[XorNot]

"Abundance leads to wastefulness".

To my mind mandatory service doesn't help at all - the German military for example needs more soldiers, but more importantly needs to be run competently by the government since it's had well-known problems for years at this point (any analysis on what would happen if they were actually suddenly needed would find they'd be pretty likely to look an awful lot like the Russians in terms of equipment availability, but for entirely stupid reasons - "just in time" equipment procurement).

[ethbr0]

The best use of mandatory service is long-calendar-time training. E.g. basic proficiency, vocabulary, and doctrinal knowledge

Refreshing is a helluva lot easier than training, when you're simultaneously fighting an active conflict.