For a number of years, the Germans have attempted to run a volunteer Army. They went through the US practice and have tried to develop various recruitment angles that would attract young people. Basically....it's been a marginal success. The recruitment folks will admit that they are behind on numbers and simply can't reach the levels required.
So there's this interesting Focus magazine article today which talks to this problem.
The new angle? Allow foreigners to be in the German Army. The pay-back? A German passport.....citizenship.
This is simply an idea on paper right now, and would face a significant amount of political bickering. Various political parties which are pro-asylum and pro-migration, would probably NOT be supportive of this agenda. I have my doubts that the Linke Party or Green Party would support this.
The initial phase I suspect....would just be a EU-open door. If you were from some other EU member state....you'd get this invitation.
Language issue? Well, this is probably the biggest stumbling block. Even with the intensive program, you'd have to invest a minimum of nine months into a program to bring up to day one of Army boot-camp.
Then the question comes up....how many people from across the EU would be willing to sign up to this type of deal? There hasn't been any polling to suggest numbers, and this might be a total failure just to consider anyway.
Going beyond the EU....say to allow Thai, or Mexican, or Nigerian individuals to join? It would be a pretty big step. But in this case, I would imagine they'd easily attract 20,000 African men and women each year, if the citizenship was the deal.
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