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The Swiss army: thinking the unthinkable.

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Samuel Schmid, Switzerland's defence minister, has recently broken a taboo by suggesting in an interview to Swiss Radio that due to budgetary pressures he could not role out changes to the Swiss army's structure.

Though opposed to ending conscription, the essence of the Swiss army of today, the defence minister admitted that if the mandatory military service for Swiss males were to be abolished, the militia system would eventually seize to exist. The armed forces have had trouble recruiting career soldiers in the past, and that might make the decision to create a professional army in place of the militia system harder to implement.

These comments have soon sparked off a national debate and the minister has drawn criticism from members of his own rightwing Swiss People's Party accusing him of going back on his word and breaking a promise he had made earlier not to touch the militia system. Others from the centre-left Social Democrats and the rightwing Christian Democrats have shown varied levels of support and saw the debate as necessary.

Army reform is not a new topic on the parliament's agenda with personnel numbers cuts in 1995 and earlier on this year. The total number has now reached 220,000 and nowadays only able-bodied males between the ages of 18 and 36 must serve 260 days of military service.

Karl Haltiner, a professor at the military academy...

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