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Sweden brings back military conscription

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Sweden brings back military conscription

#51

Post by tyingq »

chrisseaton wrote: post #6

How 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…

In the US military, peer pressure was the traditional motivator when the draft was being used. Your peers are aware they have to pick up the slack if you're not pulling your weight. Typically, all the leaders needed to do was to point this out.

Re: Sweden brings back military conscription

#52

Post by digitalneal »

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.

Its more about creating a delaying force against the "zerg rush" towards the capital than actually defeating an attacking superpower. If they can hold off the attacking force for 24-30 hours, they will have done their job.

Re: Sweden brings back military conscription

#53

Post by avn2109 »

chrisseaton wrote: post #6

How 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…

>> "What do you do if they sort of do what they're told, but not really putting any effort into it?"

You transfer them to some variant of a penal battalion. Simon Murray has a good description of this (from the French Foreign Legion) in [0]. During his stint in the Legion, the generic punishment was having to run around carrying heavy rocks in a backpack that has wire straps, coupled with sleep deprivation. It sounds unpleasant.

[0] https://www.amazon.com/Legionnaire-Years-French-Foreign-Legi...

Re: Sweden brings back military conscription

#54

Post by zilean »

thedevil wrote: post #39
nkrisc wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't cite propaganda to support that conclusion, precisely because it's propaganda.

I see propaganda as very indicative of future conflicts, especially in countries like Russia, where the news stories are more heavily influenced by the government. I think propaganda is necessary to support a war effort (and avoid insurrection). Think of it this way: If you're a soldier and your government tells you to invade a random country with nice people, how willing are you to fight? On the other hand, if your…

> If you're a soldier and your government tells you to invade a random country with nice people, how willing are you to fight?

Ironically Western counties are very good at it.

Re: Sweden brings back military conscription

#55

Post by DamnYuppie »

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.

You don't need massive air and naval power to be very tough to attack. All you have to do is see the Afghan wars, both Russian and American, for great examples. They had no airforce and no need for naval forces.

A large armed and mobile force is very able to put up solid resistance to pretty much anything you can throw at it save for nukes which will likely never be used.

Re: Sweden brings back military conscription

#56

Post by elorant »

chrisseaton wrote: post #6

How 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…

You don't. I served in the Greek air-force for 17 months as a conscript some twenty years ago which is also obligatory. I couldn't shake the feeling that I was wasting my time at the best years of my life, and the feeling was the same for pretty much most of the guys there. I learned a few things here and there but for the most part it was an utterly boring experience.

The one thing no one tells you about the army is that pretty much 90% of the work done is in management/logistics. A very small percentage is about war per se. There are tons of red tape in the army and there are procedures for everything. So you spend most of your time doing boring stuff that require little to no creative thinking and depending on where you come from, from a point on this becomes miserable. Fortunately by then you're discharged.

Most of the guys who served with me, once they got their bearings they spent the time doing the stuff they enjoyed. For me that was reading books. I read a shitload of books while serving, like one every couple of days. A guy I knew went for wind-surfing every afternoon since we served on an island and the sea was like half a mile from the base. From a point on it becomes like a routine job. You do the army stuff in the morning and in the afternoon spend time on your leisure.

Re: Sweden brings back military conscription

#57

Post by entropyneur »

I 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.

Re: Sweden brings back military conscription

#58

Post by flexie »

chrisseaton wrote: post #6

How 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…

I was a conscript in the Danish army. Roughly speaking, they examined all 18 year olds, sorted out those with low IQ and those with physical injuries and asked the rest if we wanted to join voluntarily. They never got enough volunteers so they drafted around 1/3 of the rest of us using what was basically a tombola drum. Then we did 6-12 months. I did 9.

I think most of us thought we had been unlucky to draw a low number in the tombola meaning that we had to serve. But we also felt some kind of pride in what we did and you got to meet kids your own age from all walks of life. Most of us had fathers, grandfathers, great grandfathers who had been in the military as well.

We were literally craving physical activity, weapons training, exercises, difficult tasks etc. since a lot of the time we were just a bunch of teenagers waiting around.

The Danish military mainly recruited professionals among the conscripts. I think such system works very well.

Re: Sweden brings back military conscription

#59

Post by bandrami »

macintux wrote: post #17
thedevil wrote: post #13

I'm not sure why Sweden would be concerned. I read Russian news/propaganda occasionally. Over the last few years, Russian news/propaganda prepared Russian minds for interfering in Ukraine. And the propaganda includes arguments to justify a military buildup. And it seems to be preparing Russian minds for a possible invasion of Baltic states one day. But I don't think I've even seen Sweden mentioned in Russian news/pro…

War has a way of spilling over borders.

As do refugees, which sometimes require military resources to feed and house

Re: Sweden brings back military conscription

#60

Post by syntheticnature »

hackermailman wrote: post #22
chrisseaton wrote: post #6

How 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…

South Korea you do 3yrs mandatory service or 2yrs jail and life long shame so motivation isn't a problem. After basic it often involves just working at a desk somewhere only a few stay as professional soldiers rest are moved into cheap civil service labor. I suspect Sweden has brought back conscription to try and integrate it's new massive foreigner population as a way to make them more Swedish not because of any she…

A minor point, but Baltic tensions, not Balkan tensions.
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