The era of mass armies in Western Europe will come to an end with the turn of the century even though not all of its nations will have given up conscription by the year 2000. This is the general conclusion that may be drawn from an analysis of structural indicators for the period from 1970 to 1995 and from an expert survey for fifteen Western European nations. The assumption stipulated by many military sociologists that socioeconomic modernization would favor the trend to volunteer systems is only weakly supported by the data. Strategic and military goal-bound factors such as the loss of a direct military threat with the end of the Cold War, membership in NATO, and nonparticipation in international missions outside national territory seem to be more important for the disappearance of mass armies in Europe.

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