Conscription as the tool of strengthening will to defend in Lithuania

• In Event: Willingness to Defend One’s Country: the Baltic States and Taiwan in the Shadow of Two Hostile Neighbors

Abstract

Deividas Šlekys

The heroic Ukrainian fight against Russian aggression shows very clearly the crucial importance of the will of the people to fight back and defend their country. Yet, it isn't easy to measure how strong this will is. This paper argues that compulsory military service is one of the most important governmental tools to strengthen the people's will to defend. At the same time, society's reaction to the services, number of volunteers, and attempts to doge it could be seen as concrete metrics showing how strong or weak is will to defend.
This paper checks this conceptual proposition by looking into the Lithuanian case. It brought back conscription in 2015 and, since then, gradually expanded its scope and scale. Preliminary statistical and more ethnographical data show consistent but sometimes contradictory results. Conscription, in general, is seen favourably by society. Still, at the same time, the number of volunteers' scale of dodging indicates a reluctance to serve and, to an extent, a weak will to defend. Therefore, it might be considered that the government's attempts to increase people's will to defend via compulsory military service are a double-edged sword

Author

• Deividas Šlekys, Vilnius University