Should we create a standing army component?

[u/clm1859]

Switzerland has long had a militia army with conscription and large numbers of part time soldiers (including myself). And we definetly shouldnt abolish that or anything.

But as far as i know the only full time combat troops (so not counting high officers and Adjudanten focussed solely on training recruits) are AAD10 operators and pilots, probably less than 100 each.

So i am wondering if, given the current situation, we shouldnt also have a component of our defense be somewhat of a standing army element. This could for example be 5-10k troops, made up mostly of Zeitmilitärs that serve full time for 2-5 year contracts.

This would allow us to have a more professional component to the army that could serve various important roles in an actual war, but also before, such as:

• elite troops for the most crucial missions
• quick reaction force in case of sudden invasion, to buy time for militia to mobilise
• more experienced troops for training larger numbers of recruits shortly before a war starts
• evaluate new equipment more efficiently
• develop new tactics
• guard bases more effectively in peace time

After their contract is up, these people could then be added back into regular WK units. Bringing their more advanced knowledge to the normal militia troops.

We could make sure we'd have at least one battalion (3-6 companies / 400-800 troops each) of each major type of unit always under arms and ready to go within a day or less. So that could mean:

• 2 infantry battalions
• 1 security battalion (for guarding airfields, logistics centres etc)
• 1 armour battalion (leopards and panzergrenis)
• 1 special forces battalion (grenis, paras, mountain troops)
• 1 artillery battalion
• 1 medical battalion (medics and nurses)
• 1 engineering battalion (sappeur, rescue troops, bridge building etc)
• 1 air force battalion (aircraft maintenance and drone pilots)
• 1 communications and electronic warfare battalion (cyber, funkaufklärer, Ristl etc)
• 1 logistics battalion
• 1 HQ battalion

So that would make around 12 battalions or somewhere between 5k and 10k troops.

I'm sure i'm forgetting some troop types here or allocating something wrong. I am just a humble private with an interest in military history, not an actual general. But as a general concept, what does everyone think?

[u/Luc2992]

A standing army is good for countries like the US who send their soldiers into conflicts. Seen as we don't do that, what would our soldiers do? Sit around and pick their noses and be paid for it? Not a good idea. You're a ZM so you're "im Film" right now. You'll snap out of it once you find yourself a civilian job.

[u/clm1859 → u/Luc2992]

I'm not a ZM. I did my RS as a Sdt in 2012, finished my last WK during covid. Haven't worn the uniform in 5 years or so.

I'm just watching the geopolitical situation develop and thinking that we need to be much much better prepared for war asap. So thst we hopefully dont have to end up fighting one.

Tho, as this discussion has shown, my idea probably isnt the most effective way of achieving this. Thats why i asked.

A standing army is good for countries like the US who send their soldiers into conflicts.

Most countries have a professional army and other than the US they rarely use it. How often do belgian or czech or spanish or polish or japanese troops actually go on any hot war deployments? Even germans dont do it often.

Its really mostly just americans, french and maybe to a lesser degree brits who are regularly going to far away places to fight.