Inside Germany, the main issue remains conscription and the Zivildienst, the civilian alternative to military service.
"I think a conscription army has a lot of benefits, " said training officer Urs Halter.
President Chissano's recent reintroduction of conscription may count against him in next year's general election.
Cost apart, the committee's most controversial recommendation is for conscription to be all-but phased out.
In 1996, President Jacques Chirac announced France would end military conscription from 1997, earlier than previously planned.
Although both sons deny it was their intention to escape conscription, their story has cost their father dearly.
In Israel, thanks to conscription, most job applicants have tackled real obstacle courses.
Newly independent South Sudan is a rare example of conscription being introduced (in the hope of supplanting private militias).
During the Vietnam War, more than 50, 000 Americans fled to Canada to avoid conscription and were welcomed by Canadian authorities.
The defence minister, Antonio Martino, is also seeing through a plan to abolish conscription and to overhaul the arms-procurement system.
Witness French failure even to inform the Germans before taking such decisions affecting Germany as the ending of military conscription.
Not every experience of conscription was bad, I have many friends who enjoyed their two years, but for many the damage was permanent.
Tens of thousands of able-bodied ultra-Orthodox men defer their conscription year after year on the pretext of devoting their lives to religious study.
And then the fairness issue, throughout the history of conscription in this country, finds situations in which groups like women might well be included.
Switzerland's conscription army is facing an uncertain future, amid calls for compulsory military service to be abolished, and political pressure to keep defence costs down.
And by help I mean conscription in their tax collection operations.
His staff even anticipates that the return of conscription may be required to fill the ranks if the all-volunteer force simply cannot withstand such buffeting.
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Ultra-Orthodox conscription rates have increased seven-fold in the past four years.
In societies divided by language, ending conscription means losing such benefits.
Research in France, which began phasing out conscription in 1996, suggests that male educational achievement fell: people used to dodge the draft by going to university.
But most Germans still feel that conscription is the key to getting people to accept the armed forces and welcome it as a tool of social integration.
It was envisaged that both would remain within the union, but an attempt in 1918 to extend conscription to Ireland proved the final nail in the coffin.
While this is still below the general conscription rate of 75% among male 18-year-olds, the rapid rise in ultra-Orthodox military service is a revolutionary development for the sector.
Even more important is Mr Barak's agreement with the ultra-Orthodox party, United Torah Judaism, on new rules for the military conscription of students at yeshivas, or Talmudic colleges.
With the debacle of Vietnam long gone and conscription no longer a dread prospect for America's young men, the forces tend to be held in high civilian esteem.
Citizenship mattered in the days when defence relied on conscription.
Germany is already well on its way towards scrapping conscription.
But that can hardly be the dominant downer, particularly since our armed forces are entirely volunteer-based, and therefore parents and their offspring do not have conscription hanging over their heads.
These practices were intended in part to preserve the sanctity of citizenship, but they have also been aimed at closing loopholes that might allow migrants to escape taxes or conscription.
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