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Marija Janjušević from Dveri told H1 that the return from compulsory military service is a solution to the problems of the Serbian army, but that the decision on it must be taken, above all, by military experts, after extensive public debate. Former Defense Minister Dragan Sutanovac said, on the other hand, that a professional army is the best solution for Serbia, and that the Army’s problem is not that compulsory military service was abolished, but that the reforms stopped in 2012.
The reintroduction of military service is one of the issues with which he began 2021 in public. Marija Janjušević from Dveri has no dilemma: military service should be returned, but she believes that it should be decided by military experts, not individuals, especially not, as she said, the President of the Republic.
“That does not mean that we are proposing a war or opening conflicts, every strong independent state must also have a strong army,” Janjušević said on TV N1 Live Day.
He also assessed that it is “very sad” that the issue of compulsory military service is reduced to a daily political issue, and that there has not been a broad national public debate about it.
“It is necessary for the professionals to sit down to a hundred. One person cannot decide on that, least of all the President of the Republic (…) Politicians should not decide that, but rather allow experienced soldiers to initiate reforms and build trust among themselves. Citizen confidence has not collapsed so much. So it is time for them to organize, “he said.
There is no system that has been reformed from within, replies former Defense Minister Dragan Sutanovac, saying that the reforms must come from the civilian government.
“The reform we carried out was supported by high-ranking officials. “Some who were the flagship of professionalization now advocate a return from military service, it only speaks of their failure,” Sutanovac said on TV N1 Live Day.
He recalled that today Serbia should have had between 10,000 and 15,000 members of the active military reserve and tens of thousands of members of the passive reserve, but that the ministers from 2012 until today preferred to take pictures in uniform than to carry out reforms.
“The reform stopped in 2012. Since then, the Ministry of Defense has been fortunate that the economic situation is much better than during the world economic crisis, so the situation came to acquire some equipment, and the situation is bad . (Former Defense Minister Aleksandar) Vulin did everything he could to completely destroy the credibility of the Army, “Sutanovac said.
The polite colonel went to Germany to drive a bus.
Janjusevic agreed with the assessment of the work of Minister Vulin, but added that he considers all his predecessors from 2001 responsible for the situation in which the Army finds itself today.
“We lose 10,000 members of the reserve Army every year, and we fill it with 200-300 young men and women who serve voluntarily.” Until 2025, the Army will not have a reserve force, this country will have no one to defend it, “he warned. , citing the example of a trained colonel who left the Army at age 45 and went to Germany to drive a city bus.
Sutanovac replied that a professional army is the best and only solution for a country like Serbia, and that the only reason to return to compulsory military service could be that the country is in danger in terms of security, which, as he recalled, does not show no strategic document.
“When we say ‘there will be no one to defend us in 2025’, then we ask ourselves who will attack us, since all the countries around us have professionalized the army, and they do not even have the possibility of voluntary military service,” he said Sutanovac.
Therefore, the solution, according to him, is a serious campaign for the professionalization of the Army, salary increase, offer of suitable jobs, and the possibility of advancement of promising personnel, and not have nepotism where someone skips three or four acts in just three years.
