The end of the Wehrpflicht: an exploration of Germany's delayed embrace of an all-volunteer force

Conscription in Germany has shown an incredible resilience over the past two decades in the midst of a Europe-wide trend toward all-volunteer forces. The politics of base closures, military recruitment concerns, and the dependence of the social service sector on the labor of conscientious objectors blocked the Bundeswehr from undergoing comprehensive structural reform. In a recent development, Germany abandoned its Sonderweg in 2010 with very little debate, deciding to suspend conscription and transition to a professional force. The rapid success of the policy change is a consequence of three developing factors: a financial environment of extreme austerity, the growing inequity of the draft, and former Defense Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg's immense popularity