Obligatory military service gains support

The Russian war in Ukraine is rapidly changing peoples attitudes in Finland. As an example, I wrote  two weeks ago about changes in the attitude of Finns about joining the western military organization NATO. 

Yesterday it was reported in the second biggest newspaper in Finland that attitudes have also changed towards the military service of women. According to an opinion poll 40.8 percent of Finns would make military service obligatory also for women, while 37.5 percent were opposing the idea. 

Previously only a marginal part of people were favorable to the idea, but now even the political left - especially Social Democrats and Greens - was notably positive for it. Also 30,2 percent of women supported the obligatory female military service, whereas 43,2 percent opposed. Among males it was supported by a majority, namely 51,5 percent.

Today women may have a voluntary service, but for males it is obligatory, although they may select between military and civilian options. However, only 65 percent of men get a full training, whereas six percent do the civil service. The rest are dropped out, which means that the Finnish defence forces are composed of selected high quality soldiers. 

Currently only a total of 1 200 women have finalized their military services. Therefore obligatory service for them would increase the size of the Finnish army considerably. That, however, is not necessary right now, as the the defence forces consider the current number of troops adequate. 

In my opinion, these changes - on NATO and on female military service - are the last steps out of the compliant policy towards Russia that was adopted by Finland and largely accepted by its citizens after the WWII. At the same time, they are a notable sign to Moscow about the willingness of Finns to stay independent of its eastern neighbor, and a full member of the the western world.  

Previous thoughts of the same topic: 
Military specialist: Russian plan in Ukraine was incredibly poor
Finland and NATO - problems to be solved
It takes heroes to avoid genocide