Europe Wants @You: Armies Go Digital To Recruit Young Soldiers
By EurActiv
FacebookTwitterEmailFlipboardMastodonLinkedInShare
Playlist advancing in 5 seconds
Video Muted
By Pietro Guastamacchia
Key Takeaways
- As European countries expand their armed forces (e.g., Germany aiming for 260,000 active personnel, France doubling reservists), recruitment has become a major communications challenge, with new campaigns rolling out across TV, billboards, cinema, and especially social media.
- Messaging has shifted from traditional patriotic duty toward personal development, belonging, resilience, and self-challenge, as seen in campaigns such as the UK’s “You Belong Here,” France’s “Peux-tu le faire?,” Ireland’s female-focused “Yes. You. Can.,” and Germany’s personality-driven TikTok content.
- Social media platforms (particularly TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube) are now central recruitment tools, with forces like the Bundeswehr, Spanish Army, and others creating dedicated channels to reach younger audiences through informal, authentic, and shareable content that has already shown measurable increases in applications.
(EurActiv) — As governments invest billions in rebuilding Europe’s military capabilities, they are discovering that modernising arsenals is only one part of the challenge. The other is finding the people needed to operate them.
Germany wants to grow its armed forces from around 180,000 soldiers to 260,000 while doubling its reserve force. France plans to expand its reservists from roughly 47,000 to 100,000 by the end of the decade. Italy has announced plans to increase its military personnel, while the Netherlands and Poland are also looking at ways to expand their forces.
Recruitment has therefore become a communications battle, increasingly fought on TV, billboards, TikTok, Instagram and YouTube.
Across Europe, the message is changing
Echoing the visibility of recruitment campaigns at the beginning of the 20th century, military advertising is once again becoming a familiar presence across Europe, from the sides of London’s double-decker buses to Greek highways and cinema screens in Paris.
Between 2025 and 2026, several countries released new campaigns, but unlike the last century, the messaging has shifted from patriotic duties to personal growth.
The British Army’s “You Belong Here” campaign, first launched in 2023 and updated yearly, presents military service as a community where individuals can find purpose and belonging. The point-of-view filming style used in rescue operations recalls the visual language of modern war video games, placing viewers directly in the soldier’s perspective.
Shared widely on social media and cinema screens, France’s “Peux-tu le faire?” (“Can you do it?”) frames joining the army as a personal challenge centred on resilience and self-development. The campaign also has an English version of its video content.
Italy’s recent army campaign adopts a more institutional tone and revolves around the question of national security. Built around the message “Esercito Italiano, al tuo fianco, ogni giorno”(“Italian Army, by your side every day”), it uses images of Italian cities and everyday life to present soldiers as a constant presence in local communities.
The Belgian armed forces also launched their new campaign in January 2026 and announced in early August that they had met their target of recruiting 500 young adults for their new voluntary military service year.
The Irish case: targeting a new audience
The Irish Defence Forces recently released a new campaign titled “Yes. You. Can.” The video moves away from traditional military imagery, following a young woman overcoming moments of self-doubt and focusing on confidence and personal potential.
Rob Maguire, executive creative director at the Irish agency Public House, which created the campaign, told Euractiv that the change reflects a wider transformation in how defence is perceived.
“When we talk about defence, the language is totally different from 10 years ago, even four years ago,” he said.
The Irish campaign was specifically designed to address a recruitment gap among young women.
“Our client specifically wanted to target female recruitment because they knew historically they had not had great numbers,” Maguire said. Research conducted by the agency showed that traditional patriotic messaging was not necessarily the most effective way to reach younger or female audiences.
The campaign focused on what Maguire described as “self-exclusion”, the tendency for some potential female applicants to rule themselves out before applying.
The campaign was also designed from the outset to generate engagement and sharing on social media. Maguire said Public House had been told that applications from women had increased sharply since the campaign’s release.
Germany goes all in on TikTok
Germany has perhaps taken the digital shift further, turning the Bundeswehr’s recruitment channels into one of the most visible examples of a military institution adapting to social media culture.
On TikTok, the Bundeswehr Karriere account mixes recruitment messages with humour, informal videos and behind-the-scenes content depicting everyday military life. Instead of presenting the armed forces only through official ceremonies or images of military hardware, the strategy focuses on personalities: soldiers explaining their jobs, showing training routines and offering a more accessible view of military life.
In 2026, Germany recorded rising interest in its armed forces following the launch of its recruitment drive, with a 20% increase in applicants since last year.
Social media as the main tool to reach recruits
What these campaigns have in common is their ability to adapt to the logic of social media. Armies are no longer simply placing recruitment adverts online. They are building dedicated channels to reach potential recruits where they already consume information.
Spain offers another, more recent, example. In May, the Spanish Army launched an official TikTok account alongside a WhatsApp channel, explicitly linking the move to “responding to the need to adapt institutional communication to current information consumption habits, with a particular focus on younger audiences”.
The channels are used to showcase military activities, explain career opportunities and bring the institution closer to the public.
The army said the aim was to offer “truthful, transparent and timely” information, while using platforms that are already part of the daily lives of younger generations and are building their own digital ecosystems.
About EurActiv
EurActiv publishes free, independent policy news and facilitates open policy debates in 12 languages.
canisgallicus 