Why the Nordic left embraces its militaries

To deter Russia's threats of escalation, Europe is rearming. Collectively, the continent is projected to spend €800 billion annually on defence by 2030, twice as much as in 2019. To get there, European countries are also debating (re-)introducing mandatory conscription. It's become a hotly debated question: would you serve your country? In Germany, for instance, tens of thousands of high-school students have been striking against a military service reform since December 2025. The law includes a clause allowing the government to reinstate conscription if recruitment targets are missed due to a lack of volunteers. Nordic societies, meanwhile, have quite a different take on conscription and rearmament – including, surprisingly, its left-wing parties. “When the conservative government ended conscription in 2010, we as the Swedish Left party voted to keep the draft,” Jonas Sjöstedt, who led the party until 2020 and is now one of its members of the European Parliament, told The European Correspondent. In 2017, the government led by the social democrats reintroduced the draft in Sweden, which is now supported across the political spectrum. “We have more kids wanting to do military service than the military wants,” Sjöstedt said. Of the roughly 100,000 18-year-olds screened for service annually, only about 5% of the recruits deemed as the most motivated are actually selected. Every second Swede of fighting age (both women and men) is willing to fight in case of war – well above countries like the UK and Germany. Why is that? “People see what’s happening in Ukraine and are emotionally upset. It’s about defending Swedish people’s right to self-determination. Defence is like an insurance for your house,” Sjöstedt said. But these abstract reasons only go so far. The Nordics use an all-of-society approach to their defence. “Security policy starts with creating a society where everybody feels they have something to defend,” said Li Andersson, a Finnish member of the European…