Categories: Daniel Serwer

Stevenson’s army, February 12

Trump targets:

NATO and foreign aid — and he has allies

CISA and cyber

Insufficiently loyal officials — they even have a Feb 19-20 “boot camp” 

Ecuador wants to mimic El Salvador

– Academics say that’s the wrong way to go

NYT has a revealing article on Ukraine troop problems. I was struck by these facts:

The bill on mobilization has passed a first reading in Ukraine’s Parliament. It would lower the conscription age to 25 from 27 and stiffen penalties on draft dodgers.

Ukraine currently drafts men between the ages of 27 and 60. Under martial law, all men 18 to 60 are prohibited from leaving the country, lest a decision be taken to draft them.

Men with three or more children are exempted, but men with three children or fewer who volunteered, or whose families expanded as they served, have not been permitted to leave the military.

Lowering the draft age, for example, would bring more lithe, healthy soldiers to the fight but would pose long-term risks for sustaining Ukraine’s population, given the country’s demographics.

As in most former Soviet states, Ukraine has a small generation of 20-year-olds because birthrates plummeted during the deep economic depression of the 1990s. Because of this demographic trough, there are now three times as many men in their 40s as in their 20s in Ukraine.

Drafting more men in their 20s, given the likely battle casualties, would risk reducing the number of births in this small generation of Ukrainians, resulting in declines of draft- and working-age men decades from now and endangering the country’s future security and economy.

My SAIS colleague Charlie Stevenson distributes this almost daily news digest of foreign/defense/national security policy to “Stevenson’s army” via Googlegroups. I republish here, with occasional videos of my choice. To get Stevenson’s army by email, send a blank email (no subject or text in the body) to stevensons-army+subscribe@googlegroups.com. You’ll get an email confirming your join request. Click “Join This Group” and follow the instructions to join. Once you have joined, you can adjust your email delivery preferences (if you want every email or a digest of the emails).

Daniel Serwer

Share
Published by
Daniel Serwer

Recent Posts

Trump likes incompetence and chaos

Even without Trump's chaos, the expansion would be unlikely to last much longer. We are…

12 hours ago

Trump’s first foreign policy failure

China will want to assert sovereignty over Taiwan. Israel will annex the West Bank and…

3 days ago

Group rights encourage tyranny

Power should flow from the choices of individuals, organized how they prefer. Forcing people into…

4 days ago

Trump’s cabinet of horrors

This is a cabinet of horrors. Its distinguishing characteristics are unquestioning loyalty to Donald Trump,…

1 week ago

Immigration is clear, national security not

Trump is getting through the process quickly and cleanly. There are lots of rumors, but…

1 week ago

Americans, welcome to the 4th Reich!

I, therefore conclude with a line from the Monk TV series. I may be wrong,…

1 week ago