30 years for a private: in which countries can you be drafted into the army in the 4th decade

In the Russian army, after all, they decided to extend the date with «fledgling young men» and «yesterday's schoolchildren with nipples,» as the chairman of the State Duma Defense Committee Kartapolov once called them 18-year-old conscripts. The Colonel-General justified this decision by saying that «a lot of guys want to go to serve at the age of 18.» Apparently, those who have not decided before the age of 27 whether they want to serve or not will now receive an additional 3 years to finally make a positive decision.

Thus, the Ministry of Defense expands the circle of conscripts. About 150 thousand people are conscripted into the army every year. The Ministry of Defense wants to increase the size of the army to 1.5 million people. Before today's decision, the military stated that they had five applicants for each place in the ranks. Apparently, 18-year-olds will not hurt either, especially since they do not need to pay a large salary. While the duration of conscription does not change, but who can be sure that from 2024, when the new draft age comes into force, the generals will not want to let home trained soldiers?

Where else in the world are there draft armies

There are 160 armies in the world today. They differ in the level of funding, equipment with weapons and the number of military personnel put under the gun. The Russian armed forces are called the second army of the world, after the American one. However, in terms of the number of soldiers, the largest army is the Chinese. 2 million 35 thousand people serve in it, and there are half a million more soldiers in reserve. It is followed by Indian (1 million 460 thousand soldiers plus more than 1 million in reserve) and American (1 million 395 thousand soldiers and 843 thousand in reserve). With the help of the new draft rules, the Ministry of Defense wants to make the Russian Armed Forces the second largest, after more than 2 million Chinese armada. But there is a nuance: the most numerous armies in the world are formed on the principles of voluntariness. In other words, they are all contractual.

The USA, India, China, Germany, Great Britain and others have put on a professional army, where soldiers serve under contract. In one of the major armies of the Middle and Middle East — Turkey — there is still a draft, but it is planned to cancel it.

There are no armed forces in Costa Rica, Greenland, Iceland, Panama, Suriname.

There is a conscription army in 66 countries. It is in this group that Russia has the largest armed forces.

Armies of the former Soviet Republics

The countries that were part of the Soviet Union, for the most part, retained armies formed from conscripts. Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Lithuania, Moldova, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Georgia, Kazakhstan and Ukraine — in these former Soviet republics, young men are called up for military service.

Georgia and Kazakhstan are going to switch to a professional army. We wanted to do this in Ukraine, but after the outbreak of hostilities with Russia, these plans had to be postponed for an indefinite future.

Developed, but few in number

There is a group of economically strong countries where there is still a conscription army. For example, a new NATO member, Finland, every year calls on its citizens to pay their debt to the motherland. The thing is that Finland has the same territory as Germany. However, only 5.5 million people live there. The length of the border with Russia is 1,350 km. Before joining NATO, the Finns had to organize their own defense in case of a threat. Now they can count on allies. It is unknown whether they will remain on the draft, like another NATO member -Lithuania or Norway, or non-aligned Austria and Switzerland. However, in all these countries, the population is extremely small, and it will be more difficult to find people willing to serve for a salary than, for example, in Germany with its 83 million citizens. By the way, the Bundeswehr was also conscripted until the 80s, but for economic reasons, the Germans switched to a professional army and did not regret it.

Another group of countries should support the appeal, since they are involved in armed conflicts with either one or several countries. So all the years of Israel's existence, it has to defend itself from its numerous enemies from Iran to Arab countries. Therefore, there is an appeal in the Jewish state. The army takes not only men, but also women.

The situation is similar in Armenia and Azerbaijan. The war between these post-Soviet republics has been going on for 3 decades. Azerbaijan surpasses Armenia by three times in the number of people, however, there is an appeal in both countries.

Cyprus also has a conscript army. This is understandable: the conflict between Turkey and Greece over Northern Cyprus has not yet been resolved. There are no open hostilities there, but there is also no peace treaty and there will not be one yet. Therefore, the Cypriots should be under arms.

The same situation is in South and North Korea, where there is no peace and will not be for many years to come.

The Call and the Third World

If you remove developed countries from the list, in which very few people live, it turns out that all other states belong to the third world. Where the standard of living is low, States can force their citizens to enter military service without fail.

And there is no big difference in where these countries are located. In South America and in Brazil, and in Venezuela has a call. The same is true in Asia — Thailand, Laos, Mongolia, the Philippines. There are especially many conscription armies in Africa, but this is understandable: the cradle of humanity remains the poorest continent in the world, where they fight for everything — for water, bread and for human souls.