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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

#51

Post by darklajid »

executesorder66 wrote: post #18
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

Do you think defending your country from invasion is worse than letting some assholes conquer your home?

If the question is 'Are you willing to fight for your country' then a 'Sure, count me in. Huzzah!' seems to be a bit more than the commitment to defend your home.

Defending your country is - as far as I'm concerned - a very specific case of fighting for your country.

Also - defending a country (a more or less random historical entity with potentially largely different political and ethical views even among residents) shouldn't be conflated with defending your home.

For me the former is abstract and quite artificial. The latter is literally the place where I live.

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

#52

Post by [deleted] »

simo7 wrote: post #15

I think a strong pattern here is: the more cultural/social homogeneity the more willingness to fight a war for your country. See Italy, Spain, Belgium for instance: people from different area of those countries really feel belonging to different cultures. Contrari to the Nordic & Easter European ones. In Germany is more of a historical thing instead.

[deleted]

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

#53

Post by davissorenson »

simo7 wrote: post #15

I think a strong pattern here is: the more cultural/social homogeneity the more willingness to fight a war for your country. See Italy, Spain, Belgium for instance: people from different area of those countries really feel belonging to different cultures. Contrari to the Nordic & Easter European ones. In Germany is more of a historical thing instead.

Finland and Denmark have mandatory military service for males. Sweden got rid of mandatory military service in 2010, then reinstated it in 2016. Norway currently has "weak conscription" in that recruits are not forced to serve. Latvia was a part of the Soviet Union a generation ago, and had conscription until 2005.

So what all those countries have in common is that a large portion of the male population has actual military training.

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

#54

Post by vacri »

fsloth wrote: post #22
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

The value proposition depends on the country. For instance, Finland absolutely needs high level of support for it's concript army to stop Russia even of thinking of an attack (it's not about would it succeed but at what cost). Better to offer worse odds to the generals throwing dice in Kremlin or what ever other apparatus was responsible for Ukraine.

Australia's defence is the same. Our only real threat is Indonesia, and if they decided to invade, we can't stop them by ourselves. So it's the defence plan to do more damage than would be gained.

Of course, Indonesia isn't likely to invade - it has enough trouble keeping itself together; all the decent economic bits of Australia are on the far fringes of the continent; and the US Navy would finally get the chance to engage in a maritime war, so they'd be in like Flynn to help out.

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

#55

Post by duncanawoods »

executesorder66 wrote: post #18
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

Do you think defending your country from invasion is worse than letting some assholes conquer your home?

Note that "defending your country from invasion" isn't the survey question, its "fight a war for". For the UK, our next war is much more likely to be a war of aggression or an intervention in someone else's conflict hence rather low desire to get involved. If there were a credible threat, I'm pretty sure the figure would be much higher.

I expect the answers is highly correlated with "is the next war your country involved defending from an aggressor or being the aggressor?".

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

#56

Post by zng »

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! :)

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

#58

Post by Lewton »

simo7 wrote: post #15

I think a strong pattern here is: the more cultural/social homogeneity the more willingness to fight a war for your country. See Italy, Spain, Belgium for instance: people from different area of those countries really feel belonging to different cultures. Contrari to the Nordic & Easter European ones. In Germany is more of a historical thing instead.

I don't think that's a strong pattern at all... Iceland? Denmark? Austria?

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

#59

Post by executesorder66 »

arethuza wrote: post #43
executesorder66 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think defending your country from invasion is worse than letting some assholes conquer your home?

If the question was "would you fight a war to stop some assholes conquer your home?" then I would answer "yes". However, given that there has to be two side to any conflict somebody presumably has to be the "assholes" and that's not something I'd be too happy doing.

A completely agree. I was just pointing out that going to war doesn't automatically = bad.

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

#60

Post by charlesdm »

ddnb wrote: post #3

Belgian here, as a resident of one of the bottom 3 countries I have to say I thought about this question myself a few times in the past. Even though I would never join the army to fight wars, should an occupation come I would do everything in my power to resist and sabotage. So to this question I would have to answer 'no' even though that doesn't mean I'd give up on my country.

Belgian too, but would personally never join the army. I would however, find a way to relocate myself + loved ones to a more safer place.

I would totally give up on this country. Home is where you hang your hat, and being with the people you care about (and knowing that they are safe) matters a lot more than some border on a map.

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