Bjørg Hjorth Nørgaard, 19, has not finished high school yet but has already enlisted to pay a duty to her country.

The young woman has volunteered for Denmark’s four-month military training camp before university, fully aware that war has returned to Europe.

“It’s a personal journey … I have signed up at my own free will,” she said.

“It’s no longer an argument that men fight wars, women do it as well now.”

Young men in the country have for a long time been conscripted based on a lottery system.

If your number is called, it is compulsory to attend four months of basic military training, although others are welcome to join voluntarily, including women.

But Denmark’s government is planning to make it gender-neutral, meaning 18-year-old women will be in the lottery too.

The time commitment for conscripts will also increase to 11 months so trainees can learn more combat skills.

“It has a more serious note now … and there’s this more serious aspect of war in Europe that has an effect on all of us,” Bjørg said.

“It’s a necessary thing and it’s just a reaction to what’s happening in the world.

“If I pulled the number, I would do it … I think it’s important to join your country and live up to your duty in society and if I had to do it, I would do it.

“It won’t be the only thing that secures us, but it will send a signal to Russia and the US as well, that we’re ready to take this next step and we can fight back.”

Why is Denmark changing the rules?

It is a politically contentious defence plan to build the country’s army as it prepares for Russia’s growing threat in the region.

Denmark — which has a population of 6 million — has an army of just 9,000 professional soldiers and, each year, 4,700 conscripts undergo basic training.

The Danish defence minister has described the expansion as “vital” to increasing troop numbers amid Europe’s worsening security situation.

In a statement, the Danish Defence Ministry said it needed conscripts to better support professional armed troops and that the addition of more military personnel was essential for the ability to deploy operation units.

When announcing the new policy, Denmark’s Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said the country was “rearming” to avoid war.

In 2023, there were 4,717 conscripts in Denmark. Women who volunteered for military service accounted for 25.1 per cent of the cohort, according to official figures.

After weeks of debate, the Danish government reached agreement with several parties opposed to female conscription, meaning that following the next general election in 2026, women will be called up for military service.

The aim of the policy is to increase the number of conscripts to 7,500 per year and the time commitment to 11 months.

Some locals support the move to mandatory service

David Knudsen, 18, is among the young Danes who support the changes.

“For a long time, we have rested on the umbrella of NATO and the United States without paying as much as we probably should have,” he said.

“And now, we also see ourselves in a situation where the next US president could perhaps be unwilling to defend us if the need suddenly arose someday, so we have to invest.”

The high school student plans to complete his military service with Bjørg this summer before enlisting in an aviation academy to become a pilot.

“If Russia was to invade us, of course we wouldn’t be able to stand a week without the support of NATO and the US,” he said.

“But it’s definitely a sign of a change in mentality, the way we approach military and defence in general.”

David believes the legislative changes are necessary from a security perspective but also important to changing societal views.

“The biggest resistance … here in Denmark against this new policy is actually from some of the parties in the parliament, which assert the physiological differences between men and women,” he said.

“As young Danish people, we don’t really feel any significant resistance against doing this.

“It’s a declaration of equality between the genders because as long as it’s not the same for a woman, it supports the narrative of men being the strong gender and women being the weak or inferior gender.

“And that’s something we need to resist against because we believe it has no real place in society.”

Some young Danes have viewed national service as a personal journey before university and while the lottery system remains, most of the conscripts in recent years have been voluntary.

But some believe that will change if the length of the conscription requirement more than doubles.

How Putin’s war became a ‘watershed moment for Danish security’

The changes will bring Denmark’s policies closer to its Nordic neighbours Sweden and Norway, where mandatory service is applicable to both men and women and lasts for 12 months and 19 months respectively.

According to Kristian Søby Kristensen, the director of the Centre for Military Studies at the University of Copenhagen, Vladimir Putin’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine was the catalyst for a “watershed moment in Danish security politics”.

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“We are seeing a major build-up of the Danish armed forces and a major reorganisation, together with NATO allies, trying to make the Danish armed forces more ready to fight in a conventional war,” he said.

Beyond attempting to bolster the size of its military, the Danish government has injected another $7.7 billion into the budget between 2024-2028.

It means the country will now meet the NATO threshold of spending more than 2 per cent of GDP on defence.

“It’s a contentious political subject and is also part of wider negotiations about how to develop the Danish armed forces,” Dr Søby Kristensen said.

“So, there may be a deal where we end up with complete gender-neutral conscription or there might be another deal where we have a hybrid.”

While Denmark was among NATO’s founding members, Finland, which shares a large land border with Russia, was admitted in 2023 after years of neutrality. Sweden joined in March.

Two minority parties in the Danish parliament, the Liberal Alliance and the Danish Democrats, have voiced opposition to the changes, breaking a long-held tradition of defence policy receiving unanimous support in the country.

“The government at the moment is fighting hard to negotiate a kind of compromise that will make everybody at least somewhat happy,” Dr Søby Kristensen said.

“Both increasing the pool of people for the armed forces in some form of fashion and making more demands on the female part of the population in terms of military service.”

While there appears to be broad public support for the policy changes from young Danes, Anna Marie Herskind, 19, said she would only fulfil the service if she was forced to.

“I have not turned myself into this military service first of all because it hasn’t been clear of what a woman’s chance is in military service,” she said.

“I’ve seen it more as a personal journey than military service and I’ve chosen to make that journey by travelling the world instead.

“I think most Danes are in for this new transition, we have seen it in Norway and Sweden as well, so I knew this would happen at some time.”