Sweden brings back military conscription • Hacker News Board

Re: Sweden brings back military conscription

#211

Post by koolba » Thu, Mar 02, 2017, 6:32 PM UTC

derefr wrote: post #191

koolba wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What do you do with a conscript who never wanted to be there and possibly fundamentally isn't suited to military life anyway gives up? Threaten them with legal action? Military jail. > What do you do if they sort of do what they're told, but not really putting any effort into it? Crap assignments (ex: peel these 1000 potatoes then go clean that latrine) or military jail. Both are surprisingly motivating.

What if a group of conscripts decide that they'd rather "save themselves" by blowing themselves up, along with $100mm of your materiel? And then this becomes a meme—something other conscripts hear about and copy? I could see that happening if conscription ever returned in the US—we have an awful lot of "violent pacifists" (picture what happens if you draft some of the police-brutality protestors.)

That's called being a domestic terrorist and, IMNSHO, is a prime candidate for a long prison sentence.

Re: Sweden brings back military conscription

#212

Post by Nokinside » Thu, Mar 02, 2017, 6:38 PM UTC

Asooka wrote: post #207

Nokinside wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ethical problem with conscription None whatsoever. Individual rights has real meaning only when others protect them. Individual rights are never free. You can have freedom of speech, movement, assembly and property rights only when the group you live in agrees that you have those things and protects them when you can't. When the existence of that groups existence or freedom to organize is threatened, it's time to p…

Here we're talking about one modern country invading another. It's just the land changing owners - you, as a citizen, never really owned it anyway. It belongs to the ruling class and it doesn't really matter who they are. We're all one people, we should have one language and one culture. Every modern country has the concepts you outlined above. If the new government doesn't treat you humanely, you can always take civ…

>The system is always the same,

Russian and Finnish systems are not the same. Not even close.

Re: Sweden brings back military conscription

#213

Post by mynameishere » Thu, Mar 02, 2017, 6:39 PM UTC

ocschwar wrote: post #197

entropyneur wrote: post #57

I am quite surprised by the number of people here (and even larger numbers elsewhere this is being discussed) who don't seem to have any ethical problem with conscription. Thought the idea of killer slaves was completely off limits in the West. Now all of a sudden we are debating cost effectiveness. Guess I thought wrong.

As others have pointed out, if the nation state you live in does not have a secure hold on its territory, then you can either lose some of your freedom to conscription, or lose a whole lot more in foreign occupation.

So, will the new Swedish conscripts be securing any territory?

Re: Sweden brings back military conscription

#214

Post by Arizhel » Thu, Mar 02, 2017, 6:40 PM UTC

zmb_ wrote: post #18

chrisseaton wrote: post #6

How do you motivate a conscript? When I was in the British Army, which is volunteer only, commanding a basic training troop if someone was wanted to give up we could say to them 'if this isn't for you then you can go home' (of course we did coach and mentor people to help them, I mean in cases where people just give up and stop soldiering when an exercise gets tough). They usually worked extremely hard to get into th…

>'if this isn't for you then you can go home' I did compulsory military service, including in a leadership role. "If you don't do what you're told, you don't get go home next weekend." Worked very well for conscripts, who usually get to go home for many weekends (unless on exercises). There are also many smaller privileges you can take a way for smaller infractions. Although when you have a defensive military that do…

>Now imagine you're a country with less than 10% of the population and need to produce a force of 200k soldiers in order to have a credible deterrent against an aggressive neighbor. How do you do that without conscription?

Just go without, and tell the population that you don't have enough forces to serve as a deterrent, so if the neighbor decides to invade you're just going to voluntarily cede any territory they ask for.

Re: Sweden brings back military conscription

#215

Post by gspetr » Thu, Mar 02, 2017, 6:40 PM UTC

brilliantcode wrote: post #205

anticodon wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As Russian I don't agree. I don't watch TV and read news (other than HN and a couple of other sites where I try to avoid politics as much as I can), but why the hell do we need these Baltic states? What do they have that Russia needs? Territory, natural resources? Nothing. I don't know the real motivation for annexing Crimea, but making a conclusion: first they take Crimea, then they're going to take Sweden and Balti…

Putin wants to revive USSR without any of it's benefits but all of it's power & resources available to him. He might get his way-we have a "Gorbachev" in the White House or a KGB asset.

Full disclosure: I am Russian.

Even Belarus and Kazakhstan don't really want to join, forget about the rest ex-USSR countries.

Taking countries by force makes even less sense - there do not exist resources or territory that make it profitable enough to offset military spending and new rounds of economic sanctions.

Re: Sweden brings back military conscription

#216

Post by zilean » Thu, Mar 02, 2017, 6:41 PM UTC

qaq wrote: post #185

zilean wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is no independent ultra-right it's just another face of the same ruling group. Cant agree. Also this is a slippery slope that could apply to western countries as well and we dont want to go there. > The "crazy" talk about Ukraine that started even prior to 2004 by "ultra-right" leaders was just 1st phase of prep. Again, Ukraine problematic is objective. Alaska and NK is not. Not from todays Russia perspective…

It's not a slippery slope if people are given access to resources, time on state owned TV stations, and hold positions of power they are part of Kremlin there are no alternative sources of power or resources.

Your view of how government work or sources of resources and power in the country and dynamics between the two is not something i can agree with.

In any case there is nothing state can do to please you: censoring specific types from accessing media is bad (and rest assured you would never know if they are ultra-right, libertarians or whoever they are from western media), allowing them is endorsing.

Re: Sweden brings back military conscription

#217

Post by ptaipale » Thu, Mar 02, 2017, 6:43 PM UTC

mrob wrote: post #147

zmb_ wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 200k dudes with guns Conscript military doesn't mean that you just teach everyone to dig a hole and sit in it with a rifle. You train conscripts into every role you need in a 200k strong modern military. Including operators and maintainers of the hi-tech death machines, sigint operatives, radar operators, tank crews, missile forces, officers of all kinds, and yes, the guys that dig holes and sit in them with rifles…

Conscription is slavery, and many conscripts will consider themselves to have a moral obligation to resist slavery. If you give them access to the whole military machine you greatly increase the opportunities for sabotage. With the traditional rifles in trenches style each individual conscript has very limited chance to fight back, and you can always call them traitors and murder them if they try.

Conscription is a form of taxation. Many say taxation is slavery, but the argument doesn't hold very well.

Re: Sweden brings back military conscription

#218

Post by pipio21 » Thu, Mar 02, 2017, 6:43 PM UTC

nkrisc wrote: post #24

thedevil wrote: post #13

I'm not sure why Sweden would be concerned. I read Russian news/propaganda occasionally. Over the last few years, Russian news/propaganda prepared Russian minds for interfering in Ukraine. And the propaganda includes arguments to justify a military buildup. And it seems to be preparing Russian minds for a possible invasion of Baltic states one day. But I don't think I've even seen Sweden mentioned in Russian news/pro…

I wouldn't cite propaganda to support that conclusion, precisely because it's propaganda.

why not?

Propaganda is a very good way to be informed. Precisely because the first law in good propaganda is "you never lie, just do not say anything about what you don't want mentioned". A lie like the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq is going to backfire when people realize, and they will.

I found very useful watching RT propaganda along CNN, or BBC propaganda.

If a group of propagandists fail to state a very important issue while the other do not, let's say they omit the official conclusion about a plane that went down months ago that you accused the other party of shooting down, well you know this party is lying.

Re: Sweden brings back military conscription

#219

Post by brilliantcode » Thu, Mar 02, 2017, 6:44 PM UTC

gspetr wrote: post #215

brilliantcode wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Putin wants to revive USSR without any of it's benefits but all of it's power & resources available to him. He might get his way-we have a "Gorbachev" in the White House or a KGB asset.

Full disclosure: I am Russian. Even Belarus and Kazakhstan don't really want to join, forget about the rest ex-USSR countries. Taking countries by force makes even less sense - there do not exist resources or territory that make it profitable enough to offset military spending and new rounds of economic sanctions.

it gives political momentum-as did Hitler's blitzkrieg in Poland

Military wise you buy large buffer between US ground & air forces based around there.

Re: Sweden brings back military conscription

#220

Post by Animats » Thu, Mar 02, 2017, 6:45 PM UTC

9 to 12 months is short. The first six months are lost to training. The US used to draft people for 2 years (Vietnam) or, in WWII, "for the duration, plus six months".

About 75% of the US military-age population couldn't qualify for the US Army today. Too fat, too criminal, too sick, too crazy, or too dumb. This worries some military manpower planners. What are Sweden's stats like?