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Europe: Is compulsory military service coming back?

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Re: Europe: Is compulsory military service coming back?

#101

Post by Gud »

FpUser wrote: post #100
Gud wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And what comes after the nuclear exchange? A military conflict is 90% logistics. To rebuild, a nation that is well prepared for catastrophe will manage.

The whole idea is that potential damage is so high that it makes no sense to start conflict. MAD so far worked good enough to prevent major powers from going to war.

This assumes all sides will act rational.

1) eventually, there will be a madman in charge of the nukes. Only a matter of time. As long as there are nukes, I believe they will eventually be used.

2) another option to consider. MAD assumes the 1st strike party will also be annihilated. Perhaps someone will figure out a way to use their nukes first while somehow preventing a counter strike. “Unknown unknowns“.

3) technical malfunction

Re: Europe: Is compulsory military service coming back?

#102

Post by FpUser »

Gud wrote: post #101
FpUser wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The whole idea is that potential damage is so high that it makes no sense to start conflict. MAD so far worked good enough to prevent major powers from going to war.

This assumes all sides will act rational. 1) eventually, there will be a madman in charge of the nukes. Only a matter of time. As long as there are nukes, I believe they will eventually be used. 2) another option to consider. MAD assumes the 1st strike party will also be annihilated. Perhaps someone will figure out a way to use their nukes first while somehow preventing a counter strike. “Unknown unknowns“. 3) techni…

The madman will most likely be some isolated small entity. Yes it can do some damage but will be wiped out of the face of the Earth by the rest of the world.

As for massive, world ending attack - hopefully over the time all those treaties, agreements and monitoring that were in place before this attack on Ukraine will be restored over the time and improved.

Re: Europe: Is compulsory military service coming back?

#103

Post by Barrin92 »

LoLFactor wrote: post #81
Barrin92 wrote: post #17

I was one of the last few to go through conscription and service in Germany before it was a abolished I hope it does come back. (including of course the alternative civil service) For one it instills in young people a sense of duty and direction and also simply physical fitness which many struggle with these days, in Germany an important aspect was always to have civilian supervision in the military ('citizen in unif…

Everyone's experience is valid, I guess, but way to lose the thread within 2 sentences. You start by saying how COMPULSORY military service would help and end by saying that a military comprised of people who are there because they have no other choice is not ideal. You really don't see the disconnect? Your solution to having less people there with no other choice is by giving EVERYBODY no other choice? Way to solve…

> Did the youths ask for your help?

They do, desperately so. There is a reason we have an entire internet economy of influencers and hucksters targeting in particular disoriented young men. They're pretty much begging for someone to provide meaning, discipline, comradery the kind of which traditionally you experience in for example military service and instead we leave them to Andrew Tate.

We have huge issues with young people delaying adulthood, not having structure, feeling useless and so on. Demanding someone serve their country is to take them seriously, give them responsibility and to provide them with a good reason to cultivate character.

Re: Europe: Is compulsory military service coming back?

#104

Post by mszcz »

nordsieck wrote: post #34
mszcz wrote: post #12

I've always thought of those compulsory military training schemes as a little silly. You have a bunch of unmotivated people that don't want to be there. You have to house them, feed them, train them for what, 3, 6, 12 months? Seems like a lot of money. How long will that training last for? How soon will you need retraining to be even considered marginally useful? Isn't it better to spend that money on professional so…

> You have a bunch of unmotivated people that don't want to be there. You have to house them, feed them, train them for what, 3, 6, 12 months? Seems like a lot of money. How long will that training last for? How soon will you need retraining to be even considered marginally useful? Isn't it better to spend that money on professional soldiers? It is a lot of money. National defense of some sort is also, mostly necessa…

> it depends on the threat model. If you're Finland

Yes, I agree, in cases like this, sure. In general however I think that compulsory training is more wasteful than usual.

> Of course, you could always argue that that's what allies are for. But the problem with allies is that they don't always come through when and how you want them to.

Being Polish that rings true. Also, if every ally in an alliance thinks that…

Re: Europe: Is compulsory military service coming back?

#107

Post by rascul »

plantroon wrote: post #106
rascul wrote: post #105

Conscription is slavery. Forced military service is an excellent reason to leave the country for a better one.

What if you already live in Norway or Switzerland? Where do you go? :D

If you're leaving a country because they might make you a slave, any country that doesn't would be better.

Re: Europe: Is compulsory military service coming back?

#108

Post by bpodgursky »

tzs wrote: post #99
andsoitis wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> GB and France are? While the UK and France have nuclear warheads, their numbers (225 and 290, respectively), pale in comparison with that of Russia (5889) and the US (5244). Also, the UK's force is sea based and France's is land and air based, both Russia and the US have a nuclear triad: three-pronged military force structure that consists of land-launched nuclear missiles, nuclear-missile-armed submarines, and str…

> While the UK and France have nuclear warheads, their numbers (225 and 290, respectively), pale in comparison with that of Russia (5889) and the US (5244). Around 90% of the non-rural Russian population is in their most populous 100 cities. Taking those out would pretty effectively destroy Russia as a country.

Yes, but consider the delivery systems. The UK has 4 SSBMs, and at best 3 of them are seaworthy at a time.

Even if the UK managed to launch successfully without those systems being taken down (and there will be a missile failure rate), Russia has sophisticated air defenses, and there will be a substantial loss rate. Only a small fraction of those warheads will hit.

And those are not megaton warheads. These are small nuclear weapons meant for battlefield use. What's more, the UK is simply not going to go for a genocide; they're going to hit military assets, which are far more spread out.

So while the UK can deter from conventional attacks on itself, it's by no means a MAD scenario. They do not really have a shield to extend across eastern europe the way the US does.

Re: Europe: Is compulsory military service coming back?

#109

Post by arp242 »

danwee wrote: post #79

It's the year 2023, and the human race cannot simply just talk to fix issues. Incredible. To kill (or hurt) other human beings to protect "your" land or "your" loved ones baffles me. Yes, I love my loved ones (wow) but that doesn't mean I'm willing to kill people who are 99.99999% similar to my loved ones just because the politicians that manage the countries we happen to live in decide so. We think that because we c…

So then what? Everyone should just shrug if a neighbouring country say "this is mine now, lol"? There are a lot of people on the world for whom that didn't really work out so well.

In principle few people would of course disagree with this, but this is a naïve idealistic teenager take. The reality is that without an army that's willing to actually fight you will be taken advantage of sooner or later. Maybe at some point in the future when more of the world shared humanistic ideals that will be different, but that's not the situation today.

Re: Europe: Is compulsory military service coming back?

#110

Post by arp242 »

sjaak wrote: post #6

Most of Western Europe is unwilling to fight for their country https://preview.redd.it/of-europeans-who-would-fight-for-the...

"Fight for your own country" is such a vague concept that will mean vastly different things to different people.

It's not a surprise that in Eastern Europe the percentage is significantly higher, because there it means "fight against an authoritarian invader who will strip us of our freedoms and will destroy much of what our country stands for".

In Western Europe it means ... what exactly? There are no immediate obvious threats and it's nothing more than a vague expression of patriotism lacking any sort of concrete meaning.

I bet you'd get very different answers with "if Russia would invade your country, then would you be willing to serve in the army to defend it?" And even that would be biased, because such a hypothetical question comes off as very different if it's not all that hypothetical.

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