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Albania
Military Manpower
Traditionally most armed forces conscripts served for two years.
Conscripts in the air and air defense and naval forces as well
as noncommissioned officers and technical specialists in certain
units served three years. In 1991, however, the freely elected,
communist-controlled coalition government reduced the basic two-year
term of service to eighteen months. This shorter term of service
for conscripts and the small size of the People's Army would force
Albania to rely on large-scale mobilization to mount a credible
defense of the country. Given the small population and economy
of Albania, full mobilization would seriously disrupt the civilian
production and logistics necessary to sustain military operations.
The military reserve training needed to support mobilization plans
also imposed a burden on the country's economic activity. The
population was relatively young, with fully 60 percent under the
age of thirty. There were just under 500,000 males between the
ages of fifteen and fifty. Of this total number, approximately
75 percent, or nearly 375,000, were physically suited to carry
out military duties. More than half of them had had prior military
service and participated in reserve military activities on an
annual basis. Women were also trained in the reserves and available
for mobilization, although in unknown numbers.
In the early 1990s plans for expanding the existing military
establishment during mobilization were unclear to Western observers.
Prior to the 1980s, the ground forces maintained a peacetime structure
with low personnel strength and low combat readiness. Divisions
would be brought to full strength and readiness through the mobilization
of reserves, but the smaller brigade structure introduced in the
1980s made it unlikely that newly mobilized soldiers could be
integrated into existing units in the regular ground forces in
wartime. Mobilized troops were more likely to be employed as light
infantry, special forces, or guerrillas rather than in more technically
oriented tank, artillery, air and air defense, or naval units.
However, the possibility of mobilizing a substantial segment of
the population for guerrilla warfare against an aggressor was
evident in the large paramilitary training program. The emphasis
on paramilitary training increased after the Soviet-led Warsaw
Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 demonstrated potential
weaknesses in Albania's plans to meet an attack by a large, well-trained
aggressor force.
In the late 1980s, even communist-controlled Albanian sources
referred to serious problems with the attitudes of young people
who were conscripted into the People's Army. They described social
malaise, a growth in religious belief, increasing crime, and unwillingness
to accept assignments to remote areas of the country. Moreover,
the system of social discipline that enforced obligatory military
service under communist rule had completely disappeared by January
1992. Poor food, changing living and working conditions, and low
pay led to increasing dereliction of duty, absence without leave,
and desertion. More than 500 soldiers were among the thousands
of Albanians who fled to Italy and Greece in 1991. The reduction
in conscript service to eighteen months in 1991 exacerbated the
serious and growing problem of unemployment among the male draft-age
population. In early 1992, the problems of manning the People's
Army continued to mount.
Data as of April 1992
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