Latvia to start conscripting men for mandatory military service, starting 2024

It is sad that such a gender discriminatory law is passed. In this day and age for the state to base mandatory requirements on gender is unfortunate.

Poland woke up a while ago, now others are following. Russia is a major threat to European security.

<i>According to the Latvian minister of defense, Inara Murniece, the adoption of the Law on State Defense Service is “[t]he Latvian response to new regional security challenges, and is aimed at strengthening all defense capabilities and developing comprehensive national defense service.”</i><p>This has to be because of Russia, right?

I dont understand how they can achieve this. They have given themselves an extreme short timeline.<p>Military bases must be built or at least extended. Barracks. kitchens, medical services, bunks. recreation Uniforms, shoes, Camping &#x2F; field equipment for everyone. Aquisition of weapons and weapon systems for the recruits, A wide assortment of training grounds needs to be prepared. Instructors need to be trained and dedicated to the task. and a lot more.<p>I would think that would take years not months.<p>It does say in the article that they had mandatory service for men that ended in 2006.<p>If they were really smart, they have kept up maintenance and upgrade for all the infrastructure they needed back then and its ready for use. That would be an outstanding achievement for any western government.<p>Retaining all the instructors and other personal would have been smart to but I bet they did not do so.<p>I guess the big question would be &quot;how many soldiers per year&quot;. Are they requesting everyone to show up for recruitment and will only pick a few for service. That woud make it a lot easier.<p>If they take everyone they have a close to impossible plan.

&gt; The law provides for two categories of service — military service and alternative (civil) service — prescribing the rules and procedures for performing these obligations.<p>The alternate civil service route is understated and extremely useful, I think.<p>It’s not reasonably possible to draft and train all men who turn 18, so you make a bunch of exceptions and then an alternate route doing stuff like acting as ambulance drivers, firemen, reserve police (think: PCSO&#x2F;Specials in the UK), even just fucking wrangling paperwork or whatever.<p>It’s not a bad system, as these things go.

Conscription is slavery.

I wish leaders would settle their differences in a game of CS2, instead of using the old meat grinder.

&gt; <i>The application and evaluation processes for women and men are identical and do not distinguish between them. The Center for European Policy Analysis reports that Latvia has “comparatively good female representation within the Latvian National Armed Forces.” At present, women make up 16.5% of the army’s 6,700 military personnel.</i><p>They could easily boost that number by conscripting women. My &quot;military service&quot; in nearby country consisted mostly of wiping arses of elderly patients in hospital. Anyone can do that!

Latvia sees the writing on the wall

War is absolute shit. Nobody should have to go. I&#x27;ve never served and I don&#x27;t know what is best for the security of a country, everyone fighting or all the women not fighting, what I know is that Svetlana Alexievich&#x27;s book &quot;The Unwomanly Face of War: An Oral History of Women in World War II&quot; gave me a bunch of insights into how it works to have women in War from first hand oral accounts. Highly recommend it, she got a Nobel prize too.

Unfortunately this needs to happen in all nato countries. The bells of war in europe are ringing again.

I bet emigration of young people, especially men, from Latvia will accelerate again.