It’s the classic Hamlet quote: Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.
It’s the war season in the Old Continent. Wherever you go in Europe, they fret about ‘war and war’s alarms.’
If you couple that with the decades-old trend of bigger female participation in all lines of activity, you get the phenomenon of the woman soldier resurfacing from the distant past into out 21st-century dystopia.
Nordic Denmark, in a bid to increase the number of young people doing military service, is taking a cue from neighbors Sweden and Norway, and will extend conscription to women.
So, now, we are not talking about the right to be a voluntary soldier, but the blood duty to eventually lay down your life for your country as a conscript.
Also planned is the increase of service time from 4 months to 11 months for both genders, according to Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen.
Associated Press reported:
“’We do not rearm because we want war. We are rearming because we want to avoid it’, Frederiksen told a press conference. She said the government wants ‘full equality between the sexes’.
Denmark currently has up to 9,000 professional troops on top of the 4,700 conscripts undergoing basic training, according to official figures. The government wants to increase the number of conscripts by 300 to reach a total of 5,000.”
Denmark is a member of the NATO alliance and has strongly supported Ukraine in its war against Russia.
“Foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen stressed that ‘Russia does not pose a threat to Denmark. But we will not bring ourselves to a place where they could come to do that’, Løkke Rasmussen said.”
Nowadays, because there are enough volunteers, there is a lottery system, meaning not all young men subject to conscription have to serve.
“In 2023, there were 4,717 conscripts in Denmark. Women who volunteered for military service accounted for 25.1% of the cohort, according to official figures.”
The new ‘system’ will require legislation to be passed, which the government expects to happen in 2025, taking effect in 2026.
“The security policy situation in Europe ‘has become more and more serious, and we have to take that into account when we look at future defense’, [Defense Minister] Lund Poulsen said. ‘A broader basis for recruiting that includes all genders is needed’, he said, adding it will create ‘a more versatile and more complete defense’.”
Hamlet, Act I, Scene 4:
“Something is rotten in the state of Denmark. That one may smile and smile and be a villain. There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in our philosophy.”
