I like that the writer asks why there is a need for (often foreign) mercenaries and correctly states that there are not enough volunteers willing to join the army.

But instead of following this thought and asking why there are not enough volunteers he proceeds to teach us why using mercenaries is bad for a country. (as if we didn't know)

It would be important to widely discuss this and get to the bottom of this problem because I believe it is caused by very bad government policies of the last decades that ultimately could lead to the downfall of Western civilisation itself.

My personal opinion on that is that we have basically removed all incentives for men to do what traditionally was their role in society - building and maintaining civilisation itself and protecting the society from threats.

Call me sexist but the fact is that roads, houses, airports, planes and all kinds of infrastructure is built and maintained almost 100% by hard working men. So is internal (police) and external (army) security.

So why do men have no incentive anymore to do this important work for society and instead choose to withdraw to some escapism like excessively playing video games, using drugs or watching porn?

Traditional families as a goal in life was or is in the process of being destroyed and bad economic policies have on top of that created an environment where most men, even if they wanted to, can't acquire the necessary resources to support a family anymore.

Even if you get a great education you'll start your life with massive debt that barely enables you to pay rent if you get a good job. So men withdraw from society, almost nothing is manufactured anymore in the West (wealth creation) and the economy enters a fatal downward spiral.

And for people that are still successful the outlook isn't much better. I myself came from a former Communist country to the West and made it to the top 1% in the EU country I am in even though I started out with nothing. But I am not willing to marry my girlfriend (and I have told her this) because we have here laws that would basically give her the power to dominate and destroy me at will if she ever felt like it.

Don't get me wrong, I highly value marriage but I'm not willing to enter a deal where I'm having to give up everything to her and can not expect to get anything in return for it. For example if we married and divorced (without children) she would be entitled to 40% of my net income as long as I am alive.

If I then decided that it's not worth it anymore to work so hard just to have all profit taken away from me (or god forbid, my business could fail for other reasons) the government could punish me (literally put me in prison) because I intentionally do not make the kind of money I made before that she is for some reason entitled to.

And that only covers what could happen to me if she played fair. Divorce lawyers would likely suggest to her that she accuses me of abusing her physically to extract more money out of me.

So sadly for me starting a family is currently out of question in the West. Maybe Trump wins in the US and turns the ship around (by ending Socialism and promoting Patriotism and Capitalism again) and I'll cash out here and go through the legal process of moving there, or I move at some point to Russia because they are right wing Capitalists there too.

But the EU is pretty much beyond saving in my view, there's no perspective to have a normal life here anymore. If there was no perspective for me to cash out and move to a better place in the future I would have stopped working so hard already. I could easily survive by working only 10 or 15 hours a week because I personally don't need much and slaving away to have more resources only makes sense if you plan on starting a family. I definitely don't, at least not here.