Thursday, August 09, 2012 -
The Kazakh government decreed on Thursday that military training will be required for all citizens.
“The goal of universal military training of citizens is to attract the population to civil defense activities, prepare for necessary contingencies, and build up the armed forces in the period of martial law,” the government order, published on a government portal, stated.
Men between the ages of 16 and 60 will need to partake in the military training, while some women between 18 and 45 years old will also have to participate in the training. Only women without children and those whose children are older than 10 will have to attend training sessions, the decree said.
Training will take all of 25 hours, though what citizens will be trained to do will depend on their age, study, and work history. The training may touch on topics as varied as first aid, engineering, military topography, and firearms training, among other subjects.
Mandatory military service for 18 to 20-year-olds is already in place.
Kazakhstan’s military is comprised of 64,000 soldiers. The country’s population is now 16.5 million people.
The country has experienced little violence since its 1991 independence; however, a rash of small-scale terror attacks, and the eminent NATO withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2014, have made the country’s leaders more cautious on security issues in recent months.