We should have this in the US, starting with the children of Congress and the Senate. I think Mark Twain or Will Rodgers said something like this.
Sweden brings back military conscription
231–240 of 418 posts
Re: Sweden brings back military conscription
#232How 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…
It is impossible. If I was conscripted, I would actively sabotage those who did this to me, just out of spite. I live in a country with conscription. Luckily, I was seen unfit for the army before it went that far.
They know. So you end up with people in your situation and you realize that if you don't behave and perform you are sabotaging for your peers. So you do what you are told because of that. It has worked for centuries in many many countries.
Re: Sweden brings back military conscription
#233Earlier quoted context omitted.
>'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…
Cute, but the tragedy of the commons means that you still might not get enough.
The people allow the government a monopoly on violence in expectation that it will use it for their benefit. Putting the ultimate responsibility for national defense back on them is a betrayal of that trust.
Re: Sweden brings back military conscription
#234Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
If he wanted a buffer he could have easily taken over Ukraine in the fall of 2014 and spring of 2015. Both times the rebels routed Ukrainian army and the road to Kiev was essentially clear. Reinstalling the puppet president would have been easy.
Not to mention that during the coup itself there were reports of Ukrainian generals sending envoys to Moscow, seeking aid and patronage to throw a counter coup and either reinstate the former president or setup military dictatorship. And they easily had the force too. Kremlin just said no.
Re: Sweden brings back military conscription
#235So to add some needed background information to this: Every 18 year old has been forced to submit a form stating if they want to be conscripted. That's about 100k people every year. Out of the 100k, about 20k state that they do want to be conscripted. Out of the 20k that say yes, 4k are selected during a screening process that evaluates physical and mental fitness. So there are no less than 2 points where you can opt…
That doesn't sound like conscription, then. If they didn't have enough people saying yes, do they start drawing from the "no" pile?
We'd like to, and hopefully will, train many more each year but the budget and organization doesn't allow it at the moment.
When we do, the question of drawing non volonteers will be raised. Today's decision just says the legal framework to do it is there.
Re: Sweden brings back military conscription
#236Earlier quoted context omitted.
The goal is not to get invaded in the first place. If you can make the conquest too expensive for the enemy then they won't try it, even if it's also expensive for you. Obviously this didn't work for Afghanistan, but their example can help it work for others. Edit: if you become part of a larger war then it can also be advantageous to make the occupation painful for the enemy when it happens. The more you hurt them,…
Agreed that the goal is to not get invaded. That's why a country that has been recently invaded by two different countries is a poor example of someone for whom deterrence worked. Perhaps the threat of a war of attrition is an effective way to do this in general, but supporting that argument requires identifying countries for whom it worked, not a country for whom it failed spectacularly.
Afghanistan succeeded in getting the Soviets out in the end. With the US they made the mistake of badly provoking a powerful nation. It may not be the best example, but it works.
Re: Sweden brings back military conscription
#237Earlier quoted context omitted.
>'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…
A credible deterrent in 2020 is not 200k dudes with guns. It's air and naval power. Expensive and complex hi tech death machines. Of course, a 10m country will never have a really credible defense against nuclear super power Russia by itself.
Look up Finish Russian war
Re: Sweden brings back military conscription
#238Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's what keeps puzzling me. Everyone throws the word "Russia" around without providing any kind of reason as to why it would invade any of those countries in the first place. Do they have Russian military bases of strategic importance? No. Do they have population that is ethnically Russian? No.
It's not just what the neighbours have. It's what Russia is and has. Do they have a leader who is disconnected from regular life, poses in absurd settings and gets his information from intelligence agencies? Check. Do they have a political system that has an internally dysfunctional economy and that needs external enemies to keep people from looking at what happens domestically? Check. Do they repress internal opposi…
Problem with your argument is, the last thing Russia wants is more sanctions, precisely because of it's currently collapsing economy.
People are not happy and it is 2017, exactly a century since the Great October Revolution of 1917. This severely limits them in search of external enemies.
Re: Sweden brings back military conscription
#239I 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.
What western military doesn't pay service members? Pretty sure you mean "a job, that rarely, but sometimes involves killing." There are many jobs like that: policing, security, and depending on your moral framework, murdering animals.
I was paid less than a prison inmate as a conscript :)
Had it been twice as much I would call it symbolic. It was around 10% if a regular job.
Re: Sweden brings back military conscription
#240Earlier quoted context omitted.
>'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…
That does not seem like a long term plan for keeping a country.
It would need to be paired with expert diplomacy at a minimum. I can think a few countries with no military Costa Rica and Lichtenstein. Costa Rica defers to allies in time of conflict and Lichtenstein just pays another country for their military.
According to wikipedia most are island nations and get to rely on the ocean and vast distance for safety: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_without_arme...
It doesn't seem like anyone simply cedes territory and gets to stay a country.