Just wondering what you guys think. Are Pakistan armed forces better off as volunteer forces or should there be compulsory military service of 1-2 years for all men and maybe even women who reach 18 and finish high school? like it happened in the US or UK during the world wars or later during the Korean war, then Vietnam. all young boys over 18 were drafted. a few famous who protested were Mohammed Ali Clay and Elvis Presely. In Israel, everyone has to serve military for afew years and any person who hasnt is denied a lot of privileges, e.g. not being eligible for the post of Prime Minister.
what do you guys think?
Re: Draft or No Draft
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Haris Zuberi: *
Just wondering what you guys think. Are Pakistan armed forces better off as volunteer forces or should there be compulsory military service of 1-2 years for all men and maybe even women who reach 18 and finish high school? like it happened in the US or UK during the world wars or later during the Korean war, then Vietnam. all young boys over 18 were drafted. a few famous who protested were Mohammed Ali Clay and Elvis Presely. In Israel, everyone has to serve military for afew years and any person who hasnt is denied a lot of privileges, e.g. not being eligible for the post of Prime Minister.
what do you guys think?
[/QUOTE]
Drafting would be a great idea most european nations conduct it including nations such as Holland. Besides it will give all those Ex-pats who shout about proud of being pakistanis while sipping budwiser in England or US to really contribute towards their country and would keep them away from Terrorist infulence or Extermisim.
And they will get a chance for self discovery, managment and dicipline.
draft definitely. lager can only be so good.
Re: Re: Draft or No Draft
youre right Jackal, i think so too.
if not drafting then the govt should atleast restore the NCC training that all boys and girls were given until 1999 when Nawaz Sharif suddenly had a thought that the country didnt have enough money to spend on training its young in discipline, first aid and use of protective firearms.
Gen Musharraf must start the NCC again asap.
Re: Re: Re: Draft or No Draft
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Haris Zuberi: *
youre right Jackal, i think so too.
if not drafting then the govt should atleast restore the NCC training that all boys and girls were given until 1999 when Nawaz Sharif suddenly had a thought that the country didnt have enough money to spend on training its young in discipline, first aid and use of protective firearms.
Gen Musharraf must start the NCC again asap.
[/QUOTE]
Aggreed!!!
The last thing the Pakistani Armed forces need is conscription. It is widely accepted by most experts these days that volunteer armies perform much better than conscript armies. The following extract is from an article about Polands invitation to join NATO, but it gives a good idea of some of the problems that conscript armies face:
"The Polish Army, like nearly all conscript armies suffers from demoralisation. NATO membership is welcomed by many to mean an end to conscription. NATO however is not made up of professional armies, only Britain, Canada and the US have professional armies although there are strong demands in many countries for an end to the waste of up to two years of a young man's life. The problem of course with professionalism is that soldiers must be paid a wage and not just the 72 zl. pocket money that they get now. Polish soldiers like their counterparts in Germany, Spain and Italy spend most of their time doing menial tasks that have no effect on their ability to defend their country. Very few get to do practical things like fire a weapon or map reading and compass work. "
Contrast that with the generally high morale in the Pakistan army.
Manpower has never been a problem in the Pakistani Armed Forces, so there is absolutly no reason to introduce the draft. In fact, if anything the Army needs to reduce its size so it can free up alot of the money tied up in its wage bill and spend it on modernising and providing better equipment for its remaining soldiers. It is unlikely that the Pakistani armed forces can modernise to keep up with their Indian counterparts, and maintain their current force levels. Given a choice between the 2 it would be wiser to go for a smaller, but more modern force.
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by RaMo: *
The last thing the Pakistani Armed forces need is conscription. It is widely accepted by most experts these days that volunteer armies perform much better than conscript armies. The following extract is from an article about Polands invitation to join NATO, but it gives a good idea of some of the problems that conscript armies face:
"The Polish Army, like nearly all conscript armies suffers from demoralisation. NATO membership is welcomed by many to mean an end to conscription. NATO however is not made up of professional armies, only Britain, Canada and the US have professional armies although there are strong demands in many countries for an end to the waste of up to two years of a young man's life. The problem of course with professionalism is that soldiers must be paid a wage and not just the 72 zl. pocket money that they get now. Polish soldiers like their counterparts in Germany, Spain and Italy spend most of their time doing menial tasks that have no effect on their ability to defend their country. Very few get to do practical things like fire a weapon or map reading and compass work. "
Contrast that with the generally high morale in the Pakistan army.
Manpower has never been a problem in the Pakistani Armed Forces, so there is absolutly no reason to introduce the draft. In fact, if anything the Army needs to reduce its size so it can free up alot of the money tied up in its wage bill and spend it on modernising and providing better equipment for its remaining soldiers. It is unlikely that the Pakistani armed forces can modernise to keep up with their Indian counterparts, and maintain their current force levels. Given a choice between the 2 it would be wiser to go for a smaller, but more modern force.
[/QUOTE]
Very good point!
Drafting would be a complete disaster. Conscripted soldiers have low morale and poor combat ability, because they are being forced to fight, rather than wanting to fight like professional soldiers do. Also, since they only receive a small amount of military training 1 or 2 years, their actual combat worthiness is questionable when compared to professional soldiers, who have much more training.
Particularly in the case of Pakistan, where we have more people wanting to be soldiers than the number of soldiers we have need for, drafting is simply not neccessary, and if anything, would harm us, because we would have troops in the front line who simply speaking, are being forced to be there at gunpoint from their own side. You can imagine how much resistance they're likely to put up.
Even China, which has the world's largest conscript army, has realised the problems of drafted soldiers and is implementing plans to downsize their forces to being a much smaller force of professionals instead.
A much better way of increasing the number of weapons-trained people that you have in Pakistan would be to increase the number of reservists, part-time soldiers. These would be people who demonstrate that they want to be trained to fight, because they want to fight if their country needs it.
RaMO and MS,
good points...
however i do think the NCC (national cadet corps) should be activated again and something must be done to raise reserve forces. that can have a very postive effect with part time employment abilities for people and for those who cant be full time soldiers an opportunity to be one. and not to forget the dicipline, adventure etc that young men would learn from.
Even with reserve forces, volunteers perform significantly better than conscripted/drafted reserves. Look at the Territorial Army in Britain and National Guard in the US. Both are voluntary reserve forces and perform every bit as well as their regular counterparts. If the Pakistani Armed forces wish to raise a reserve force, then the National Guard/ Territorial Army model would yield a more "usable" reserve force than National Service soldiers.
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Haris Zuberi: *
RaMO and MS,
.......and not to forget the dicipline, adventure etc that young men would learn from.
[/QUOTE]
The purpose of the Pakistani Armed forces is not to teach discipline and provide adventure for the young. It is to protect the country. The best way to accomplish this is with a professional army (and reserve if need be), not with conscripts. If you start using the Armed forces for other purposes, like disciplinging the young and reducing unemployment, then you are affecting its ability to carry out its primary job.
If you want to create some sort of compulsory service for the young, then don't foist them on the armed forces and its already limited budget. Create a civil dept for National Service and use it to build infrastructure (the way the Germans built their autobahn network in the 30s). But i can guarantee that with corruption in Pakistan, only the poor would end up serving, while anyone with the slightest connections would get their kids expempted from service.