The AFP reported on August 4 that on August 3, local time, Denmark officially launched its new conscription system, with about 1,600 Danish young men entering the barracks to begin an 11-month compulsory military service. Among these young soldiers was 19-year-old Princess Isabella of Denmark, who joined the Royal Hussars stationed in the Antwerp barracks as a volunteer soldier.
According to the Danish Defence website, Denmark has fully upgraded its military service system from 2026, greatly extending the traditional four-month military service to 11 months. At the same time, the Danish Defence is implementing a gender-equal conscription policy, so from this batch, both men and women will be conscripted as volunteer soldiers. Among the volunteer soldiers who began serving in 2026, about 20% are women. In addition, the Danish government plans to gradually increase the conscription scale from the current 5,000 per year to 7,500 per year by 2033.
Reuters reported on 3rd that Denmark is currently accelerating its defense construction under the influence of Arctic security pressures and the Russian-Ukraine conflict. As this batch of recruits enlists, Denmark is also preparing to deploy its first volunteer troops to Greenland later this month. U.S. President Trump has repeatedly attempted to annex this semi-autonomous Danish territory on the grounds of “national security.”
Not only Denmark, but many European countries are intensively pushing for military transformation and military expansion. According to Al Jazeera Qatar, the Bundeswehr plans to increase the size of the active service force by 80,000 to 260,000 through the Modernization of the Service System Act, which came into effect in January this year, while also recruiting 200,000 reserve personnel. However, the latest compulsory service measures are not welcomed by everyone. Official figures released in Germany on July 14 showed that 6,000 young men have applied for exemption from military service this year for various reasons, which has exceeded the total of the entire previous year.
India‘s Financial Express reported that after the outbreak of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, European nations began to rebuild their armed forces, increase defense spending, expand weapons production, and reexamine their role within NATO. Germany announced a historic military transformation; Poland launched one of Europe‘s largest military expansion operations; and Finland and Sweden officially joined NATO after maintaining decades of neutrality.
However, Europe‘s defense recovery was not an easy task. Years of military reductions led to the contraction of the military industry, decreased ammunition production, and presented heavy challenges for recruitment and war preparation work.