Europe is looking for soldiers and cannot find them.

BrusselsEuropean leaders are obsessed with increase military powerThey want to be prepared for the threat posed by Russian expansionism and stop depending on the United States, which has abandoned the protection it had provided to Europe since the end of World War II. But European states don't just want to buy more tanks, missiles, or cybersecurity systems; they also want more people who are willing to defend Europe. And this is one of their biggest headaches: they can't find citizens willing to enlist in the army, and that's why European forces are short on soldiers.

According to a recent report by the Bruegel Research Centre and the Kiel Institute, Europe would need 300,000 additional soldiers if he falls victim to an attack by Vladimir Putin's regime and does not receive aid from the US military. And, in fact, there are several European powers that want to expand the number of troops and have launched recruitment campaigns. The main military power in the European Union, France, intends to expand its reserve forces, and Emmanuel Macron announced this week that he wants to double their number: from the current 43,000 reservists to 80,000 by 2030. Along the same lines, the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the Netherlands are gradually losing troops, especially in the lower ranks.

The reasons for the lack of Europeans willing to serve in the military are varied. One of the main ones is demographic. "The population is increasingly aging, and you have fewer people of military age," notes the researcher from the think tank CEPA and professor at the National Defense University in Washington, Andrew R. Novo. Thus, security expert Chris Kremidas-Courtney, of the EPC research center, points out in a conversation with this newspaper that one of the possible solutions to compensate for the lack of young people is the influx of immigrants, citing the United States as an example, where "for many years there has been faster access to American citizenship." Furthermore, Kremidas-Courtney emphasizes the importance of including women in military services and recruitment campaigns so as "not to exclude 50% of the population from the outset."

However, experts agree that the most determining cause is the fact that Western citizens have generally become disengaged from the security of their countries, after 80 years of peace and under the protection of the United States, and do not agree with the idea of joining the army for political reasons. "Young people today have different values and tend to be against war and are pacifists. They are individualists and skeptical of concepts such as patriotism," notes expert Andrew R. Novo, who wishes to state that his opinion does not represent the position of the university and the think tank for which it works.

Changing the mentality

In this regard, the president of the Society for Military Studies (SEM), Pol Molas, emphasized in a telephone conversation that the key factor is the "mentality" of citizens and stated that in the vast majority of European countries "there is no culture of prevention." Therefore, in recent days, European leaders, especially the European Commission of Ursula von der Leyen, have been trying to get the message across that the threat of Russian expansionism is real and that it is necessary "to be prepared for war." This week, Brussels presented a controversial emergency plan to deal with climate catastrophes or a military attack, warning of the possibility of aggression from Vladimir Putin's regime. France had also done so a few days earlier.

This strategy proposed by the European Commission is based in Finland and, as Molas explains, it is one of the few European countries—along with Sweden and, for example, Switzerland—that does not have recruitment problems. "There, the military is not frowned upon; on the contrary," explains the military studies expert. However, he contrasts this with the situation in countries that do not have this perception of threat, such as those in southern and western Europe. "It's common for recruitment rates to vary depending on the perception of threat," adds the SEM president.

In this way, experts point to the possibility of reinstating military service and raising public awareness of the importance of security. However, Kremidas-Courtney emphasizes that under no circumstances should military service, for example, be revived in Spain, and believes it should have a more civilian dimension. Along the same lines, she proposes that public administrations invest more resources in recruitment and provide incentives for young people to enlist, such as university scholarships or the opportunity to gain professional experience.

Catalans and the Spanish Army

Beyond these reasons, other factors must be added in Spain. In Catalonia and the Basque Country, for example, the lack of citizens willing to enlist in the Spanish army is much more pronounced than in the rest of the country and It is mainly due to identity reasons"Clearly, there's a trauma from what the armed forces have meant, especially during dictatorships, as in Portugal or Greece," Kremidas-Courtney points out.

However, Molas counters that the United Kingdom doesn't encounter the same problem with the Scots or Welsh because the British Army "has treated them with considerable respect." He also cites the example of the Finnish Army, which even "has a unit for the Swedish-speaking minority, and all members speak Swedish, including the commanders."