Bring back the draft. No, really.

STOCKHOLM — If Sweden reinstitutes the draft, as it is expected to do within a couple of months, many will report the move as a return to a previous era. For centuries, young men in Europe were conscripted for military service to protect countries from invasion. Then came the 1990s and the presumed end of history. With territorial wars considered a thing of the past, large European powers scrapped compulsory military service in favor of smaller professional armed forces.

The return to conscription is both a sign of more uncertain times and the result of difficulties Sweden has had in filling its military roster with only volunteer forces. But it would be a mistake to write off the effort as a rollback of progress. Sweden’s initiative will show the draft in its modern incarnation: targeted, highly selective, and applied to both men and women.

When Sweden suspended the draft seven years ago, it joined a growing club: Countries including France, Italy, Belgium and the Netherlands had taken the same step in the nineties, and Germany did so in 2011.

Its reinstatement reflects a consensus in the country that the experiment has failed. “Fully professional armed forces were a completely new system for us, and that caused some challenges,” Major-General Klas Eksell, the Swedish Armed Forces’ director of human resources, told me. “Recruitment of active-duty soldiers was OK, but it was very challenging to recruit reservists.”

In Lithuania, with 3,500 conscripts out of some 19,000 boys born each year, 18 percent are selected for the draft.

The armed forces needs to recruit 3,000-4,000 soldiers each year, but they haven’t met the target a single time. Currently 5,325 of 6,600 of the armed forces’ active-duty positions are filled, but only 3,875 of the 10,400 reservist positions are occupied. As Eksell and his staff found out, it’s hard to compete with civilian employers.

The timing of the reinstatement will give the armed forces just enough time to prepare for the selection of recruits this summer. The country’s first 4,000 new conscripts will then report for duty next January.

Two years ago Lithuania took a similar step, reinstating conscription for men after having suspended it in 2008. The first draft included 3,000 men, though the annual intake will grow to 3,500. “We choose the best and most motivated men,” Kristina Šapkinaitė, the ministry of defense official in charge of soldier logistics, told me. “Since the conscripts serve in combat units, they have to contribute something.”

In Sweden, the annual number of conscripts will gradually grow from next year’s 4,000 to 6,000 by 2021. With some 90,000 Swedes born each year, that means only 4.4 percent of Swedish 19-year-olds will be drafted next year. Even when the draft reaches 6,000 conscripts each year, that’s an acceptance rate of less than seven percent.

Members of a Swedish Army Corps in Malmo | Jonathan Nackstrand/AFP via Getty Images

In Lithuania, with 3,500 conscripts out of some 19,000 boys born each year, 18 percent are selected for the draft. And in Norway, the military picks around 13 percent of all 19-year-old boys and girls.

The highly selective draft represents a sea change. No longer do Swedes, Norwegians and Lithuanians with no mental or physical aptitude for the military have to endure a year of instructions and exercises they detest.

Indeed, the modern military employs sophisticated equipment that should not be entrusted to youngsters who’d much rather be somewhere else. “When I did my military service everybody had to serve, and if you were less able you worked in support functions like postman,” recalled Eksell. “The selective draft will help us move from military service as something you’re forced to do to something you’re selected to do.”

Or as Kjersti Klæboe, the head of the Norwegian defense ministry’s personnel department, told me: “Producing soldiers is no longer about filling quotas and units. Instead we pay more attention to the quality and skills — the added value — of every soldier.” The 21st-century draft is for top achievers.

Once Sweden reintroduces the draft, it will join Norway, which never abolished the draft but decided four years ago to expand it to women.

With some 30,000 boys born each year, the Norwegian armed forces didn’t have trouble filling its annual conscript quota of 8,000. But the military and the legislators wanted to maximize the military’s talent pool. The first female conscripts — 27 percent of the total — reported for duty last year.

If Norway hasn’t had any trouble recruiting male conscripts in the past, it’s largely because the armed forces enjoy a high status. In surveys of their favorite prospective employers, university students rank the armed forces near the top.

But when the country began testing girls for conscription, the armed forces worried they would be hesitant to serve, given most had never contemplated life as conscripts. So the military launched a large information campaign directed at girls and their parents, explaining what the armed forces do, why Norway needs armed forces, and what conscription means for girls. In Sweden, Eksell’s staff will launch a similar campaign as soon as parliament passes the law.

Indeed, in Sweden and Lithuania, where several years have gone by with neither boys nor girls performing military service, the armed forces will have to convince teenagers that spending nine months to one year in barracks is a good idea.

Having performed military service is no longer a minus (“too stupid to get out of it”) or a neutral point on one’s CV — it’s the mark of a young man or woman of particular potential.

Is spending a year of your life neither working nor getting a degree, and possibly putting yourself in harm’s way, something to aim for? Though there’s a value in performing a service for one’s country, many young men choose to ignore it. Indeed, for centuries countless men have used dubious excuses to dodge the draft. In Russia, which still has universal conscription for men, many still do, for example by enrolling in Ph.D. programs.

But the modern, super-selective draft is different. Though armed forces are having to refocus on territorial defense, they don’t need soldiers for trenches. As Šapkinaitė pointed out, they need highly skilled young men and women who can be trusted with expensive high-tech equipment. And the best conscripts are given positions of responsibility a 19-year-old could only dream of in civilian life.

Having performed military service is no longer a minus (“too stupid to get out of it”) or a neutral point on one’s CV — it’s the mark of a young man or woman of particular potential. A survey among Norway’s current class of conscripts shows 90 percent of women and 83 percent of the men are pleased with their experience.

The public, too, seems to be on board. A 2016 survey found 73 percent of Norwegians support the gender-neutral draft, up from 63 percent in 2014. In a September 2016 poll, 62 percent of Swedes supported the new, gender-neutral draft. And an April 2016 poll in Lithuania showed 52 percent of the country supports the return of conscription.

A country like France, which has no trouble recruiting professional soldiers partly as a result of high youth unemployment, won’t need to bring the draft back. But the experiences of Norway, Lithuania and Sweden demonstrate how military needs can also benefit the young people recruited to meet it.

It’s time to send our best teenagers back to the barracks.

Elisabeth Braw is a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council.