Security doesn’t come for free. In Switzerland’s active reserve system, everyone must contribute. For me, that’s a 20% side job since 2001.

A very long time ago, Switzerland chose to organize its society using a principle we call the active reserve system. This system remains the cornerstone of our society today — in security, politics, education, and associations.

As unique as the active reserve system is, its benefits and challenges are unique. In a previous article, I explained the benefits of the active reserve system; this article focuses more on the challenges.

Let’s start with a quick recap of the benefits before we dive into the challenges.

Benefits

From a strategic perspective, the active reserve system has three closely interconnected benefits.

First, not having a standing army and not having a standing parliament is highly efficient: There aren’t any professional soldiers and politicians to pay constantly. Soldiers are called up in times of crisis or war, they serve as long as needed, and are sent home again when their mission is accomplished. Likewise, politicians gather for parliamentary sessions four times a year, only to pursue their original professions in between parliamentary sessions.

Second, because soldiers and politicians are ordinary citizens, there is no detached caste of people who control the state. Every citizen can serve in the Armed Forces. Every citizen can be elected into political office.

And third, power is dispersed, with no individual amassing too much power. You can’t be a member of parliament and an army general at the same time. But you can be an army general first, and serve in parliament after quitting the Armed Forces. Or vice-versa. But for lower-level functions, it’s possible to serve in the Armed Forces and on the local school council at the same time: If that weren’t possible, we wouldn’t have enough people to fill all those active reserve jobs in security, politics, education, and associations.

Challenges

Let’s look at the challenges of the active reserve system now. I am doing this with a perspective of serving as an active reserve officer in the Swiss Armed Forces for 24 years. In those 24 years, I have spent roughly 1’200 days in the military.

That’s 50 days per year, or one day per week.

For 24 straight years.

That’s like an additional 20% part-time job on top of your full-time job. Tasks don’t auto-complete during your absence from work, and when you get home after a tiring week of military duty, your family wants to catch up for the time you missed.

Challenges for Employers

At Yonder, the B2B SaaS company I co-founded, I am not the only active reserve officer. I like hiring military guys for their attitude. As a downside, they are on military duty regularly. That’s like an additional 3–4 weeks of annual leave when the employee is not reachable and not doing work for our company.

The social security system reimburses companies for military absences, but no way near the actual salary costs of an average IT guy. Therefore, companies pay a significant part of the costs for national security.

Much worse than paying parts of the costs is the absence of a knowledgeable resource. Especially in small and mid-sized companies, a 3–4 week absence of a specialist can delay projects and therefore revenues. Even if the knowledge can be covered by some team colleagues, imagine shifting the tasks of a full-time position to three other colleagues who already work full-time.

Challenges for Families

In contrast to regular work, military duty happens 24/7. In most cases, it happens far away from your home. And of course, home office and remote military duty are not possible. To finish off the adversities, you cannot choose when you’re unit is scheduled for its service, you get summoned.

If you’re unlucky, you will be on military service on your kids’ birthdays, on the first day of school, during the theater performance at school, or even during the summer holidays or over Christmas.

And when you finally get home on weekends, you can’t play cards with your kids all weekend long. You’re tired, and you need to catch up on urgent work that was left behind during your absence.

These are the challenges encountered in regular military training courses. When you get called up for a real crisis or even a war, things get worse. You can’t go home every weekend. Your service will be longer than three or four weeks. You might get hurt or even killed.

I know what I am talking about. I was called up for 8 straight weeks during COVID-19, leaving behind three young kids and a wife in homeschooling during a lockdown. I have witnessed several deadly accidents in my time as the commander of an airlift company, losing close comrades and picking up dead strangers. This all leaves traces that don’t go unnoticed with your kids. Years after a deadly helicopter crash, we passed the place where a dear comrade died in an accident. Suddenly, my youngest son said, “Dad, isn’t that where the helicopter crashed?”

Now imagine what it means for a parent to go to war. Luckily, I don’t know what war is all about, but I can extrapolate from my real-life military experiences described above.

Security Isn’t Free

With all those challenges, why is the active reserve system still an excellent system?

Besides the benefits shown above, it shows that security doesn’t come for free. Companies and citizens both must contribute their parts to a safe country. I’d rather have an additional 20% job for a quarter of a century than live in an unsafe country.