In 2024, the world recorded 61 active conflicts involving at least one state, the highest figure since systematic statistics have existed (1946). And eleven of these reached the threshold of ‘war‘ (more than 1,000 battle deaths in one year).

In parallel, conflict databases and observers describe 2025 as a year in which ‘high levels of violence are the new normal’, with more widespread violence and fewer constraints against civilians.

It is in this scenario that, in Europe, a word that seemed archived with the end of the Cold War has returned to the political lexicon: conscription. And it returns with a paradox: fear is growing, the threat is real, but the willingness of young people to be ‘conscripted‘ into a new season of conflict remains low, especially when politics appears incapable of explaining why, for what, and with what limitations.

Leverage returns to the European debate: it’s not theory, it’s agenda

According to a briefing by the European Parliament’s Research Service, conscription has firmly re-entered the European agendas especially since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, as an option linked to ‘preparedness‘ and the resilience of defence systems.

And indeed, in Europe, it is not only spoken of ‘in the abstract’:

– Conscription already exists in nine EU countries (Austria, Cyprus, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Greece, Latvia, Lithuania, Sweden).

– Latvia reintroduced compulsory service.

– Denmark has extended the draft to women, with a model that also increases the length of service (extension and reform in 2025-2026).

– Germany has launched a new ‘military service’ scheme on a voluntary basis but with information obligations for 18-year-olds, designed to build a recruiting and reservist base without immediately reinstating the classical conscription.

– France is also moving towards enhanced and voluntary ‘service’ formulas, with long-term goals of scale.

This does not mean that Europe ‘wants war’. It means that the continent is looking for a credible language and instruments of defence in a world where the American umbrella seems less obvious, and where deterrence is again an everyday theme.

The political point: young people reject ‘someone else’s’ war

Herein lies the crux: many young Europeans do not reject the idea of defending their own society; they reject the idea of being dragged into a war perceived as opaque, delegated, or worse: decided elsewhere.

Polls show a clear generational divide: there is a growing consensus in Europe to increase defence spending and (in some countries) to discuss conscription, but 18-29 year olds are more opposed to conscription than older age groups.

In other words: ‘fear’ does not automatically produce ‘obedience’.

And there is a second revealing fact: among young Europeans, defence and security are not the first reflection. In a popular reading based on European surveys, defence appears as a priority for about one in five young people at EU level, with strong geographical differences (highest near the most exposed borders).

This is not naive pacifism: it is a hierarchy of urgencies that includes work, housing, future, climate, rights. If politics demands ‘service’, it must first respond on ‘covenant’.

Why ‘classical’ leverage is less convincing today

There are at least four structural, non-ideological reasons.

1. Contemporary war is not the war of the grandfathers.

Cyber, drones, missiles, hybrid warfare, disinformation, sabotage: the front is not (just) a trench. Calling for mass leverage without explaining what expertise is needed today seems like a reflection of the past.

2. The welfare state demands ‘asymmetrical’ sacrifices.

When precariousness and the cost of living bite, the idea of ‘suspending’ study and work for a year weighs unequally: on those who have no networks, no savings, a well-off family. Without robust correctives, the lever risks being perceived as a time tax on the most fragile.

3. Crisis of confidence: who decides? for which mandate?

The problem is not ‘theuse of force‘ per se; it is the opacity of the end. Young people have grown up with a Union built on the promise that politics is about avoiding war, not normalising it.

4. Europe as identity: peace, law, limits.

The European Union was not born as a military power: it was born as an anti-war architecture. And this memory, for many people under 30, is more alive than they think: it is an ‘ordinary peace’ that they do not want to lose.

The US factor and global instability: why anxiety is growing

That geopolitics is changing is hard to deny. Part of the recent European debate revolves precisely around the uncertainty of the American role and the need for strategic autonomy, a theme also revived by analyses and polling of European think tanks in the midst of the Donald Trump era.

But clarity is needed here: if European politics interprets instability as authorisation to militarise society without consensus, it will achieve the opposite effect: cultural desertion, radicalisation, rejection.

The right question is not “leverage yes or no”, but “what is it to defend Europe today?”

If Europe wants to be consistent with its history, it must avoid two mistakes:

– Turn conscription into propaganda, as if a symbol were enough to fill personnel gaps.

– Treating youthful objection as immaturity, when it is often a demand for meaning, transparency, democratic limits.

A credible line might include:

– European/non-military national service (civil protection, critical infrastructures, emergency health, cyber resilience), with military channel only for those who choose.

– Modern reserve: modular, short but recurrent training, compatible with study and work; real incentives (certified skills, financial support, academic recognition).

– Clear defence doctrine: no ambiguity about wars of aggression; priority to deterrence, territorial defence and protection of civilians.

– Democratic control and adult communication: explaining scenarios, costs, risks. Without rhetoric.

Europe must not become a continent ‘preparing for war’ as its destiny

But rather a continent that prepares for peace even when the world makes it difficult: defence capability, yes; but within a political framework that remains European in the full sense of the word.

Because the generational divide today is not between those who are ‘cowardly’ and those who are ‘brave’. It is between those who think that war is ‘normal’ again and those who, more stubbornly, insist that it should not be.

For an in-depth analysis of the return of conscription in the context of European security and its political and social implications, see the briefing of the European Parliament Research Service:

Conscription as an element in European Union preparedness (EPRS, March 2025)