Sweden brings back military conscription • Hacker News Board

Re: Sweden brings back military conscription

#321

Post by gspetr » Thu, Mar 02, 2017, 8:53 PM UTC

ptaipale wrote: post #278

gspetr wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'm not that worried about 2017, but where Russia is heading in the medium term. But even this year, they seem to be willing to continue to wage war in Ukraine, and with Belarus in turmoil, they may feel they have to send in some tanks to defend the friendly Lukashenko regime.

Lukashenko regime is much more stable because their police state is much stronger, they have literal KGB and people get visits from it for doing counter-regime posts on the internet much more often than in Russia.

Ukrainian regime actually does not want the war to end. The oligarchs there are very much OK with plundering the country while playing the external enemy card. If war stopped the population would turn their attention inward and they have nothing to show for their time in power.

Re: Sweden brings back military conscription

#322

Post by Arizhel » Thu, Mar 02, 2017, 8:54 PM UTC

dropit_sphere wrote: post #313

Arizhel wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it's not. It is utterly impossible for the government to defend the nation without soldiers. It's also impossible for the government to create soldiers out of thin air; they have to come from the populace (or hire foreign mercenaries perhaps, but that has its own ethical problems). If the populace isn't willing to serve as soldiers in sufficient numbers, then it's impossible for the government to satisfy its resp…

>The people cannot blame the government...If the people are not willing to be part of that defense. What about a person who would fight and not desert if conscripted, but would not volunteer? Are they "willing to be part of that defense," or not? I submit that most people fall in that category, and that conscription is aimed at them.

That's still slavery, because some fraction of them doesn't want to serve. So if there's any punishment for refusing to serve, or for deserting, then it's slavery. If there's no punishment, or if they're allowed to opt-out, then it's not really conscription.

Re: Sweden brings back military conscription

#323

Post by entropyneur » Thu, Mar 02, 2017, 9:05 PM UTC

dropit_sphere wrote: post #317

entropyneur wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then let them volunteer to die for it! But the existence (or even plurality) of poor Finns preferring death over becoming Russians doesn't justify forcing those who don't share their sentiment to die with them.

There are two things, one proveable and one unproveable, that I don't think you understand: 1. You are very much in the minority. The vast majority of people have some amount of ethnic, religious, or nationalist pride. They want to be ruled by one of their own. They are not eager to die for this, but are often willing to do so, as long as they're not being made chumps of. 2. They're right, and you're wrong. Or, to pu…

I never argued with #1. And you are wrong on #2. My way promotes our civilization, theirs is just an echo of the civilizations of the past.

Re: Sweden brings back military conscription

#324

Post by mrob » Thu, Mar 02, 2017, 9:06 PM UTC

em3rgent0rdr wrote: post #318

mrob wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are multiple degrees of slavery. Eg. The Roman emperor Antoninus Pius forbade the killing of slaves without good reason, but they were still slaves. Slave does not have to mean literally zero rights.

Any citizen of any modern state, is at least, to some extent, a slave.

In all civilized states you are allowed to protest against your leaders. You can march with a "not my president" sign and so long as you are non-violent you will be allowed to continue. Try a "not my commander" protest in the army.

Re: Sweden brings back military conscription

#325

Post by clock_tower » Thu, Mar 02, 2017, 9:06 PM UTC

Arizhel wrote: post #262

jackcosgrove wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're proposing higher pay for soldiers, then you go from an army of slaves to an army of mercenaries. Swedish society is already primed to accept conscription, and it's not totally ineffective. It may be the most cost-effective solution to the problem.

>If you're proposing higher pay for soldiers, then you go from an army of slaves to an army of mercenaries. Is that such a bad thing? I'd rather have an army of mercenaries any day over an army of slaves. The mercenaries are serving voluntarily at least, and they're likely to be far more effective in their duties as soldiers. Sure, there's some ethical concerns with it, but far less than with slavery IMO.

IIRC, this question came up with Westmoreland in the Vietnam War. The US was considering transitioning to a volunteer army (which did happen after the war), and a reporter asked Westmoreland what he thought of the idea. He was adamantly opposed to an army of mercenaries, and the reporter shot back by asking if he preferred an army of slaves. Westmoreland replied that he didn't want such insulting language used of "our patriotic draftees" -- meaning that he had internalized an if-by-whiskey argument. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/If-by-whiskey)

Re: Sweden brings back military conscription

#326

Post by maus42 » Thu, Mar 02, 2017, 9:11 PM UTC

michaelmrose wrote: post #274

ptaipale wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Conscription is literally slavery. Taxation isn't slavery its an obligation to pay a fraction of what you earn ergo if you earn nothing you owe nothing and have no obligation.

Literally or literally? And that depends on your definition of slavery. It did not always mean every and all things involuntary, it used to mean trading people as property who did not have the same rights as a free citizen.

Afterthought. I just remembered that some of the more radical leftists call working for a salary a wage slavery, which is similarly silly.

Re: Sweden brings back military conscription

#327

Post by clock_tower » Thu, Mar 02, 2017, 9:12 PM UTC

entropyneur wrote: post #323

dropit_sphere wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are two things, one proveable and one unproveable, that I don't think you understand: 1. You are very much in the minority. The vast majority of people have some amount of ethnic, religious, or nationalist pride. They want to be ruled by one of their own. They are not eager to die for this, but are often willing to do so, as long as they're not being made chumps of. 2. They're right, and you're wrong. Or, to pu…

I never argued with #1. And you are wrong on #2. My way promotes our civilization, theirs is just an echo of the civilizations of the past.

Which sort of civilization is Donald Trump a part of, our civilization or one of those of the past?

Re: Sweden brings back military conscription

#328

Post by Jach » Thu, Mar 02, 2017, 9:12 PM UTC

BurningFrog wrote: post #29

zmb_ wrote: post #18

Earlier 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.

If the threat is annihilation, well, I guess it depends how advanced Sweden's bio- and chem-engineering is in order to quickly create weapons severe enough to counter a nuclear power.

When your threat model isn't annihilation but simply being overrun and submitting to a new ruler and set of foreign laws and customs, having a population with guns and gun training works pretty well to make it difficult for an outside party to achieve that even with massively better war tech.

Re: Sweden brings back military conscription

#329

Post by walshemj » Thu, Mar 02, 2017, 9:14 PM UTC

vinceguidry wrote: post #170

TeMPOraL wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's not that bad. When you've had a conscript military for decades, the service is a fact of life. Just like school and taxes. People get over it. Also my impression is that a lot of military equipment isn't very high-tech precisely so that it doesn't require that much expertise to operate and service in the field. So you need only a limited amount of specialists, and conscripts can just become trained users…

I think a lot of people equate the march of technology with complexity, but this isn't even typically the case. Advances in tech often make less complicated weapons more workable. Think steel production techniques enabling better armor. Armor's not getting more complicated, just better. The M1A1 Abrams tank is extremely simple to operate and man. Regardless, it's quite formidable.

I bet the M1A1 is more complex to maintain and operate that say A Sherman or a Grant and you have one less crew member

Re: Sweden brings back military conscription

#330

Post by dropit_sphere » Thu, Mar 02, 2017, 9:15 PM UTC

Arizhel wrote: post #322

dropit_sphere wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The people cannot blame the government...If the people are not willing to be part of that defense. What about a person who would fight and not desert if conscripted, but would not volunteer? Are they "willing to be part of that defense," or not? I submit that most people fall in that category, and that conscription is aimed at them.

That's still slavery, because some fraction of them doesn't want to serve. So if there's any punishment for refusing to serve, or for deserting, then it's slavery. If there's no punishment, or if they're allowed to opt-out, then it's not really conscription.

>That's still slavery,

Sure, OK.

Slavery is not the worst possible state of existence, you know. My dog is not only a slave, but a captive slave: she can't leave my property, and I punish her when she tries to leave. But, looking at her dozing off in the sun right now, she seems pretty happy.

Most people prefer the soft slavery of possible conscription, to the expected outcomes of foreign invasion. It helps that when you get conscripted, a bunch of other people are getting conscripted---or in other words, part of the compensation for getting conscripted is a whole army to defend your homeland.