Sunak was right to pitch mandatory conscription

Gen Z are a generation hungry for responsibility, perhaps this is something the state should provide 

Earlier this week on my commute to work, I saw an article in the FT that drew my attention. As someone who goes to the gym regularly (while regularly skipping leg-day), the title “Ask what your gym can do for your country,” sparked my interest. 

In case you don’t have time to read it, the TLDR is this: Gen Z seem to increasingly enjoy the idea of joining the armed forces and voluntary organisations such as the reservists. Not necessarily because they want to go out and fight, but rather because of the training these organisations offer. 

In Sweden, voluntary defence organisations do very little fighting and instead specialise in areas such as radio operations to driving lorries. This got me thinking, was Sunak’s unpopular pitch for National Service that bad an idea? 

10 out of the 27 EU countries - including developed economies such as Sweden, Finland, and Denmark - already have some form of mandatory or selective conscription systems. With France also looking at reintroducing a system of National Service, the idea of something in Britain is not out of the ordinary. 

Yet, the idea became very unpopular. That being said, it seems to me - with the benefit of hindsight - the proposed policy was met with too much flak. After all, the Tories were massively unpopular; the country just wanted them gone. The British public did not give the idea the credit it deserved. 

From an economic perspective, a system of National Service could be incredibly useful. While the literature on the individual benefits of military service vary - mainly because they compare groups of individuals who took time out of their careers to join the army and those who didn’t - forcing National Service for all individuals would remove this opportunity cost. 

When everyone is on the same playing field, National Service can be an incredible tool for the development of skills when correctly executed. This is where I’d like to make some adjustments to Sunak’s pitch. Rather than introducing 18-year olds into the military, and offering them a choice of National Service between community service, I’d rather have the government introduce National Service for 16-year olds where they carry out 1-year of full-time military training. 

In line with voluntary schemes such as those in Sweden, this 1-year of full-time training should not be restricted towards trying to turn the young people into a generation of killers and foot-soldiers. While we are now presented with a need for a greater capacity for defence, National Service at such an age should be focused on skill development. 

Specifically, a robust programme of National Service should offer varied development tracks. If you have finished your GCSE’s and plan on picking Biology in sixth-form, you could train towards being an army medic. If you are into computers, and mathematics - or just don’t want to work with your hands so to speak - an army intelligence or administrative track could be the option for you. If you desire a career working with vehicles or machines, an engineering track should suffice. Maybe you want to use your year before college to get a driving licence? Well, the military would be a perfect place to offer 16-year olds a paid position in army logistics. 

Pub discussions with friends and colleagues have had me consider other avenues outside of military training, such as a year in the civil service. However, I lean towards deploying the military for three main reasons. First, a National Service scheme is a very easy way of increasing spending as a % of GDP on the military, which makes our international allies and NATO happy. Second, there is an increasing demand for military service across Europe with the UK seeing a rebound in reserve applications since COVID. Third, and this is linked to the second, I lean towards the military due to its rigid institutional structure and its potential for fostering a sense of national unity and shared civic responsibility. 

Alongside the increasing demand for military service, we have also seen what has been known as “The Quiet Revival” with Gen Z's spiking Church attendance. Young people crave to be part of a wider community and want to take on responsibility, and this is something that we should have seen coming. 

Decades of liberalism in the West have afforded us great luxuries. The average person has a better standard of living than any king or emperor, but despite this wealth and education, our society is psychologically destitute. There is an avoidance across the West - which prides itself on the rationality of its people - to admit that the human psyche desires a somewhat ‘irrational’ sense of collective responsibility, and greater meaning. 

We have seemingly forgotten that with great freedom comes great responsibility. Unfortunately, instead of giving the young generation what they desire, politicians and political parties would rather stick to their principles of rationality, increasing the burden of technocratic measures (such as Digital ID cards on their people), or twisting the desire for greater meaning - such as one's desire to be part of one nation - into a fuel for populist politics. 

It would be nice for this collective responsibility to grow spontaneously - I expect it will - but the principles of path dependency apply, and it would be greatly beneficial if the government accelerates this with a catalyst of introducing National Service. Likewise, Libertarianism - which has been on the backfoot - must have a long think about the trade-off between our freedoms and social responsibilities.