In the UK in 2023 it is still possible to join the military when you're 16 years old, and you can start your application when 5 months before that. No other country in Europe recruits child soldiers, only the UK.
As I understand it, it's basically a legal historical quirk at this point; it almost never happens -- they're not qualified otherwise. Essentially all roles require secondary education and many want a college degree these days.
Also environment for brainwashing
(edit: spelling)
We don't let those people drink alcohol for a reason.
That'll show the French!
Are these 16 year old actually fighting? Or are they placed in support roles, i.e. it's basically a job, but under the structure of the military?
But once they turn 18 they can be ordered into combat based on a decision they made when they were still a child.
Recruits can leave up to the end of their first six months of service. After that they are committed until they are 22.
That is an uncomfortable situation, but it's not worse than countries that conscript 18-year-olds, who don't even get to make a decision at all.
It also gives everyone the same incentive to not start shit (even though few ppl are in position to instigate a war) because it could be you and your family that’s sent to fight it.
However, when you’re actually fighting, you want to trust the person fighting next to you. And if that person was conscripted and didn’t want to ever be there, that’d cause a lot of issues.
10 years old understand joining army means joining army. And still don't get to make those decisions.
Age cutoffs are an arbitrary and shitty substitute for a test of competency, prone to both high false negative and high false positive rates.
Because teenagers are easy to manipulate and control, don’t value their life, and think with their dick.
I'm going to take a stab in the dark and say by sheer coincidence you're in that 25-30 year old male demographic, and in about 5 years you'll be of the opinion that actually its 30-35 year olds who are clearly the strongest, toughest, most mature and capable fighting force and all them 25-30s are a bunch of idiots that don't value life and think with their dick.
Nobody claims that 40 yeat old men are peal of physical perfection.
Car accident rates have an obvious confounding factor. Of course the people with +5 years experience driving have a lower accident rate than the people who just got their license. Skill comes from practice. If you pushed the legal age for a drivers license to 25, the 25-30 year old demographic would probably suck at it and get into accidents in their first ever years on the road. There's no way around the fact that driving judgement has to be learned at some point, and is not just bestowed by the maturity fairy when you hit the big three ooh.
Ability and willingness to follow orders is probably paramount, along with reflexes, and some common sense and logical abilities. And then of course, proficiency in your role.
18 year olds are typically right out of school, so learning new roles comes easy. They've also typically come right out of a situation in life where the expectation of following commands is pretty fresh, even if they perhaps weren't the best at following through (the military has ways to fix that).
And perhaps most importantly, for folks that are staying in for the career, or at least longer than the minimum level of service, joining at 18 means that you've had time to get training and experience so when you DO hit that "prime muscle strength" time of life, you're a well honed killing machine. Waiting til you've hit that point means you'll be going in cold, and get suboptimal results.
The TLDR is that in the UK, age limits are quite case-by-case, and tend to range from 16 to 21, although in more niche cases can range from 11 (the age you can open a bank account) to 30 (the age of suffrage for women in the 1918 Representation of the people act).
You can smoke cigarettes at any age, but you are not allowed to buy them until you are 18.
If you are caught smoking by a uniformed police officer or park keeper in a public place when under 16, he or she can take away your tobacco and cigarette papers.
s.7 Children and Young Persons Act 1933
But we do get to pick and choose which privileges we extend to minors, and when. A 16 year old has no legal right to consume alcohol, but that only means that we can ban them from doing so, not that we have to.
That is absurd claim. We in fact do get to chery pick scenarios in which someone is mature enough for X and not yet mature enough for Y. That isbjust simple logic, it is irrational to demand that different situations are treated the same.
Patriot act, taxes and terroris have literally zero to do with anything.
"Drinks like a soldier" doesn't have the same ring to it.