‘More competitive than Oxford’: What National Service looks like in other countries

In January, Norway’s Princess Ingrid Alexandra, second in line to the throne, reported for duty as a conscript. For 12 months, she will serve as an engineer in Brigade Nord – the only brigade in the Norwegian army.

Winning a place on the Scandinavian country’s military service programme is a badge of honour afforded to only the brightest and best, not unlike the selection process for a highly competitive graduate scheme. Last year in Norway, 9,840 conscripts were accepted; roughly 17 per cent of the available cohort. Around a quarter go on to pursue a career in the armed forces.

A national service programme has not operated in Britain since the 1960s. But that could soon change. In the first major policy announcement of the election campaign, Rishi Sunak has vowed to introduce a “bold new model of National Service” to give 18-year-olds a “renewed sense of pride in our country”. Some see it as a bid to shore up Conservative support among potential Reform voters, among whom the idea of National Service is very popular.

“This is not a policy that is going to get majority support or unite the country necessarily,” says James Johnson, a political adviser and pollster, “but that’s not really what the Conservatives need to do. They need to shore up their vote. And with the groups that they have the best chance of doing that with, this seems to go down very well indeed.”

A similar promise was made by David Cameron in the run-up to the 2010 election. This became the National Citizen Service, which was mostly defunded by Sunak in 2022 when he was chancellor.

According to the PM, the scheme is designed to instil a “shared sense of purpose” in Britain’s young people. Under the proposals, school leavers would either have to enrol on a year-long military placement in the Armed Forces or the UK’s cyber defences, or spend one weekend each month volunteering in their community.

These weekend placements could be within the NHS, fire or police service, or with charities supporting older people or tackling loneliness. There would be a proposed 30,000 places available in the Armed Forces, which represents only about four per cent of 18-year-olds according to today’s figures.

So, one can assume only a small percentage of conscripts would actually be expected to complete military service.

In a report last year, the centre-Right think-tank Onward argued that National Service could have a transformative effect on young people who were currently “unhappy, unskilled and unmoored”, helping them to “develop skills, improve mental health, and forge patriotism”.

It was supported at the time by Penny Mordaunt, the Leader of the House of Commons, who said it was a way to “tap into the energy and imagination of an exciting new generation, and promote good mental health and resilience.”

Opinion polling by Onward found that, while 57 per cent of the population support some kind of National Service scheme – and three times as many young people support the idea than oppose it – most people would reject the idea of mandatory National Service, including two thirds of young people. Despite this, James Cleverly, the Home Secretary, said the Conservatives “envisage there will be a very high level of take-up”.

If Sunak’s National Service scheme goes ahead, Norway is the example to follow, where selective military conscription has not only put the country on a war footing but become a valuable addition to young people’s CVs, opening the door to a greater range of professional opportunities. What can Britain learn from Norway, and other Scandinavian countries that have adopted its approach?

Like the National Service that was introduced in Britain in 1947, military service in Norway is technically mandatory. Everyone – young men and women – must enlist. But, crucially, not everyone is selected to serve.

All eligible 18-year-olds are asked to fill out an online questionnaire, and those who are selected are screened through tests which determine their physical capability, stamina, teamwork and mental aptitude.

Since expanding its national service scheme to include women in 2016, it has had an even larger pool of potential recruits to choose from.

“Norway is the country that originated this competitive model after the Cold War when they didn’t need so many soldiers anymore,” explains Elisabeth Braw, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council and a proponent of National Service.

She has written a research paper on what Britain could learn from the Scandinavian approach.

“In modern armed forces, you don’t need every young man (and now woman), so the Norwegian [model] is selecting the best,” she says.

“They turned military service into something very prestigious – if you make it, you have a massive asset on your CV.” Conscripts are high in demand for employers after they have completed their service. The unexpected downside, considering how much money the government spends on training these recruits,  is that they are often poached by the private sector.

Nevertheless, Braw believes, this model could be a blueprint for the UK, and the US, which similarly faces a crisis in military recruitment. Braw argues this system also gives disadvantaged young people a step up, as “these are the top performers as measured in aptitude and skills and thinking and so forth. Where you went to school has no significance.” Broadly, it seems to work and is respected by young people.

While there is an obvious opportunity for anyone who doesn’t want to join up to deliberately fail the initial tests – and this must happen in a small number of cases – Braw says there is no evidence of widespread purposeful flunking.

Sweden adopted a similar approach when it reintroduced gender-neutral conscription in 2017. While the British armed forces are in the midst of a recruitment and retention crisis, Sweden, like Norway, has so many new recruits that the majority are turned away.

Fewer than 10 per cent of teenagers gain a place on its selective conscription system, making it more competitive than admission to Oxford University, where 13.7 per cent of applicants are successful.

The recruitment process is the same as in Norway, with an initial online assessment, followed by more detailed tests. Those who succeed go on to basic training and a placement of up to 15 months. After they complete their service, they join the reservists for 10 years.

The story is similar in Denmark, where all physically fit young men over the age of 18 are called up for roughly four months of military service. However, as there are enough volunteers, the system operates as a lottery and not all men serve.

Earlier this year, the Danish government announced it will start conscripting women as well as men from 2026 and will expand the service time from four to 11 months.

A study of Denmark’s draft lottery, cited by Onward, found it not only bolstered the armed forces; it also improved numeracy and literacy among participants, with the largest improvements for men with the lowest previous skill level.

Braw says the real benefits are “management training, leadership training. These young men and women have been taught to not just staff a coffee machine, as you do at age 18 ordinarily, as a barista. You have a real responsibility and I think that is really the massive advantage that military service provides, especially when only the top performers are selected.”

It remains to be seen if the same will happen in Britain.