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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

#251

Post by democracy »

ajuc wrote: post #34
gabipurcaru wrote: post #6

the red and blue colors suggest that less is worse. Why would that be the case? It seems like it should ideally be the opposite, if anything

> Why would that be the case? If free societies don't want to defend - they are conquered by the oppressed societies, and cease to be free. And it's not like in modern Europe there are no wars (Russia-Ukraine for one example), or aggressive dictatorships (Russia, Turkey, less agressive but 100% dictatorship Belarus, and a few more dictatorships in making, all of them using nationalism as the building block).

Belarus is indeed very agressive, only New Zealand Empire can stop it from its attempts to conquer the world...

Re: Percentage of Europeans Who Are Willing to Fight a War for Their Country

#252

Post by democracy »

et2o wrote: post #216

Of course the Finns are at the top :) Interesting to see Turkey included as a European country. Not that it matters any more than semantically, but is it considered European now, by other Europeans? Different from what I was taught in school. Obviously a political issue.

I remember an Israeli general when asked about European military might laughed and said the strongest army of Europe resides in.... Israel!

Re: Percentage of Europeans Who Are Willing to Fight a War for Their Country

#253

Post by democracy »

zng wrote: post #56

I think it should also be tied to when each country was last in a war and/or involved in a major international conflict. I see France and Germany being more present in war and conflicts much more so than (for example) Sweden, Finland in the past 100 years. Interesting in any case! :)

Not sure about Sweden but Finland had 4 military conflicts with USSR before end of WW2. They also oficially took part in Nazi operations. So let's be honest about it. And before "100 years ago" they were part of Russian empire. History is never black and white.

Re: Percentage of Europeans Who Are Willing to Fight a War for Their Country

#254

Post by barking »

Hasknewbie wrote: post #241
barking wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Controversially and OT but it was in a documentary I saw recently. It's been suggested that the colonial troops were responsible for the the vast majority of the large numbers of rapes of women in the French occupied part of Germany

Unless that documentary is backed up with hard data, I would dispute that "vast majority" claim based on the following: * About two-third of the FFF were West African, so if that was true there would have been at least a very noticeable small 'epidemic' of black babies in West Germany. (EDIT: apparently that ratio fell to 2/5th in mid-1944, after Vichy fell and the 'new' French government was able to draft a lot more…

I can't contradict you, you clearly are better informed than me. It was in a documentary about the end of the war and its aftermath, in Germany. It did also mention the rapes by Russian soldiers and then it singled out the French areas in the West. I am not sure why it mentioned colonial soldiers in particular but it did. I may have exaggerated when I said 'vast majority', I can't remember the exact words. They interviewed a doctor who carried out abortions and he mentioned that the situation of the girls he came into contact with was very bad. The impression I came away with was that it was the soldiers from the countries that were invaded by Germany that let their soldiers have free rein when it came to rape. In the British area there was a lot of 'liberation' ie looting but no mention of rape. Also one british soldier mentioned that the british administrators were a mixed lot with many having an 'eye for the main chance'. The American sector wasn't mentioned at all except to contrast it with the British one where there was no end of bureaucracy and where there were five times the number of administrators.

Re: Percentage of Europeans Who Are Willing to Fight a War for Their Country

#255

Post by ajuc »

democracy wrote: post #251
ajuc wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why would that be the case? If free societies don't want to defend - they are conquered by the oppressed societies, and cease to be free. And it's not like in modern Europe there are no wars (Russia-Ukraine for one example), or aggressive dictatorships (Russia, Turkey, less agressive but 100% dictatorship Belarus, and a few more dictatorships in making, all of them using nationalism as the building block).

Belarus is indeed very agressive, only New Zealand Empire can stop it from its attempts to conquer the world...

https://www.article19.org/resources.php/resource/38692/en/be...

I wrote it's "less agressive", but it's still a dictatorship.

Re: Percentage of Europeans Who Are Willing to Fight a War for Their Country

#256

Post by ionised »

batushka wrote: post #169
yflu wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you go running into a burning building, you can't expect your allies to do the same. We might, but that's on our own volition, not out of any obligation.

Sure, just remember that it works both ways. When your house will burn and you'll be desperate, have a persuasive story ready.

There is a difference between a military alliance and a mutual defense pact. NATO is the latter.

Re: Percentage of Europeans Who Are Willing to Fight a War for Their Country

#257

Post by yeahforsureman »

nielsole wrote: post #147
kartan wrote: post #16

It looks like the closer you are to a thread, the most willing are you to fight. Being close to Russian is a good indicator on how much you are willing to go to war. So I agree with other comments, probably people that feels threatened read the question as "I'm willing to protect my country from an outside attacker". While people in "safer" places read it as "I'm willing to go to war with another country for some str…

You might think of Latvia as a counter argument (41%) but keep in mind that the threat is Russia and only 62% of the population is Latvian. It would be nice to know if they narrowed down what "their" country is (Russia or Latvia). Just because you live in a country doesn't mean you identify with it as "your" country. Assuming that Russians all said no (assuming Latvia was meant) this makes 66% of the Latvians willing…

For all countries, you seem to be quoting percentages based on (primary) language, not nationality or self-identified ethnicity. Just curious, do you feel it's impossible for a native Russian speaker living in Latvia to identify as Latvian, perhaps both Latvian and Russian?

The number you present for Finland is highly misleading, by the way. We have around 6 % of Swedish-speaking Finns but they almost all speak Finnish, have very deep roots in Finland and certainly identify as Finns just as much as the rest of us -- and definitely not as Swedes. Swedish is even the second official language. As for the rest, I'm sure most of the citizens growing up in an Estonian, Russian, Somali etc. speaking household identify as Finns, too.

Re: Percentage of Europeans Who Are Willing to Fight a War for Their Country

#258

Post by democracy »

ajuc wrote: post #255
democracy wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Belarus is indeed very agressive, only New Zealand Empire can stop it from its attempts to conquer the world...

https://www.article19.org/resources.php/resource/38692/en/be... I wrote it's "less agressive", but it's still a dictatorship.

It is also an Eastern europeam country with a population of 10m people (link to wikipedia to be added). Does this fact make it more or less agressive?

Re: Percentage of Europeans Who Are Willing to Fight a War for Their Country

#259

Post by democracy »

ajuc wrote: post #255
democracy wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Belarus is indeed very agressive, only New Zealand Empire can stop it from its attempts to conquer the world...

https://www.article19.org/resources.php/resource/38692/en/be... I wrote it's "less agressive", but it's still a dictatorship.

It is also an Eastern europeam country with a population of 10m people (link to wikipedia to be added). Does this fact make it more or less agressive?

Re: Percentage of Europeans Who Are Willing to Fight a War for Their Country

#260

Post by ajuc »

democracy wrote: post #258
ajuc wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.article19.org/resources.php/resource/38692/en/be... I wrote it's "less agressive", but it's still a dictatorship.

It is also an Eastern europeam country with a population of 10m people (link to wikipedia to be added). Does this fact make it more or less agressive?

It's aggressive towards its own people, not towards neighbors. And it's a dictatorship, so it can change in a moment. These facts make it a possible threat.
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