Military Conscription Around the World

With all of the talk about a possible military draft we thought that we would look at how other nations field their militaries.

Currently there are 70 nations/territories which do not have conscription. Sixteen nations have mandatory military/national service, while 71 nations still employ some form of selective conscription (link here).

It does not seem that there is a trend away from conscription when looking at those numbers. However, there is definitely a recent trend among Western nations to end conscription and move to an all-volunteer military.

In 2001 France ended conscription, in 2002 Spain ended conscription, Italy will end in 2006, Austria and Greece are considering ending mandatory conscription, Australia ended conscription, Canada and Britain ended conscription a long time ago, and the United States stopped conscription in 1973.

Beyond Western nations there is no real trend toward ending conscription for a number of reasons. Most of the countries that maintain conscription or mandatory service are militaristic (China, North Korea, Singapore); face a constant national security threat (Israel, Colombia, South Korea, Lebanon); have a long tradition of national service or past militarism (Russia, Germany, Scandanvia, former Soviet states); or, in Switzerland's case, do whatever they want.

It is hard to think that any of these countries would shift to an all-volunteer military when conscription is so ingrained in the fabric of society.