Germany ends conscription

Well, technically, it "suspended" it. And, technically, in Germany, it's been "universal service," with community service work readily available to conscientious objectors.

That said, as Germany joins most fellow NATO members with a professional army, it's the end of an era.

First, it's a financial issue.

It could save 8 million euros.

And, under Germany's universal service law, 65 percent of youth weren't drafted. 20 percent opted out to do conscientious objection service work and only 15 percent served

Along with that, the army will be cut from 240K to 170K, part of how it's saving all those Euros.

As the Spiegel story notes, Germany thought universal service with conscription would democratize the army and better anchor it to larger society after the formation of West Germany.

The left-leaning Die Tageszeitung writes:

"In postwar Germany, conscription was always more than a means of filling the ranks. It was supposed to symbolize that the Bundeswehr (Germany's postwar military) was something completely different from the (prewar) Reichswehr -- not a state within a state, but a citizens' army. For decades, both the conservative Christian Democrats and the center-left Social Democrats exaggeratedly declared conscription to be an untouchable pillar of democracy. It belonged to postwar Germany just like the deutsche mark. Now it is being abolished -- and nobody minds."

"The fact that this reform is taking place with so little fuss is also related to the typical postwar German indifference to all things military. People would prefer to have nothing to do with it. This is a peculiar kind of historical awareness, a distant echo of the horrors of World War II. In addition, everyone knows that conscription in Germany has long been just a show. In 2010, fewer than 60,000 recruits were drafted -- around a quarter of the total 20 years earlier. The Bundeswehr, which has long been a de facto professional army, does not need conscription anymore. Leaving aside postwar German mythology for a moment, this reform is just an overdue adjustment to European norms. In the era of high-tech weaponry, large conscript armies are a relic of the 19th century."

Well, not totally true. As the Chimpster and Rummy were slow to learn, occupation work still needs boots on the ground. Besides, NATO should have learned that in Bosnia.