BERLIN -- The country on the front line of Europe's rearmament effort is struggling to meet its military recruitment goals. The problem isn't pacifism, but young people posing a new variation on the age-old question: "What is in it for me?"
European nations have stepped up military spending and begun preparing for a potential conflict with Russia. As a part of the effort, countries such as Germany and France have sought to get young people thinking about military service again.
Germany has introduced a new military service, initially on a voluntary basis. Some 700,000 men and women born in 2008 started receiving questionnaires this month about their fitness and willingness to serve. Only men are obliged to answer, and they will have to report for medical evaluation, whether they want to serve or not.
News about the new military service sent tens of thousands of school-age demonstrators into the streets. A frequent refrain: Why should they sacrifice for a state that channels a quarter of its federal budget into pension payments to the old?
Their objections are more about economics than politics, a big difference from the idealism of the German peace movement in the 1970s and 1980s, shaped by the Vietnam War, the Cold War and the fear of a nuclear conflict in Europe. Facing dim job prospects and high living costs, many young people say they resent being asked to sacrifice for their elders again so soon after the pandemic lockdowns.
Even in a country with virtually free higher education, universal healthcare and unemployment benefits, the objections are proving tough to overcome. The problem was in evidence earlier this month at the German armed forces' "career lounge," a drop-by surgery in the German capital for people contemplating a military career. Snow and subzero temperatures weren't the only reason for the low foot traffic.
"In a democracy, you do something for the state and you get something in return," said Benedikt Zacher, a 25-year-old student and math tutor who was walking past the center. His students, he added, "think they're not getting anything from the state, and as a result, they are growing more selfish, rightly so."
France's army chief of staff in November warned his country's main vulnerability was a lack of fighting spirit. And while autocracies have coercion and propaganda to fill army ranks, Western democracies largely rely on patriotism.
A PR push -- including social-media campaigns stressing the thrill of high-tech combat -- for the German armed forces, known as the Bundeswehr, has helped to boost the number of recruits in the past two years. The Defense Ministry said the number of active-duty soldiers had reached its highest level since 2021. Even so, the newcomers are barely offsetting departures and retirements, and the force is growing older.
Germany has set modest goals in the near term. In a letter to lawmakers seen by The Wall Street Journal, Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said he aimed to enroll 20,000 in the new service this year. The ministry said it wanted to recruit another 13,500 soldiers outside the military service.
Still, this is well below the 60,000 to 70,000 new recruits a year analysts think are needed for Germany to reach its goal of raising troop numbers from 184,000 to about 260,000 and tripling reservists to 200,000 by 2035.
A detailed opinion survey by the Bundeswehr's Center of Military History and Social Sciences last year showed high support for the Bundeswehr and the rearmament policy -- across all age groups. The problem: The number of respondents who would consider a military career has reached its lowest level since the study started in 2020.
The new questionnaire is aimed in part at prompting a shift in the mindset of young people, said Martin Elbe, a sociologist at the Center for Military History and Social Sciences of the Bundeswehr. "Many young people never had to think about the military as an employer...Now they will have to," he said.
The government will also use the questionnaire to build a database of potential recruits for the future. Mandatory conscription, suspended but not abolished in 2011, could even be reintroduced if recruitment doesn't pick up substantially.
The young are key not just because of their fitness and aptitudes but because the Bundeswehr has no way of contacting many of the country's 930,000 people still alive who have served with the military and could in theory be mobilized. It stopped maintaining files on them after 2011 and data protection laws don't allow it to query the personal records of citizens for this purpose.
For now, Germany is facing an uphill battle in wooing young people.
Protesters threw paint bombs at the military's career lounge in Berlin last year and tried to block the door with cardboard boxes, an officer said. Earlier this month, a masked man entered the office and harangued a youngster who had an appointment, the officer added.
One 16-year-old student who took part in last month's protests said he would rather live under Russian occupation than risk dying in combat. His friend, a 17-year-old woman, said she would leave Germany in case of war and join her grandparents abroad.
"I'm not a pacifist," said Simon Dressler, a 26-year-old influencer and podcaster who opposes military service. "I know violence was necessary to secure many political freedoms...But even people like me, with a privileged background, can never hope to afford their own house. Now we're told we should defend democracy, but whose interests are we asked to defend here?"
The government isn't blind to young people's economic arguments. Under the new military service, volunteers will earn up to $3,144 a month -- $932 more than in the old system -- and the state will cover most of the cost of a driving license, which in Germany can exceed $4,500. This means some teenage recruits might earn more than their instructors -- one young Bundeswehr officer said this was causing some grumblings in the ranks.
Some think the mounting military threat from Russia and America's disengagement from Europe will help Berlin achieve its recruitment goals in the end.
"If I am 18 years old today, I most certainly should be thinking about whether life in freedom and democracy will even be possible in 10 years’ time in this Europe which is threatened from many sides," said Timo Graf, the researcher at the Bundeswehr's Center for Military History and Social Sciences who conducted the opinion survey about the military.
Zacher, the 25-year-old student, said he opposed a draft and that "the state hasn't done much for me...But in a war, I would probably still fight. Out of solidarity, and because democracy is worth it in the end."
Others, such as Sönke Neitzel, professor of military history at Potsdam University, remain skeptical. He said only a mandatory draft would allow the Bundeswehr to fill specific positions in those units and in those places where they are most urgently needed.
"Maybe we can hit the head counts, but the key question is that of combat capability. Can our combat brigades, our flotillas, our wings solve their personnel problems? When I speak to generals...no one thinks a voluntary system will do it."