Lunic on military service: Stronger combat capabilities important, conscientious objection everyone's right

Photo: Tanjug/Serbian MoD, Serbian Army

Executive Director of the Council for Strategic Policies Nikola Lunic has commented on the start of procedure to reinstate compulsory military service in Serbia.

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According to Lunic, improving combat capabilities is necessary, and he pointed out that conscientious objection is a constitutional category and the right of every person living in Serbia.

He told Tanjug that a lot has changed since compulsory military service was abolished in 2011, when it was assessed through strategic documents that the security situation allowed for the abolition.

"Now, through the national security strategy and the defense strategy, there are no indicators for an urgent improvement of combat capabilities, although we all know that they exist," he said.

Lunic believes that the current model of military service proved that the internal problem of filling up the ranks could not be solved with stimulative measures, which is why the mandatory model was proposed to the political leadership.

According to him, that leadership made a compromise between what would be optimal security-wise, which is six months that includes specialist training, and the current situation, where a sufficient number of volunteer soldiers cannot be provided.

Lunic said that serving for 75 days can provide basic training and possibly teach soldiers to handle personal assigned weapons, but not specialist training, which is necessary.

"The lessons learned from around the world, the way wars are waged in the world, show us that this is necessary. In that regard, we need to have as many boys and girls as possible who know how to handle unmanned platforms, drones, and achieving that in under six months is very difficult," he said.

Lunic stressed that conscientious objection is the right of every person living in Serbia and a constitutional category that must be preserved, just as it is necessary to preserve all other European principles and values on which the state is based.

"I think that this army is at this moment not capable of handling a draft contingent of conscientious objectors. The ability of the defense system to receive a one-year draft contingent is questionable, and the ability of the whole society to receive a contingent that would appeal to conscientious objection is questionable," he assessed.

(Telegraf.rs/Tanjug)