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Hannah Brock

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Year of Publication: 2018

Brock, Hannah, The Return of Conscription?, War Resisters' International, 2018

The author, a full time worker at War Resisters' International with a focus on support for conscientious objectors to military service, discusses whether the previous trend towards the abolition of conscription around the world is being reversed. She notes that it has been reintroduced in Ukraine, Georgia, Lithuania and Kuwait (after a short period when it was not in force) and introduced for the first time by Qatar and the United Arab Emirates; in total over 100 states practice, responding with varying degrees of harshness to objectors. Most states impose conscription for men, but both Norway and Sweden (where it h ad been reintroduced) extend it to women. The article discusses the varying regional security situations, which influence states to use conscription and carrying rounds for exemption.
Brock, Hannah, The Return of Conscription?, War Resisters' International, 2018

Brock assesses the changing context of her work for War Resisters' International since she began in 2012, when conscription had ended or been suspended in 22 states. She notes how regional fears of Russian aggression have influenced the reintroduction of conscription in former Soviet states (Ukraine, Georgia and Lithuania) and in Western Europe, where Sweden had reintroduced it. She also comments on Gulf States introducing or reintroducing conscription (as in Kuwait). The extension of conscription to women in both Norway and Sweden, opposed by some feminists but supported by women politicians, raises wider questions, which Brock considers, about the extent of social diversity in the armed forces. The article is extensively annotated, including references to protests against conscription and against the major military exercise 'Aurora' mounted by neutral Sweden in 2017, which incorporated NATO troops.