William Hague seems to think we should reinstate National Service:
The UK needs to move to the same reassertion of citizenship. The best model to draw on is also Scandinavian. Norway has a modern and highly successful form of National Service, keeping up with changes in society as well as the demands of national security. Every Norwegian 18-year-old, irrespective of gender, fills in a questionnaire on their health and motivation. About a quarter of them are chosen for interview, accompanied by physical and intelligence tests. In the latest year just under 10,000 were selected for military service, 17 per cent of the age cohort. They serve for 12 to 16 months.
There are huge advantages to this system. Although some people end up having to serve against their wishes, the majority are highly willing and proud of being selected. Many choose to serve for a longer period. They learn skills that are often of great value in later employment, while mixing with people from other regions and backgrounds all over their country. All of them become trained personnel who form a strong national reserve.
We’re with Milton Friedman on this:
General William Westmoreland, testifying before President Nixon's Commission on an All-Volunteer [Military] Force, denounced the idea, saying that he did not want to command an army of mercenaries.
Milton Friedman interrupted him: "General, would you rather command an army of slaves?" Westmoreland got angry: "I don't like to hear our patriotic draftees referred to as slaves."
And Friedman got rolling: "I don't like to hear our patriotic volunteers referred to as mercenaries. If they are mercenaries, then I, sir, am a mercenary professor, and you, sir, are a mercenary general." And he did not stop: "We are served by mercenary physicians, we use a mercenary lawyer, and we get our meat from a mercenary butcher".
In more detail:
TO MAN THE ARMY with volunteers would require making conditions of service more attractive—not only higher pay but also better housing facilities and improved amenities in other respects. It will be replied that money is not the only factor young men consider in choosing their careers. This is certainly true—and equally certainly irrelevant. Adequate pay alone may not attract, but inadequate pay can certainly deter. Military service has many non-monetary attractions to young men—the chance to serve one’s country, adventure, travel, opportunities for training, and so on. Not the least of the advantages of a volunteer army is that the military would have to improve their personnel policies and pay more attention to meeting the needs of the enlisted men. They now need pay little attention to them, since they can fill their ranks with conscripts serving under compulsion.
Conscription - even into this national service idea, only some of which is military - means that those doing the paying, in the wider sense of all the conditions not just money, don’t have to care very much about what is being paid. For what is offered to slaves can be very much less than what is necessary to attract mercenaries.
This idea of having a less than full time - or lifelong - but trained up reserve has its merits, of course. Which is why we already have one, The Army Reserve, what used to be called the Territorials. If Baron Hague - or anyone else - wishes to increase the number in that then they can fund it properly. Something British Governments have not been doing for decades.
It’s entirely true that there’s a cost to having a decent military. But the costs of enslaving people into it are higher than tempting them. So, tempt, don’t force.