be able to serve in the military for up to 23 months, in order to appease the large number of Germans who are opposed to the changes to a core policy of postwar Germany, considered so sacred it is cemented in the constitution. But he stressed that the voluntary sector would not help Germany's ability to engage in missions abroad. The military was founded in 1955, and conscription – introduced two years later – has been seen as a necessary means to ensure the defence forces maintain a close relationship to civil society in order to prevent a repeat of the way in which the Nazi party was able to manipulate professional soldiers in the 1930s. But experts say it has prevented the military's modernisation. Chancellor Angela Merkel today appealed to Germany's generals to seize the chance to become "symbols of the willingness to change" and to set an example for the rest of the nation. "You can make a really significant contribution to a modern and strong Germany," she said at the Dresden conference. Earlier this autumn her Christian Democratic Union and its sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU) voted in favour of abolishing national service at their annual party conferences, removing the last major political obstacle to broad defence reforms. The CDU also voted in favour of transforming the Germany military or Bundeswehr into a fully professional army, which military strategists have long argued was necessary to cope with modern demands. Most crucially they said it would increase its expeditionary capacity. The size of the military is to be reduced from 240,000 to 163,500 soldiers, but is expected to increase the number of troops capable of being deployed on foreign missions from the current 7,000 to 14,000. The decision is not only a groundbreaking one for the country's military but also poses a major challenge for the social welfare system. Until now thousands of young men from the age of 18, who either due to their pacifist views or for health reasons were excluded from national service duty, were drafted into posts at care homes and hospitals instead, where they were considered a valuable source of cheap labour. Provisions will now have to be made to plug a shortfall of around 90,000 such workers. The government has tried to play down the changes saying it will retain a programme for young people to volunteer for social work, arguing that the demand to take up such posts for post-school and pre-university youngsters will still exist even when national service is scrapped. guardian.co.uk © Guardian News and Media Limited 2010