Only slightly related, but if this topic interests you, you might like a (fictional) series on Netflix called "Occupied". It's about a future where a peaceful Norway tries to deal with a Russian occupation, after Norway's green energy technology poses an economic threat to Russia's international gas pipeline. Part of the dynamic of the show is whether fighting for your country is the right thing.
Percentage of Europeans Who Are Willing to Fight a War for Their Country
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Re: Percentage of Europeans Who Are Willing to Fight a War for Their Country
#62The surprising fact here is that this can mostly be explained pretty well as the lessons of WW2 still being vivid in the memory of many countries...except that Russia suffered by far the most of any countries on the Western front, and still a majority there would fight a war for their own country. The persistent glorification of Russia's role in WW2 (although historically justified) might have something to do with it…
From the article Since World War Two, Europe has been relatively peaceful with major exceptions of the Yugoslav Wars in the 1990s and various political suppressions during the Cold War. However, the 19th century was also a relatively peaceful time for Europe that ended with the start of World War I. So no, the vividity of the world wars is popular but unconvincing.
> "However, the 19th century was also a relatively peaceful time for Europe that ended with the start of World War I."
Operative word: relatively. Still I see more than 18th century (although maybe severity of conflicts vary). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_conflicts_in_Europe#19...
Re: Percentage of Europeans Who Are Willing to Fight a War for Their Country
#63Having spent 9 years in the military, I can say with some confidence that even soldiers are not willing to fight a war. War is evil. No one looks forward to it (except the generals). But when its thrust upon you, you rise up to the occasion and defend your motherland.
> No one looks forward to it
I have a lot of experience of soldiers and junior officers competing to get posted into units scheduled to deploy on operations.
Re: Percentage of Europeans Who Are Willing to Fight a War for Their Country
#64Diverging colormaps should only be used when some value in between should be highlighted (sea level height, median).
Also, I find 21% surprisingly large for Austria.
Re: Percentage of Europeans Who Are Willing to Fight a War for Their Country
#65I'm not surprised that Japan had the lowest world wide with 11%, but it does poke holes in a couple of theories listed in these comments, namely proximity to a threat and cultural homogeneity.
Re: Percentage of Europeans Who Are Willing to Fight a War for Their Country
#66Earlier quoted context omitted.
You've touched on one theory of why European governments are seemingly so in favour of mass immigration; a people with no common identity are much less willing to go to war for it. The theory goes that this is favourable for the wealthy euros in power because it lets them hold on to their wealth.
Unfortunately it is never the people who start wars. Politicians do. If you want to decrease the chance of your country going into war it would be an easy fix to introduce laws that mandates pro-war politicians to submit their family members to service to fight at the front in case of a war.
SMS Direct Democracy with the right of citizens to secede. And professional military, of course, like in the USA. You make war much rarer thereby.
Re: Percentage of Europeans Who Are Willing to Fight a War for Their Country
#67Countries like Greece, Finland, Ukraine and Turkey have military conscription. Additionally there are underlying tensions between a lot of these nations, e.g. Ukraine/Russia, Greece/Turkey etc I wonder if that skews these figures somewhat
> underlying tensions
More like - active war
Re: Percentage of Europeans Who Are Willing to Fight a War for Their Country
#68Earlier quoted context omitted.
From the article Since World War Two, Europe has been relatively peaceful with major exceptions of the Yugoslav Wars in the 1990s and various political suppressions during the Cold War. However, the 19th century was also a relatively peaceful time for Europe that ended with the start of World War I. So no, the vividity of the world wars is popular but unconvincing.
> "However, the 19th century was also a relatively peaceful time for Europe that ended with the start of World War I." Operative word: relatively. Still I see more than 18th century (although maybe severity of conflicts vary). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_conflicts_in_Europe#19...
And the 20th century also has a decent list after WWII
Re: Percentage of Europeans Who Are Willing to Fight a War for Their Country
#69Having spent 9 years in the military, I can say with some confidence that even soldiers are not willing to fight a war. War is evil. No one looks forward to it (except the generals). But when its thrust upon you, you rise up to the occasion and defend your motherland.
Some European countries, like Sweden, now have 25% of residents with a motherland which is not the country they live in. Would an Afhan boy living in Sweden fight for Sweden, or would he just take a flight back home to his real motherland? Would an American living in Germany fight for Germany, or take the next flight home? I think we all know the answer, and therefore large parts of the people living on European soil…
Yup, I totally agree. As an immigrant, I sure as hell wouldn't fight for either of the countries I'm a citizen of or any other for that matter. The whole idea of fighting for your country is stupid, idiotic, and frankly insane, especially if there is an alternative. It seems to me even natives, especially in Western Europe, are now realizing this. That's great to see. There truly is nothing more disgusting than war, regardless of the motive (even defense). Nothing can bring people lower than war. Nothing is more insane.
Re: Percentage of Europeans Who Are Willing to Fight a War for Their Country
#70The surprising fact here is that this can mostly be explained pretty well as the lessons of WW2 still being vivid in the memory of many countries...except that Russia suffered by far the most of any countries on the Western front, and still a majority there would fight a war for their own country. The persistent glorification of Russia's role in WW2 (although historically justified) might have something to do with it…
> Russia suffered by far the most of any countries on the Western front, I do not know, Germany had more displaced people => after Between 1944 and 1948 about 31 million people, were permanently or temporarily moved from Central and Eastern Europe. The newly created UN even decided that a criteria for "migrant/displaced" person would exclude German people from the Poland/Hungary/etc... [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wi…
In terms of loss of civilians and military personnel though, it does not compare: the Soviet Union accounted for more than 40% of all WW2 deaths (both civilian and military) worldwide - including deaths on the Pacific front.
The Soviet Union lost a total of 26.6 million people, or 13.8% of their 1939 population. Germany suffered tremendously as well of course, with 5.7 million dead, or 8.2% of their 1939 population [0].
This is obviously not a contest, and I'm sure we can all agree that the suffering was tremendous on all sides. However, when it comes to the perception of war in Russia, the fact that the brunt of the Allied war effort in terms of casualties was borne out by the Soviet Union during WW2 (a fact often little known or recognized in Western countries) is especially relevant.