Those who order war send foreign children

There is a small, persistent flaw in the grand narrative of mobilization: while entire age groups are to be drafted, registered, and, if necessary, assigned by lottery, the offspring of those who most loudly call for military service remain conspicuously untouched. Apparently, combat readiness is a virtue best left to others.

Since January 1, 2026, the new military service law has been in effect in Germany. All men born in 2008 or later will receive a letter; responding is mandatory. The conscription process is being reinstated, and if there are not enough volunteers, conscription based on need, including a lottery system, will be in place ( Military Service Agreement, LTO ; New Military Service, BMVg ). In France, President Emmanuel Macron announced a new "Service National" in November 2025, which will launch in the summer of 2026, initially on a voluntary basis, but expandable by parliamentary decree in case of crisis ( Service National, Ministère des Armées ). The message to the youth of Europe is clear. The only question is, which youth exactly?

Those who order war send foreign children

The fertile woman from the front
Let's start with the model mother. EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has seven children (Wikipedia) – a family business that lives up to every birth rate statistic and is touted in every Sunday sermon as an "inspiring example of work-life balance." Seven potential uniformed personnel, seven possible contributions to defending the very values ​​their mother tirelessly extols. And what are they doing? Careers. Her son David, for example, joined McKinsey – of all places, the very consulting firm that, under his mother's leadership as defense minister, received multi-million-dollar contracts (NYT on the McKinsey affairStrategy consultants working in air-conditioned open-plan offices tend to take a defensive stance. Who could blame them? The only question is why the family with the largest pool of talent couldn't provide a single volunteer.

The Corporal and the Invisible Daughters
Defense Minister Boris Pistorius, the loudest advocate of the new growth path, himself once served – as a conscript, leaving as a corporal (WikipediaThat's to his credit, honestly. His two grown daughters, on the other hand (t onlineWomen are conspicuously absent when it comes to national defense. And this is where it gets interesting, because now comes the favorite argument of the complacent: "Women don't have to." True. They don't have to. But they can. The German Armed Forces have been open to women in all career paths, from enlisted personnel to generals, for over two decades. Anyone who has preached equality as the highest good for half their life can hardly hide behind the skirt they otherwise condemn as a relic of the patriarchy when it comes to military service. Either women can do everything men can – then this too. Or all the rhetoric about emancipation was just empty talk, which falls silent precisely when things get serious and dangerous.

The same logic applies to Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann, the grande dame of rearmament from the European Parliament. Three grown children ( Wikipedia ), and none of them, as far as the public knows, has ever felt the need to serve the cause for which their mother has been demanding tanks and cruise missiles for years with the fervor of a revivalist preacher. Sons and daughters alike—invisible in camouflage, well provided for everywhere else. A woman who enthusiastically rides a motorcycle and doesn't shy away from confrontation would have been the ideal role model: children forward, march! Instead, it remains just talk. I have dissected how systematically the language used for this talk is being softened in my dictionary of military preparedness.

The childless mobilizer
In Paris, Emmanuel Macron is a president who calls on young people to serve the national community and has no biological children himself (FactsHis three stepchildren were born in 1975, 1977, and 1984 – nice, but about three decades too late for the barracks of 2026. Commentators have long noted that it is precisely the first childless president of the Fifth Republic who so freely disposes of the future of other people's children. It is, after all, easier to sign a generational contract when you yourself have nothing to contribute.

Then there's British Prime Minister Keir Starmer. He has two children, his son born in 2008 ( Wikipedia ) and thus now old enough to join the army, to which his father has granted the biggest pay raise in twenty years and which he celebrates as a heroic force at every opportunity ( Starmer on X ). There is no conscription in Great Britain; service is voluntary—so the boy could join if he wanted to. He clearly doesn't. For a father who conjures up a conflict with Russia and prepares the island for war, this would be the very least he could do: anyone who praises the armed forces and invokes the threat should let his own offspring lead the way, instead of letting them plan a career in the safety of Camden. And this is precisely the 2008 cohort, moreover, which, were the child German, would be subject to the first wave of conscription under the new law. The family protects its privacy, they always say. From the public eye. And the right passport protects them from the conscription law anyway. I have shown, using the example of Merz and the children fit for military service , that the manipulation of the youngest does not begin only when they reach adulthood.

The mayor with his sons abroad
Lest anyone think this pattern ends at NATO's external border: In Kyiv, Mayor Vitali Klitschko, a former heavyweight world champion, is calling for the mobilization age to be lowered and openly admits in an interview with Politico that his country has enormous personnel problems (RFE/RL on the debate about the age of military serviceHis two sons, aged 20 and 25 and thus of prime military age, reportedly live in the US and Great Britain. So while tens of thousands of young Ukrainians are leaving the country to avoid the very conscription their mayor would like to see even more people joining, his own offspring are safely in the West. The scenario is the same as in Berlin, Paris, and London – only the setting changes. Anyone calling for a lowering of the conscription age should lead by example. But they don't.

The front is for the others
You don't have to be a pacifist to see the pattern. It's the oldest choreography in history: those who order war rarely sit at the table where the bill is served. The children of the elite have always signed consulting contracts or registered residences abroad, while the children of others received marching orders. What's new is the audacity with which the whole thing is sold as a collective societal effort, while society as a whole has strange gaps at crucial points—precisely where one's own relatives stand.

And what's new is the feminist about-face that cements this loophole. For decades, we've been told that gender should no longer be an obstacle, that no bastion should remain reserved for men, that women belong in every cockpit, every board of directors, every office. Wonderful. Then they also belong in every basic training course as soon as they want to do something for their country. Anyone who demands equality only where it brings prestige, and shamefacedly forgets it where it means sweat, mud, and mortal danger, has never meant equality, but privilege.

Logically speaking, it would only be consistent: those who declare a country's military readiness to be the highest civic duty should send their own offspring to the front – sons and daughters alike, in keeping with the preached equality. As proof of seriousness, as a gesture of credibility, as a small guarantee that they themselves believe what they preach. Instead, we see the opposite: those who shout the loudest are the most careful to keep their children out of the line of fire. The fatherland needs soldiers, certainly – just not from within its own four walls.

Perhaps this is the most honest definition of martial prowess this continent has to offer: the ability to let other people die for a cause one only knows from the podium. As long as the children of the powerful sit in their home offices from London to California, pursuing careers, war remains exactly what it has always been for those in power: a business that others pay for with their lives!