A volunteer military system or all-volunteer military system (AVMS) is a military service system that maintains the military only with applicants without conscription. A country may offer attractive pay and benefits through
military recruitment
Military recruitment is attracting people to, and selecting them for, Recruit training, military training and Military service, employment.
Demographics
Gender
Across the world, a large majority of recruits to state armed forces and Viole ...
to attract potential recruits. Many countries with volunteer militaries reserve the right to renew conscription in the event of an emergency.
The
Indian Army
The Indian Army (IA) (ISO 15919, ISO: ) is the Land warfare, land-based branch and largest component of the Indian Armed Forces. The President of India is the Commander-in-Chief, Supreme Commander of the Indian Army, and its professional head ...
is the world's largest standing volunteer army.
In recent decades, the trend among numerous countries has been to move from conscription to all-volunteer military forces. One significant example is in
France
France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...
, which has historically been
the first to introduce modern conscription and whose model was followed by many other countries in Europe and elsewhere around the world.
Volunteer military
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See also
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Conscription
Conscription, also known as the draft in the United States and Israel, is the practice in which the compulsory enlistment in a national service, mainly a military service, is enforced by law. Conscription dates back to antiquity and it conti ...
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Mercenary
A mercenary is a private individual who joins an armed conflict for personal profit, is otherwise an outsider to the conflict, and is not a member of any other official military. Mercenaries fight for money or other forms of payment rather t ...
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Military service
Military service is service by an individual or group in an army or other militia, air forces, and naval forces, whether as a chosen job (volunteer military, volunteer) or as a result of an involuntary draft (conscription).
Few nations, such ...
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Military volunteer
A military volunteer (or ''war volunteer'') is a person who enlists in military service by free will, and is not a conscript, mercenary, or a foreign volunteers, foreign legionnaire. Volunteers sometimes enlist to fight Foreign volunteers, in th ...
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United States Volunteers
United States Volunteers also known as U.S. Volunteers, U.S. Volunteer Army, or other variations of these, were military volunteers called upon during wartime to assist the United States Army but who were separate from both the Regular Army (United ...
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Volunteer Force (Great Britain)
The Volunteer Force was a citizen army of part-time rifle, artillery and engineer corps, created as a Social movement, popular movement throughout the British Empire in 1859. Originally highly autonomous, the units of volunteers became increa ...
References
Further reading
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Volunteer Military
Types of military forces
Military volunteering