Rafael Ajangiz: The End of Conscription |
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Here it goes an article on professionalisation of the armies I recently wrote.
Kisses, Rafa Ajangiz
Rafael Ajangiz Departamento de Ciencia Política y de la AdministraciónUniversidad del País Vasco - Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea 644 Posta Kutxaila - 48080 Bilbao E-mail: cppajsar@lg.ehu.es
Home address: Urazurrutia 17 / 48003 Bilbao / Euskal HerriaE-mail: ajangiz@arrakis.es
The Ending of Military Conscription by Western European Governments.
Does Civil Society Have Any Say?
Rafael Ajangiz, Department of Political Science and Administration, University of the Basque Country (E-mail: ciaajsar@lg.ehu.es). At the moment completing the Ph.D. in Political Science thesis 'Impact of the Antimilitarist Movement on Politics and on Civil Society'. Some thirty articles and papers on the issue, and also two books: R. Ajangiz, C. Manzanos & J. Pascual, Objetores, Insumisos. La Juventud Vasca ante la Mili y el Ejercito (Bilbao: Gobierno Vasco 1991); R. Ajangiz et als., Objecion e Insumision, Claves Ideologicas y Sociales (Madrid: Fundamentos 1992). Military conscription is coming to an end in Western Europe. It is commonly presented as a technical reform of the armed forces to suit the post-cold war scenario, but two other variables should be taken into account: public opinion and social movement mobilisation. The cases studies of France and Spain show how these variables make a difference regarding the prospects of success in such reform.
PRESENTATION
Military conscription has been a controversial institution throughout history. The records of most countries commonly include cycles of large numbers of draft evaders whenever there was an intensive attempt to impose military conscription, usually connected with an engagement in war. The most recent and best known example is the large social mobilisation against US involvement in Vietnam and the direct participation of hundreds of thousands of young males, actually one of the leading reasons behind the end of military conscription and the creation of the All-Volunteer-Force (AVF) which that country is so proud off today.
Western Europe is not engaged in a massive war effort today and, however, we observe there is a trend to abandon military conscription. Only four years ago, in 1992, Belgium decided to scrap its conscription system to the armed forces and some other countries have quickly followed: Netherlands in 1993, France and Spain last year. Moreover, we cannot underestimate the possibility that, in a near future, countries like Switzerland, Germany or Italy will join this club; the 1989 referendum on the abolition of the army in Switzerland introduced this issue onto the political agenda (1), the recent discussion about the Defence budget in Germany has had the same effect (2), and the Italian armed forces are being reformed under the pressure of having 50,000 conscientious objectors (COs) a year (3). A new cycle has been opened.
If we take a look at our recent past, we have to accept that it is quite a surprising phenomenon. In the European context, it has been accepted for decades that the armed forces divided into two mutually exclusive models: conscription armies like those of France or Germany on the one hand, and non-conscription armies, like Britain or USA, on the other. Thus the common sense agreement was to believe that both models were the result of sound political and cultural traditions and, therefore, that transition between models was not likely to happen (4). So, what are the reasons underlying such a radical change?
DEVELOPMENTS IN THE ROLE OF THE ARMED FORCES
It is clear that the fall of the Berlin wall and everything that followed paved the ground for this change in the European armed forces. The scenario set up after World War II changed dramatically: NATO became the only superpower to survive the Cold War (5), and its European affiliates had to rethink their common and separate defence models because the enemy in the neighborhood no longer existed.
Until then, their defence model had been based around the provision of large mass armies and a strong and nuclear military build-up; therefore, a first logical payoff seemed to be a reduction in size and budget, a common feature of today's reform of the armed forces. Along with it, the legitimation discourse had to change as well. The traditional discourse of national defence had become obsolete: there was not a credible threat to the integrity of the Western national territories, and public opinion appreciated the role the armed forces played in this new setting as rather confusing.
Two major crises, the Gulf War and the Conflict in the Balkans, have given grounds for the new justification the armies pursued. Frames like 'peace-keeping' and 'humanitarian intervention' provide a new function for the national armies, which now do not conduct themselves singly but combine in joint action under the umbrella of a multinational initiative, either the United Nations and/or NATO. The intervention in the Balkans has worked in two directions. First, it has opened the door for legitimate military action outside national or regional borders: article V in the Treaty of the Alliance has been modified to allow intervention anywhere in the world. And secondly, it has become a huge window to offer people the gentle face of the 'good' armed forces; it has operated as a privileged agent for the legitimation of all the armed forces involved, and in particular for those who did not enjoy definite social support, such as the German, Spanish or Argentinean armies. The surveys bear this out. (6) Humanitarian intervention, however, has proved limited in places such as Somalia or the Great Lakes, or even in the Balkans, not to mention those many places at war where no multinational intervention has taken place. Consequently a broader and more definite frame to legitimise the armed forces of the New World Order is needed. Experts talk about 'new times', being defined in terms of a growth of risk complexity, globalisation, the relocation of political authority to transnational and subnational agencies, challenges to national sovereignty, and the impact of globalised communications on the relationship between politics and public opinion. (7)
Yet this presentation is too obscure for common sense and needs further clarification. Two institutional declarations will help. Douglas Hurd: 'Britain relies on exports for a quarter of its gross domestic product. As a European power, the country should be more confident in asserting its identity. Britons should identify their overseas assets more clearly and use them more forcefully. These assets include the English language, Britain's political and financial institutions and British armed forces' (8). And Warren Christopher: 'The ability to prosper in a global economy depends on the ability to compete. A new strategy for protecting and promoting American interests in now needed. President Clinton has formulated an American foreign policy that is built on three pillars: building American prosperity, promoting democracy abroad, and the modernizing of America's armed forces'. (9)
Market is the real law underlying the official discourse of global security, national (and regional) interest is its master frame, and intervention is the device to endorse such national interest across national borders; political, economic and, when necessary, military intervention. Some will argue that this is not new, that no real change has taken place because the cold war was just a curtain that masked competition for national and regional interests, basically economic power. However, there is a remarkable difference as far as the role of the armed forces is concerned: to a certain degree their main task today is not the defence of national territory, something which is being taken over by the police, but rather intervention abroad.
In a word, the future for Western European armies lies in humanitarian or economical military intervention across national borders. They have to progress in that direction, which implies a growing investment in training, transportation and high-tech weapons, in line with the foregoing period. However, what really makes a difference is the question of conscription.
THE END OF CONSCRIPTION
An intervention army cannot rely on conscription. That is, from a military point of view and as far as intervention is concerned, conscription is more than superfluous, it is self-defeating. The US experience in the Vietnam War was straightforward for its administrators. Just like the Algerian War for the French or the Gulf War for the newcomers to this business. President Chirac has spoken loud and clear: no more improvisation, no more looking here and there to complete a 10,000 men force like in the Gulf War; intervention needs fully professional rapid deployment forces, ready to carry out any mandate (10). This is a general conclusion: it is a fact that no country with a conscription system has included conscripts in its troops into Bosnia.
The end of the military conscription system is the main feature of this reform, the so called professionalisation of the armed forces, and it is a train every Western European army will climb onto sooner or later. Some governments may not find it an easy road to take though. The abolition of conscription involves considerable structural transformation and it has to be understood as a long-term process. Hence those countries in which this process was initiated some time ago, e.g. France, are closer to achieving it than those now completing the very first stage in the process, e.g. Spain.
This talk of professionalisation and, in some cases, the process itself is not something new. Already in 1960 the sociologist M. Janowitz suggested that the change to professionalism in the armed forces was a necessary trend. The British army, at that time a colonial army defending Britain's interests all over the world, was for him the archetype (11). But it was a few years later, when the US Army changed to an AVF and a number of technical studies analysed this (12), that the idea was seriously taken on board by some European armies. It was then when they embarked on the change to professionalism. Task by task, unit by unit, professional troops began to replace conscripts, and those armies based primarily on conscription slowly shifted to the kind of mixed army that they are today, in which there is a variable proportion of professional and conscripts, commonly about half and half.
Back in 1987, a publication on the issue made a distinction between three types of armies: those which consisted mainly of conscripts, those made up solely of professionals, and those with a mixed system. Greece, Italy, Norway, Spain, Austria, Finland, Sweden and Switzerland were included in the group of mainly conscript armies, and Germany, Belgium, Denmark, France, and Netherlands in the last group of mixed armies (13). That is, three of the four countries who recently decided to scrap conscription, Belgium, Netherlands and France, had already set off on the road years before; Spain, a mainly conscript army, would be the only exception. Moreover, two of them, Belgium and Netherlands, had already taken another step towards an non-conscription army, the replacement of general conscription by selective conscription (e.g. by drawing lots).
In other words, they were technically ready to undertake anytime the final stage of ending the conscription system (14), and convert themselves into the intervention army that the 'new times' demand. In the international theatre of power, conscription is exchanged for more convincing assets, like nuclear weaponry in the case of France (the Mururoa tests were a precondition to end conscription), or the capacity to help in the command of multinational forces and as a mediation actor in conflict in the case of Belgium and the Netherlands.
Some exceptions to this postulate of scraping the conscription system have to be considered. It is clear that conscription may well achieve other purposes than strictly military ones; Germany is the archetype. In 1984, conscription to the armed forces provided for 47 per cent of its 471.500 personnel (15). Ten years later, in 1995, in a context of general reform of the military, this supply has been reduced to 37.2 per cent (16). However, administrators keep the agenda tightly closed to the issue of conscription because, in its civilian version of substitutory service for COs (the Zivildienst), conscription is providing a cheap labour force of more than a 100,000 men a year, without which the German social welfare system could not operate at all (17). Available information seems to confirm that Austria and Italy could follow this path, and Spain has been seriously considering this possibility since 1994.
PUBLIC OPINION AND SOCIAL MOVEMENT MOBILISATION
However, the success of the reform of non-conscription armed forces is not a simple matter of technical decision-making by the Administration; there are at least two important variables which also condition the process.
Public opinion is the first one. The social rejection of conscription is so unequivocal in most settings that such a decision may have an impact on forthcoming elections in terms of better support. It is true that it has been argued for years that conscription was a suitable means of introducing the younger cohorts of the population into defence matters, thus preventing a potential split between the military and society. This idea was completed with the 'people in arms' frame that European socialists and communists have shared. To give two examples, opposition to Chirac's decision is argued on this frame, and the wording of the 1991 Spanish Military Service Law is inspired by it. (18)
But it has nothing to do with reality. To begin with, this discourse appears too rhetorical for a society where unemployment and consumerism do a much better job in disciplining new generations into consent citizenship. Secondly, there are more efficient ways to bring the armed forces closer to society. For example, national pride, like that resulting from the victory of the British Army in the Malvinas/Falklands war. The words of a British peace activist are unequivocal, 'I never felt more isolated in my life than during the Falklands war. This war totally reversed the growth of the peace movement in the early 1980s in Britain; it was a total disaster for us' (19). And, of course, military intervention for humanitarian reasons as well. In legitimacy terms, the Media Army is supplanting the preceding Conscription Army.
And last, if there is something that the argumentation for conscription commonly disregards, it is the will of the conscripts themselves. All reports confirm that conscription has never been a well accepted institution. Statements like 'preceding its abolition, military service was very unpopular with the English voters' (20), or 'if we ask French youth whether they are in favour of military service or not, they will surely answer they are not' (21), or 'military service is not something popular in Germany, especially for those who are directly involved in it' (22), or 'in our society there exists a deep disaffection, even an open rejection, of military service' (23), are typical examples.
This disaffection is worldwide, affects all conscript armies, and is apparently increasing nowadays. Conscription is today more controversial than ever and it is having an impact on the political system. We will give some examples. In South Africa, the whites' promoted End Conscription Campaign meant a significant step towards the ending of the apartheid system (24). In Far East countries like Vietnam, South Korea or Taiwan, social dissatisfaction has driven rulers to decide a cut in the length of conscription (25). In Israel, conscription is becoming more selective and the career and professional component of the armed forces is being increased, partly because conscripts are more and more reluctant to enter into combat (26). In Turkey, very recent civil disobedience for the right to CO has resulted in some imprisonment (27). In Russia, the Ministry of Defence reports that 50 per cent of the conscripts refuse to serve in the Army and report as COs (28). In Latin America, Guatemalan natives are resisting conscription (29); Paraguayan COs have grown from 5 in 1993 to 1,457 in 1995 (30); and last year, as a result of scandals about repeated mistreatment of conscripts, President of Argentina Carlos Menem has felt obliged to scrap military conscription. (31)
This is why public opinion in Belgium, Netherlands, France and Spain has welcomed the public announcement of the end of conscription, and also why governmental opposition has complained about electoralism. However, it seems to us more pertinent to consider why this unpopularity has not been assessed before, why the number of draft evaders and COs had no political reading, why there was no public opinion survey on the issue, or if they were, why they had no impact on the policy-making, why, in a word, conscription has not been a problematic question in peace time.
The answer to the previous question may well be that public opinion regarded conscription as something which they could do nothing about, more like having measles, something certain, inevitable. Nevertheless, such consent can easily be broken when a political actor introduces the issue onto the media and political agendas. Like the British Labour Party in the early 1950s. Or like the US anti-war movement in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Or like the Spanish antimilitarist movement in the 1990s. In all these cases, conscription was abolished when the action against it became political, and when the mobilisation around conscription began to negatively affect the legitimacy of the armed forces themselves, something clearly more far-reaching. The declaration of a British commanding officer serves as an example: 'military service is creating a feeling of disregard and mistrust towards the Armed Forces'. (32)
A THREE-FACTOR EXPLANATORY MODEL
As we have mentioned, the end of conscription is not just a governmental decision but the confluence of three factors: the evolution of 'the art of war-making' and of dominant ideology (military-governmental factor), the evolution of society (public opinion factor), and the action of social movements (mobilisation factor).
Firstly, it is the governments and not the military who decide to end the conscription system in order to face the new strategical scenario better. The military provide the technical basis for that decision-making, and they are also the ones who carry it out, so their idiosyncrasy must be taken into account. Some of them may be reluctant to the reform, e.g. the Army is a clear loser when compared with both Navy and Air Force, but in this post-military Western Europe the military as an institution will not resist a governmental decision (33). On the contrary, the existing good relationship between rulers and military is reminiscent of the original liaison between the Army and the State. (34)
Secondly, if there is a political actor who can oppose that top decision-making, then it is a social movement, usually the peace movement. Society, the general public, is half-way between both. Actually, society's understanding of the issue is not consistent or clear-cut, and much less is it in total accordance with dominant ideology; it is manifold and plural and, therefore, an open space in which both the government and social movement can act and have influence.
As we see it, civil society (in the more grass-root meaning of this term) (35) is the battlefield for these two agencies. On one side, administrators and professional politicians exert their influence and rely on media and social control to ensure social agreement with their project of society. On the other, civil society is the ground for social movement mobilisation in two senses: a) it acts as a mediation agency between government and the social movement regarding the latter's instrumental goals, and b) it is also the subject of the social movement's project for social change. Two forces in collision with each other, one seeking compliance and consent, the other looking for protest and mobilisation. Or, in other words, two conceptions of democracy: up-down politics vs. bottom-up politics.
We will clarify this insight with one historical example: the introduction of conscription in Great Britain at the time of World War I. By the turn of the century, all major nations, with the single exceptions of Great Britain and USA, had developed compulsory military systems. Grounded on tradition, British society shared widespread opposition to conscription. It was common sense that working the land or in the factories contributed better to society than serving in the army. And it was the time when, in line with a labour movement which resisted the idea of war in Europe, the British Left considered the army as an oppressive institution ready to fight the change to socialism.
This was the social climate when The Edwardian Conscription movement was born in 1899. Believing conscription to be the foundation of both greater physical efficiency and social reform, this movement was not successful at first. But things changed when the idea of a possible invasion from abroad was spread. M. Hendley, in his study of the conscription movement in Great Britain prior to World War I (36), draws our attention to the use of sensationalist invasion scares and calls for home defence back in 1908-09 to further the cause of the Conscription movement and, eventually, to expand the Army.
This idea of threat proved effective and British society began to change slowly. In 1913, Keir Hardie, from the international brotherhood of labour, upheld that 'conscription is the badge of the slave' (37). But when in 1916 conscription was finally established, the only political opposition came from the small Independent Labour Party, who stayed true to the discourse that true democracy lay in the world brotherhood of the workers and not in any kind of militarism (38). However, dominant political consent did not manufacture complete social consent. Some 16,000 conscripted men refused to join an army made of 164,000, 6,261 of them went to prison (39), and conscription was abolished as soon as the war was over.
A COMPARISON OF TWO CASE STUDIES: FRANCE AND SPAIN
We will now apply this model to the recent developments about conscription in Europe. Last year, conservative governments in France and Spain announced that by the end of this century, the year 2002 in the case of France and the year 2001 in the case of Spain (40), they would wind up conscription to the armed forces. They shared a common analysis about the role of the armed forces in the world of today. This has already been reviewed in this paper.
However, there is a difference between the two which is most interesting for us: in one case there is an extended mobilisation for the abolition of conscription and in the other there is no mobilisation at all. We concede that the variation between the two cases is not limited to this feature and some other differences will be mentioned, but it is still a remarkable one that needs to be examined in detail. Our question is, does it make any difference if there is social mobilisation on the issue?
We will focus first on when the issue entered the political agenda and how it was framed. In the French case, as in the cases of Belgium and Netherlands, this decision was an absolute surprise to the general public and to the political class. It was an example of governmental leadership and nerve. On the one hand, embarking on major reform of one of the pillars of the State showed evidence of power. On the other, meeting a veiled social demand showed political wisdom. (41)
The most common perspective was to agree that 'conscription is one of the rare instances of the national consensus, between 60 and 70 per cent of the French people are in favour of it', and at the same time overlook small print: 'among young men, conscription is seen as a disturbing obligation, often absurd, and often criticised' (42). The absence of criticism amongst the French population has proved that social compliance was more present than any consensus, whether this was real or not. And, in such a setting, the governmental framing has no opponents of weight. The only criticism of Chirac's decision comes from the Communist Party and some socialists who regard the professional army as a mercenary one or who continue to consider conscription as an opportunity for education in citizenship. But they have no real impact.
In Spain the circumstances are different. The governmental decision has been preceded by the insumision mobilisation, which in 1989 managed to reveal the existing but hidden widespread unpopularity of conscription. Previous attempts to awake this dormant conflict, for example the CDS's offer of a six-month military service in the 1986 elections, had failed when confronted by the Government's determination to keep the agenda tightly closed to the issue. The experience of the NATO referendum that year had showed that, if the public was given a chance, issues related to the military easily became a hot potato in its hands. 'Better not to have any discussion, and even better not to have any information' was the institutional reasoning. (43)
But such determination was ineffective in the face of the total objection campaign developed by the grassroots Movimiento de Objecion de Conciencia (MOC). The issue of conscription dominated the 1989 general elections just a few months after the emergence of this civil disobedience (44). Two years later, the Spanish parliament backed a law concerning 'the new model of armed forces and the military service', which granted a reduction in the length of the military service and simultaneously disciplined the insumisos with an extended prison penalty, this already being a subtle acknowledgment of who was a source of the situation. (45)Last summer, the military revealed their conviction that the abolition of conscription was a governmental back down before the antimilitarist movement (46). And most recently, the Minister of Defence himself has referred to an 'accumulation of political and social reasons' when reporting about the reform. (47) Some data will help us to figure out the extent of this mobilisation. From 1989 to the present over 12,000 conscripts have refused to serve both military service and substitutory civilian service. Most of them are being prosecuted, and almost a thousand have served or are currently serving a prison sentence (48). They are not evaders on single but well-organised nonviolent refusers. Like the 18,000 deserters to the US Army who were prosecuted when the mobilisations against the war in Vietnam; the total number was of two hundred thousand but most of them simply left the country (49). A remarkable difference is that the latter worked in wartime and the former in peacetime. But, in any case, the magnitude is such that both mobilisations become good examples of how a social movement makes the issue of conscription political.
The insumision movement is still active and is having increasing political and social impact in many different ways, one of the principal ones being the legitimising of civil disobedience (50). As far as the military aspect is concerned, the movement has framed the end of conscription as a step towards a non-aggressive defence model and, in the long-term, the abolition of the armed forces. This frame is, of course, not shared by the major political forces, who plump for a strong and professional army and full integration into NATO (51), but its confrontational quality is facilitating public discussion on the military question and is giving grounds for oppositional politics. Even the partners of the PP in the government are resorting to the issue to show that their political support is not unconditional. (52)
PROSPECTS OF SUCCESS IN THE REFORM OF THE ARMED FORCES IN BOTH COUNTRIES
The abolition of conscription is a complicated process, both technically and politically. Technical matters which need to be taken into account are the budget and the recruitment of professional troops. Politically, the necessary preconditions are procedural consensus and a compliant population. Let's kick off with the technical matters first.
The starting level of professionalisation is very different in the French and Spanish armed forces. In France the total strength of 410,230 soldiers (excluding the Gendarmerie) is 53.2 per cent professional. The armed forces will be reduced in size to a fully professional force of 257,100. The difference will be covered by enlarging the ranks from the present 45,000 men to 92,000. The task, therefore, is to recruit 47,000 more volunteers. (53)
On the other side of the Pyrenees, the Spanish armed forces consist of 226,000 men, 63 per cent recruited through conscription (54). Very recently, the Minister of Defence has presented a range of possibilities to be pondered over. The humblest, most feasible one outlines a final size of 150,000 soldiers. This would include 100,000 men in the professional ranks, which means that 69,000 volunteers need to be recruited to add to the existing 31,031. But consultations and plans are being made now, months after the announcement of the measure, and the final figures of the reform have not been decided yet. (55)
Recruiting is not an easy task anyway. The British army, victorious in World War II, had recruiting problems when conscription was abolished and the only solution was to pay very good salaries (56). Nowadays, in both Belgium and the Netherlands expectations have not been met by reality (57),and the French Minister of Defence has let it be known that they may not be successful in a short-term (58). However, it is an even more difficult task when there is a peace mobilisation around. When the US government decided to carry out the AVF, the armed forces suffered a worrying volunteer shortfall (59). Given this antecedent and the structural situation of the Spanish armed forces, it is clear that the effort to be made is quite considerable, almost unworkable. More indeed when the Ministry is restricted to recruiting no more than 3,500 volunteers a year because of budget limitations.(60)
The budget is the key to professionalisation. Again, the French and Spanish situations differ very much from each other. The French defence budget is one of the highest in Europe, US$ 40,540 million a year, 3.07 per cent of GNP today (61), and a 3.61 per cent average from 1986 to 1994 (62). Such a record has allowed President Chirac to decide on a budget freeze and simultaneously state that the end of conscription, instead of being a cost, will save US$ 2,500 million a year. (63)
The Spanish defence budget, on the contrary, is one of the smallest in Europe, US$ 7,030 million a year, 1.54 per cent of GNP today, and an average of 1.90 per cent from 1986 to 1994 (64). The present situation has been characterised as bankrupt by the chief commander of the armed forces (65). Actually, the purchase of four new warships and 87 EF-2000 aircrafts will be carried out through a loan to be paid back from the year 2002 on (66). Therefore, the creation of a full professional force needs a significant addition to the existing budget (US$ 6,850 million). In the most humble proposal already mentioned, paying the volunteer non-rank troops half the pay their French counterparts get (US$ 800 vs. US$ 1,600 a month), this addition would be of US$ 2,283 million, one third more (67). For a long time now the governing PP has been calling for the doubling of this budget in the short term (68), but this determination may come into conflict with what has been for many years the dominant social understanding: military costs should be cut in favour of the social costs (69). Indeed, today's other big mobilisation, the one demanding that at least a 0.7 per cent of
public budget is used for international solidarity and development in the poorer countries, is framing its demand against military costs (70). And it should not be forgotten that Spain enjoys one of the highest unemployment rates in Europe (22 per cent) or that a 17 per cent of the population is living below the poverty line.
But problems never come alone. Previous experiences teach us that the calendar for this professionalisation may well be shortened because of massive evasion of last intended conscripts. Both in Belgium and the Netherlands, the mere announcement of the end of conscription fuelled all kinds of trickery to avoid recruitment and the transition period was forcibly reduced to half (71). Such a phenomenon is not likely to happen in France, mainly because there has been no previous shared knowledge of how to skip conscription. CO, an objective sign of it, never reached more than 2 per cent of conscripts (72). And total objection is marginal, just a couple of dozen (73). Actually, all reports confirm that there is no appreciable reaction among conscripts. (74)
In Spain though, the decision has already fuelled some evasive behavior. During the first half of this year, CO has experienced an increase of 32 per cent in relation to last year and expectations exceed 100,000 COs for 1996, 50 per cent of those conscripted (75), the highest in Europe. The antimilitarist movement is reckoned to be responsible for that record. In solidarity with the total objectors, target organizations have boycotted the substitutory service and a backlog of 270,000 COs has built up (76). The fear that CO becomes an easy way of evading military service is behind the decisions taken by the Minister of Defence to draw up a special plan to end with this pile up, and to recruit many more conscripts than those strictly needed (77). In sum, all data confirms that the armed forces might be running short of conscripts far before the scheduled year 2003 for the completion of full professionalisation. Aware of the awkward impact it would have on the whole design of Spanish integration in the Europe of the powerful, Spanish Parliament has urged the Minister of Defence to accelerate the reform process. (78)
To say it briefly, the difference between the French and the Spanish situation lays in when the decision is being taken in the long-term process to professionalisation of the armed forces. As we have read, the French armed forces were somehow ready to embark on the change to full professionalisation by winding up military conscription; hence the political decision was more or less taken at the right time. On the contrary, the change to be implemented in Spain seems to be very difficult to achieve; hence the political decision was taken before its time, and the being of a mobilisation on the issue is the most reasonable interpretation.
CONCLUSION
The major difference between France and Spain is the social legitimation the armed forces enjoy. Among the French, two out of three people have a good opinion of their armed forces and regard them as a efficient organization (79). A convincing armed force also fits the 'la grandeure de la France' frame. Therefore, the French government is not likely to face social resistance to its project of professionalising the military.
The Spanish armed forces, conversely, have long suffered from poor social credit. Both the PSOE and the PP agreed that this lack of social legitimation was the major problem (80). The high rates of CO, the poor voluntary recruitment, the social opposition to increasing military spending, etc. are natural outcomes of it. It is true that the government has recently obtained a certain amelioration in the image of the armed forces by constantly referring back to the intervention in Bosnia, but, as we have seen, the reverse of that coin is the presence of an active antimilitarist movement.
Some analysts say that President Aznar has decided to end the conscription system because he is forced to follow most of the previous governments' policy-making and in this way he could show his muscle, leadership capacity and empathy with social issues. Symbolic politics. But, did he have any other option? The socialists, who had chosen a much slower and surely more realistic pace for this reform, were running out of time under the pressure of social mobilisation. Now they have passed the problem onto the conservatives, and Aznar, in fact, is being urged to finish off a process of reform of the armed forces which is very complicated and has taken much longer in other countries. France is the best example of this.
For certain, it is not going to be an easy job. In addition, every structural change offers ample opportunity for mobilisation. The Spanish antimilitarist movement, the one which has somehow driven the Executive to take the decision before its time, is experienced enough to cause problems for the reform and, therefore, for the future of the Spanish armed forces. But so was the US anti-war movement and it did not or could not profit from it (81). In any case, future developments promise to be interesting.
NOTES:
(1) . P. Gilardi, 'El Concepto de Defensa en Suiza; en la Hora del Cambio', Tiempo de Paz 41 (Spring 1996) p.100-111.(2) . J. Comas, 'El Gasto Militar en Alemania Abre el Debate Sobre el Ejercito Profesional', El Pais (5 July 1996) p.6.(3) . Proceedings of the GSoA Meeting 'For a Europe without Armies', Bern (Nov. 1996).(4) . Of course, everybody overlooked the fact that professional armies were formerly conscription armies, or that conscription armies, the German one to give one example, had also experienced episodes of non-conscription.(5) . The OSCE meeting in Lisbon last December has ratified NATO as the body to ensure the international security. M. Cruz, 'EEUU y la UE Confirman el Predominio de la OTAN como Clave de la Seguridad Internacional', El Mundo (4 Dec. 1996) p.26.(6) . This was the general comment of peace activists from Belgium, Great Britain, France, Germany, Netherlands, Spain and Argentina. Proceedings of the Work Group on Professionalisation of the Armies, War Resisters' International (WRI) Council. Liege, July 1996. The evolution of the Spanish public opinion is studied by A.M. Huesca, 'La Actitud de los Españoles ante la Multinacionalidad de la Defensa', in Instituto Español de Estudios Estrategicos (ed.) Aportacion Sociologica de la Sociedad Española a la Defensa Nacional (Madrid: CESEDEN 1995) p.145-154.(7) . C. Dandeker, 'New Times for the Military: Some Sociological Remarks on the Changing Role and Structure of the Armed Forces of the Advanced Societies', British Jnl of Sociology 45/4 (Dec. 1994) p.637-654.(8) . Vital Speeches of the Day 61/11 (15 March 1995) p.337-338.(9) . Vital Speeches of the Day 59/13 (15 April 1993) p.386-390.(10) . E. Gonzalez, 'Francia Tendra Ejercito Profesional en el 2002', El Pais (23 Feb. 1996) p.2.(11) . M. Janowitz, The Professional Soldier (New York: Free Press 1960).(12) . Among others, Ch. Moskos, 'The Emergent Military: Civil, Traditional or Plural?', Pacific Sociological Rev (April 1973); J. van Doorn, 'The Decline of the Mass Army in the West', Armed Forces and Society 2 (1975).(13) . J. Heinonen, 'Conscription Vis-a-vis Professional Army', in K. Kiljunen & J. Väänänen (eds.) Youth and conscription (Jyväskylässä: IPB/WRI/PUF/UCOF 1987) p17-24.(14) . R. Ajangiz, 'El Precedente Belga', El Mundo (11/12 Sept. 1992) p.4/4.(15) . B. Fleckenstein, 'Alemania Federal', in Ch. Moskos & F. Wood (eds.) Lo Militar, ¿Mas que una Profesion? (Madrid: Ministerio de Defensa 1991) p.231-245. English original The Military, More than a Job? (Pergamon 1988).(16) . S. Vado, 'Un Modelo Mixto de Ejercitos', Revista Española de Defensa 95 (Jan. 1996) p.24-31.(17) . J. Kuhlmann & E. Lippert, 'The Federal Republic of Germany: Conscientious Objection as Social Welfare', in Ch. Moskos & J.W. Chambers II (eds.) The New Conscientious Objection (New York: Oxford Univ. Press 1993) p.98-105.(18) . The text appears in M.A. Aguilar & R. Bardaji (eds.) El Servicio Militar, ¿Obligatorio o Voluntario? (Madrid: Tecnos 1992) p.267-289.(19) . Interview with WRI staff person in London, Howard Clark, 23 July 1996, Liege.(20) . J. Diggle, 'Las Fuerzas Armadas en el Reino Unido', in J. Cano Hevia (ed.) Debate Sobre el Servicio Militar (Madrid: Fundacion Universidad-Empresa 1987) p.94.(21) . G. Savay, 'Los Casos Frances, Español y Britanico', in M.A. Aguilar & R. Bardaji (eds.) El Servicio Militar, ¿Obligatorio o Voluntario? (Madrid: Tecnos 1992) p.94.(22) . B. Fleckenstein, 'Alemania Federal', in Ch. Moskos & F. Wood (eds.) Lo Militar, ¿Mas que una Profesion? (Madrid: Ministerio de Defensa 1991) p.242. English original The Military, More than a Job? (Pergamon 1988).(23) . J. Ruperez, 'Un Ejercito Mixto y Dual', Politica Exterior 26 (1992) p.47.(24) . P. Ibarra (ed.) Objecion e Insumision (Madrid: Fundamentos 1992) p.109; A. Seegers, 'South Africa: from Laager to Anti-apartheid', in Ch. Moskos & J.W. Chambers II (eds.) The New Conscientious Objection (New York: Oxford Univ Press 1993) p.127-133.(25) . The Economist (4 Feb. 1995) p.68. (26) . S.A. Cohen, 'The Israel Defense Forces: from a People's Army to a Professional Military, Causes and Implications', Armed Forces and Society 21/2 (Winter 1995) p.237-254. And R. Wurgaft, 'Los Jovenes Israelies "Pasan" de Ser Heroes Militares', El Mundo (17 Aug. 1996) p. 33. A peace activist's view in A. Keller, 'Israeli Defence Forces in Crisis', Peace News 2408 (Dec. 1996) p.12-13.(27) . 'Turkey, from Evasion to Resistance', Peace News 2408 (Dec. 1996) p.9.(28) . J. Fuentes, 'El Antiguo Ejercito Rojo se Esta Quedando sin su Mano de Obra', El Mundo (14 Nov. 1996) p.27.(29) . J. Gonzalez, 'Conscription and CO in Central America', Peace News 2405-06 (Aug./Sept. 1996) p.10-11.(30) . E-mail communication with Serpaj-Paraguay representative in WRI, Hugo Valiente, 1 Feb. 1996.(31) . Interview with Serpaj-Argentina representative in WRI, Cecilia Moretti, 24 July 1996.(32) . Cited by J. Herrero, Informe Critico sobre el Servicio Militar (Barcelona: Lerna 1987) p.47.(33) . M. Shaw, Post-Military Society (Oxford: Polity Press 1991).(34) . See, among others, in M. Shaw (ed.), War, State and Society (London: MacMillan 1984), and Ch. Tilly, Coercion, Capital, and European States, AD 990-1992 (Oxford: Blackwell 1992).(35) . E. Ortego 'La Sociedad Civil', Pagina Abierta (Nov. 1993) p.20.(36) . MA thesis by M. Hendley, 'The Conscription Movement in Great Britain, 1899-1914', Dissertation Abstracts International 31 (1987) p.624.(37) . Cited by D. Hayes, 'Conscription conflict', in K. Kiljunen & J. Väänänen (eds.) Youth and Conscription (Jyväskylässä: IPB/WRI/PUF/UCOF 1987) p.6. (38) . J. McConnell, 'European Experience with Volunteer and Conscript Forces', Studies Prepared for the President's Commission on an AVF (Vol II, 1970).(39) . G. Harries-Jenkins, 'Britain: from Individual Conscience to Social Movement', in Ch. Moskos & J.W. Chambers II (eds.) The New Conscientious Objection (New York: Oxford Univ Press 1993) p.67-79.(40) . Lately, the timing difficulties have moved the Ministre of Defence to defer it to year 2003.(41) . Chirac took the decision at his lowest in popularity since he got to power: discontented were 65 per cent. He began to recuperate and four months later, discontented had lowered to 51 per cent. I. Gil, 'Jacques Chirac y Alain Juppe, Dos Listos en Apuros', El Mundo (15 Dec. 1996) p.28.(42) . M. Martin, 'France: a Statute but no Objectors', in Ch. Moskos & J.W. Chambers II (eds.) The New Conscientious Objection (New York: Oxford Univ Press 1993) p.80-97.(43) . R. Bardaji, 'Un Debate Abierto y Plural sobre el Factor Humano', in M.A. Aguilar & R. Bardaji (eds.) El Servicio Militar, ¿Obligatorio o Voluntario? (Madrid: Tecnos 1992) p17.(44) . V. Sampedro, Nuevos Movimientos Sociales, Agendas Politicas e Informativas: el Caso de la Objecion de Conciencia (Madrid: Centro de Estudios Avanzados en Ciencias Sociales 1996).(45) . The entire discussion has been published in M.A. Aguilar & R. Bardaji (eds.) El Servicio Militar, ¿Obligatorio o Voluntario? (Madrid: Tecnos 1992) p.209-266.(46) . J.A. Herrero, E-mail report on the Summer Course 'Reinventar la Defensa: Hacia un Nuevo Modelo de Fuerzas Armadas', Universidad Internacional Menendez Pelayo (La Coruña, July 1996). (47) . E. Serra, 'El Hito Historico de la Profesionalizacion', ABC (9 Dec. 1996) p.3. This very day's editorial of the conservative daily states that 'the present situation was unbearable... due to some sickening factor'. Prior presentations of this news (e.g. 'Worrying Wave of Antimilitarism Intoxicates Spanish Population' front page on 3 Feb. 1991) undoubtedly say that such a sickening factor is the insumision.(48) . Press release by MOC (11 Nov. 1995). Average constant number of imprisoned insumisos is 300; The names of those at 1 Dec. 1996 are listed in Peace News 2408 (Dec. 1996) p.14-16.(49) . D. Prasad, They Love It but They Leave It; American Deserters (London: War Resisters' International 1971) p.10-11.(50) . R. Ajangiz, 'Impacto del Movimiento Antimilitarista en los Contextos de Euskadi y Navarra', V Congreso Español de Sociologia (Granada 1995); J. Casquette, 'The Sociopolitical Context of Mobilization: the Case of the Antimilitary Movement in the Basque Country', Mobilization 1/2 (1996) p.203-217.(51) . A. Diez, 'Aznar y Gonzalez Impulsan un Acuerdo para Pedir la Plena Integracion en la OTAN', El Pais (18 Oct. 1996) p.18.(52) . The PNV and CiU have obliged the PP to put forward a law about conscientious objection which may destabilise the prospects of reform in the armed forces, as the Ministre of Defence himself has denounced. El Pais, 27 Nov. 1996; El Mundo, 28 Nov. 1996.(53) . Assemblee Nationale, 'Projet de Loi Relatif a la Programmation Militaire pour les Annees 1997 a 2002' and 'Rapport Annexe', text n. 549 approved on 7 June 1996..(54) . S. Vado, 'Un Modelo Mixto de Ejercitos', Revista Española de Defensa 95 (Jan. 1996) p.25.(55) . El Pais (10 Dec. 1996) p.19. The most ambitious scope is a final force of 180,000. In both cases, the number of officers would be 50,000. This inflation of command is a major problem inherited from Franco's era. In fact, some other studies have pointed out that, in order to have a good internal balance, the retirement of 20,000 further officers should be the aim; it would be additional to the 15,886 already retired since 1984. S. Fernandez, 'Continua la Adaptacion de Plantillas', Revista Española de Defensa 100 (June 1996) p.23.(56) , C. Downes, 'Gran Bretaña', in Ch. Moskos & F. Wood (eds.) Lo Militar, ¿Mas que una Profesion? (Madrid: Ministerio de Defensa 1991) p.208. English original The Military, More than a Job? (Pergamon 1988).(57) . R. Crivellaro, O. Mouton & P. Candaele, 'Une Armee de Metier', La Libre Belgique (20 July 1996) Supplement p.4-7.(58) . Interview with Charles Millon, El Mundo (18 Feb. 1996) p.29.(59) . R. Goldich, 'La Fuerza de Voluntarios Norteamericana: de 1973 hasta la Actualidad', in M.A. Aguilar & R. Bardaji (eds.) El Servicio Militar, ¿Obligatorio o Voluntario? (Madrid: Tecnos 1992) p.165. (60) . M. Gonzalez, 'El Proceso de Profesionalizacion del Ejercito no Despegara antes de 1998 por Falta de Presupuesto', El Pais (3 Oct. 1996) p.22.(61) . E. Gonzalez, 'Francia Tendra Ejercito Profesional en el 2002', El Pais (23 Feb. 1996) p.2.(62) . Data from NATO annals mentioned in I. Cosido, 'Industria de Defensa: ¿el Final del Tunel?', La Voz de Afarmade 24 (Sept./Oct. 1996) p.8. I. Cosido is PP's technical adviser on the issue; his PhD research has been published under the title of El Gasto Militar. El Presupuesto de Defensa en España 1982-1992) (Madrid: Eudema 1994).(63) . I. Gil, 'Chirac Acaba con la Mili', El Mundo (23 Feb. 1996) p.29.(64) . Data from NATO annals mentioned in I. Cosido, 'Industria de Defensa: ¿el Final del Tunel?', La Voz de Afarmade 24 (Sept./Oct. 1996) p.8. (65) . Declarations by General Lieutenant Santiago Valderas, 'Las Fuerzas Armadas se Consideran en una Situacion Limite de Descapitalizacion', El Pais (18 Oct. 1996) p.20.(66) . M. Gonzalez, 'España Iniciara Programas Militares por 1,5 Billones sin Imputarlos al Deficit', El Pais (22 Oct. 1996) p.28.(67) . In the case of a 180,000 total force, this addition would be of US$ 5,500 million, 80 per cent more. El Pais (10 Dec. 1996) p.19.(68) . J. Lobo, 'El PP, Partidario de Aumentar el Gasto Militar hasta un Billon y Medio de Pesetas', El Mundo (17 July 1996) p.17.(69) . R. Ajangiz, 'La Opinion Publica ante la Objecion de Conciencia y lo Militar', paper for the Ph.D. in Sociology programme, University of the Basque Country (1994) p.59-62.(70) . J. Frances, 'Un Retrato de Solidaridad', El Pais (9 Dec. 1996) last p.(71) . Interviews with representatives of Vereniging Dienstweugeraars (Netherlands), Anton Luccioni, and of Forum voor Vredesaktie (Belgium), Jean van Criekinge, 22 July 1996. (72) . M. Levi & S. DeTray, 'A Weapon Against War: Conscientious Objection in the US, Australia and France', Politics and Society 4 (1993) p.425-464.(73) . Personal communication with editorial staff of the peace magazine 'Le RIRe', Jerome Martinez, Nov. 1996.(74) . Proceedings of the Work Group on Professionalisation of the Armies, WRI Council, Liege (July 1996), and Proceedings of the GSoA Meeting 'For a Europe without Armies', Bern (Nov. 1996).(75) . J. Lobo, 'El Aumento de un 32 por Ciento de la Objecion de Conciencia Pone la Mili al Borde del Colapso', El Mundo (10 Oct. 1996) p.18; M. Gonzalez, 'Record de Objetores de Conciencia, con Mas de 80.000 entre Enero y Octubre', El Pais (9 Nov. 1996) p.19.(76) . J. Lobo, 'Defensa Admite que Tan Solo Uno de Cada Cinco Objetores Hace la PSS', El Mundo (19 July 1996).(77) . 'Justicia Pone en Marcha un Plan para Acabar con la Bolsa de Objetores sin Destino', El Pais (16 Sept. 1996) p.24; 'El Ejercito Recluta para Paliar la Objecion a 54.000 Jovenes Mas de los que Necesita', El Pais (18 Nov. 1996) p.15. See also Editorial in El Pais (18 Nov. 1996). These measures may fall short though: the special plan follows other two that failed and the extra recruitment will repair a conscientious objection rate of no more than a 28 per cent.(78) . P. Garcia, 'La Mayoria del Congreso Reclama Profesionalizar el Ejercito Cuanto Antes', El Mundo (11 Dec. 1996) p.17.(79) . B. Boëne, 'Francia', in Ch. Moskos & F. Wood (eds.) Lo Militar, ¿Mas que una Profesion? (Madrid: Ministerio de Defensa 1991) p.262-263. English original The Military, More than a Job? (Pergamon 1988).(80) . L. Garcia, 'La Nueva Ley del Servicio Militar', in M.A. Aguilar & R. Bardaji (eds.) El Servicio Militar, ¿Obligatorio o Voluntario? (Madrid: Tecnos 1992) p.183-184; and J. Ruperez, 'Un Ejercito Mixto y Dual', Politica Exterior 26 (1992) p.52-54. Article by Colonel J.G. Valdivia ('El Purgatorio Historico de las Fuerzas Armadas Españolas', El Pais, 19 July 1996) is straightforward about its causes. Opinion surveys have been collected by R. Ajangiz, 'La Opinion Publica ante la Objecion de Conciencia y lo Militar', paper for the Ph.D. in Sociology programme, University of the Basque Country (1994), p.45-58.(81) . Ch. Chatfield, 'Ironies of Protest: Interpreting the American Anti-Vietnam War Movement', in Grunewald & Van den Dungen (eds.) Twentieth-century peace movements (Lewiston: Edwin Mellen Press 1995) p.199-208.