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5 Armed Forces & Soc'y 3 (1978-1979)

handle is hein.journals/amdfcsad5 and id is 1 raw text is: Mass Armies in the 1970s THE DEBATE IN WESTERN EUROPE CATHERINE McARDLE KELLEHER University of Michigan The focus of much of the current strategic debate in the West is how to combat existing or foreseeable Soviet preponderance-the appropriate bargains to strike in Salt II or the necessary readiness levels on the Central Front. Lost in the welter of these discussions is a question of at least equal significance: will the West, and par- ticularly the Western European states, be able over the long-term to raise and maintain mass armies at tolerable political, social, and economic costs?' In the last decade, each of the Atlantic states has faced a series of basic challenges to its existing force structure and recruitment practices. While violent anti-military demonstrations and confrontations over conscription are now passed, the significant indicators of the decline of the mass army continue; among these are the decreases in enlistments, in the quality of draftees and their military performance, in retention rates, and in individual acceptance of military authority as well as the increases in deferments, conscientious objector classes, internal disciplinary actions, and in the publicly-expressed frustrations of professionals and conscripts alike with the conditions and terms of military service. AUTHOR'S NOTE: This article is drawn from a larger study on the consequences of domestic constraints for national security policymaking in Western Europe made possible by grants from the German Marshall fund and the Council on Foreign Relations; parts of this research were undertaken while in residence at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, London, during 1976. The research assistance of Christopher Carr of the London School of Economics in the preparation of this paper is gratefully ac- knowledged. ARMED FORCES AND SOCIETY, Vol. 5 No. 1, November 1978 © 1978 Inter-University Seminar on Armed Forces and Society 3

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