World
Denmark seeks to boost military numbers by mandating draft for women
- The Danish government is seeking to boost military recruitment by extending conscription to women.
- In Denmark, only physically fit men over the age of 18 are currently mandated to do military service.
- Defense Minister Troels Lund Poulsen said the new system would require a change in the law, which he said will happen in 2025 and take effect in 2026.
Denmark wants to increase the number of young people doing military service by extending conscription to women and increasing the time of service from 4 months to 11 months for both genders, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said Wednesday.
“We do not rearm because we want war. We are rearming because we want to avoid it,” Frederiksen told a press conference. She said the government wants “full equality between the sexes.”
Denmark currently has up to 9,000 professional troops on top of the 4,700 conscripts undergoing basic training, according to official figures. The government wants to increase the number of conscripts by 300 to reach a total of 5,000.
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The country is a member of the NATO alliance and a staunch supporter of Ukraine in its war against Russia’s invasion.
Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen speaks during a press conference on March 13, 2024, at the State Ministry in Copenhagen. Frederiksen said on Wednesday the Danish government wants to increase the number of young Danes doing military service by making conscription mandatory for women. (Liselotte Sabroe/Ritzau Scanpix via AP)
Foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen stressed that “Russia does not pose a threat to Denmark.”
“But we will not bring ourselves to a place where they could come to do that,” Løkke Rasmussen said.
All physically fit men over the age of 18 are called up for military service, which lasts roughly four months. However, because there are enough volunteers, there is a lottery system, meaning not all young men serve.
In 2023, there were 4,717 conscripts in Denmark. Women who volunteered for military service accounted for 25.1% of the cohort, according to official figures.
Defense Minister Troels Lund Poulsen said the new system would require a change in the law, which he said will happen in 2025 and take effect in 2026.
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The security policy situation in Europe “has become more and more serious, and we have to take that into account when we look at future defense,” Lund Poulsen said. “A broader basis for recruiting that includes all genders is needed,” he said, adding it will create “a more versatile and more complete defense.”
Under the plan for which there likely is a majority in the Danish parliament, conscripts will first spend five months in basic training, followed by six months in operational service along with supplementary training.
In 2017, neighboring Sweden instituted a military draft for both men and women because the Swedish government spoke of a deteriorating security environment in Europe and around Sweden. The Scandinavian country had previously abolished compulsory military service for men in 2010 because there were enough volunteers to meet its military needs. It never had a military draft for women before.
Norway introduced a law in 2013 applying military conscription to both sexes.
The United States and China will discuss guardrails on artificial intelligence, including establishing a protocol for keeping powerful A.I. models out of the hands of nonstate actors, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said on Thursday.
Mr. Bessent, who was speaking from Beijing in an interview with CNBC, did not give more details, including when these discussions would take place. But Xi Jinping, China’s leader, and President Trump had been expected to discuss A.I. during their summit in the Chinese capital.
If these talks happen, it would be the first time the two countries formally take up the issue during Mr. Trump’s second term. The capabilities and usage of A.I. have grown rapidly, and so have concerns that this technology could be weaponized by hackers and terrorists, or spiral out of human control.
“The two A.I. superpowers are going to start talking,” Mr. Bessent said. “We’re going to set up a protocol in terms of, how do we go forward with best practices for A.I. to make sure nonstate actors don’t get ahold of these models.”
Still, Mr. Bessent made clear that the fierce competition between the United States and China for supremacy in A.I. — which has been a major hurdle to cooperation on safety — remained front of mind for U.S. policymakers. Officials and experts in both countries have argued that they cannot slow technological development and risk losing out to their rivals.
Mr. Bessent said that the United States was willing to cooperate with China on A.I. safety because “the Chinese are substantially behind us” in terms of the technology’s development.
“I do not think we would be having the same discussions if they were this far ahead of us. So we’re going to put in U.S. best practices, U.S. values, on this, and then roll those out to the world,” Mr. Bessent said.
Experts have suggested that China’s A.I. models may be a few months behind the leading U.S. models.
Another hurdle to the United States and China working together on A.I. safety is that they have generally focused on different potential threats.
American experts have generally highlighted existential risks, such as the possibility of artificial general intelligence, or super-intelligence that exceeds that of humans. Chinese researchers and officials have more often highlighted risks related to social stability and information control, such as the possibility of chatbots producing content that challenges China’s leadership and policies.
Still, researchers in both countries have highlighted some shared risks, such as the possibility of A.I. being used to develop new biological weapons.
Ship SEIZED near UAE coast, UK military says
Iranian forces seized a vessel 38 nautical miles off the UAE coast early Thursday, a brazen provocation occurring just as President Donald Trump and Xi Jinping met in Beijing discussing key issues like the Strait of Hormuz.
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A ship was seized off the coast of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) near the Strait of Hormuz on Thursday morning, the British military reported.
The ship was boarded and “taken by unauthorized personnel” while it was roughly 38 nautical miles northeast of the United Arab Emirates’ oil export terminal Fujairah, the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) reported Thursday.
UKMTO spotted the ship heading toward Iranian territorial waters after the seizure, it reported Thursday.
British authorities did not release information on who the ship belonged to or who seized it. Despite the lack of official corroboration, the BBC reported that the Honduras-flagged Hui Chuan was seized in the Strait on Thursday.
CARGO SHIP ATTACKED BY SMALL CRAFT NEAR STRAIT OF HORMUZ, UK MARITIME AGENCY SAYS
Ships are anchored in the Strait of Hormuz off Bandar Abbas in southern Iran on May 4. A report on May 15 said a ship was seized off the coast of the United Arab Emirates and is being brought toward Iranian waters. (Amirhossein Khorgooei/ISNA/AFP)
Citing the risk-management company Vanguard, the BBC reported that the ship’s operators told Vanguard that the Hui Chuan was operating as a “floating armory” for ships in the Strait to defend themselves from pirates.
A container ship sits at anchor in the Strait of Hormuz off Bandar Abbas, Iran, as a motorboat passes in the foreground on May 2, 2026. (Amirhosein Khorgooi/ISNA via AP)
At least two other ships have already been seized in the Strait of Hormuz since February.
IRAN SAYS ITS SMALL SUBS DEPLOYED TO STRAIT OF HORMUZ AS EXPERT EXPLAINS THREAT: ‘VULNERABLE TO DETECTION’
A cargo ship sails in the Persian Gulf toward the Strait of Hormuz on April 22, 2026. (AP Photo)
In April, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) seized the Panamanian-flagged MSC Francesca and the Epaminondes ships in the Strait.
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Fox News Digital contacted UKMTO and Vanguard for further information but did not immediately receive a response.
Al Jazeera’s Manuel Rapalo reports from Washington, where the first of two days of US-mediated ambassador-level talks between Israel and Lebanon concluded on Thursday. A ceasefire between them expires on Sunday, though Israel has killed 512 Lebanese since its implementation on April 17.
Published On 15 May 2026
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