European armed forces are confronted with increasing recruitment and retention challenges as governments shift from compulsory service to all-volunteer forces, unprecedented population aging notwithstanding. This volume compares human-resource developments in both old and new NATO members as well as unaligned countries, including Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Germany, Greece, the Netherlands, Poland, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. These countries' collective contribution to international stability is not to be underestimated: combined, they field about as many active military personnel as the United States. In its cross-European approach to comparing variation in policy and trends across more than a dozen like-minded countries, the study offers empirically unparalleled insights into the permutations, that civil-military relations are undergoing in the twenty-first century. This book is indispensable reading for decision-makers, practitioners, military officers, scholars, and anyone with an interest in civil-military relations, the armed forces, and the future of European countries' contribution to international peace and security.

Tibor Szvircsev Tresch's profile page

Christian Leuprecht (Ph.D, Queen’s) is Class of 1965 Professor in Leadership, Department of Political Science, Royal Military College, on leave as Matthew Flinders Fellow at Flinders University in South Australia. He is a recipient of RMC’s Cowan Prize for Excellence in Research and an elected member of the College of New Scholars of the Royal Society of Canada. He is president of the International Sociological Association’s Research Committee 01: Armed Forces and Conflict Resolution, Munk Senior Fellow at the Macdonald Laurier Institute and cross-appointed to the Department of Political Studies and the School of Policy Studies at Queen’s University where he is also a fellow of the Institute of Intergovernmental Relations and the Queen’s Centre for International and Defence Policy. An expert in security and defence, political demography, and comparative federalism and multilevel governance, he has held visiting positions in North America, Europe, and Australia, and is regularly called as an expert witness to testify before committees of Parliament.

Christian Leuprecht's profile page