Conscription Revisited

Abstract

One issue addressed by the 1994 Defence White Paper was that of recruitment to the armed forces. Although the repeated claim that a consensus existed had been used to preclude any real debate on defence policy, the Gulf War turned the limelight on a hitherto muted debate on the desirability of a changeover from a largely conscript force to a wholly professional one. The issue was discussed in the National Assembly in October 1991, and the Fondation pour les Etudes de Défense Nationale organised a workshop on the subject in February of the same year. The debate was extensively reported in the press. Some military cadres and politicians openly voiced their doubts about conscription and raised a closely related issue: that of giving financial priority to nuclear deterrence to the detriment of other arms. The White Paper implicitly acknowledged the underlying lack of consensus inasmuch as it devoted thirteen pages to refuting the arguments of those opposed to national service and a chapter to the balance to be achieved between nuclear capability and conventional arms.¹ To justify its choice it put forward strategic and financial considerations, which we shall analyse. It reaffirmed that national service was the token of a deep-seated concern felt by the nation and the citizens about their defence and was part of the fabric of the Republic. We shall query this assumption in the light of