Which of your children would take up arms if need be to defend their country

not going to speak for anyone else - you could be a Russian trying to assess our capability.

If the Russians really wanted to know what's going on in the UM that isn't already on the news or TikTok, they'd just ask Nigel.

not going to speak for anyone else - you could be a russian trying to assess our capability. However despite my age I'm perfectly willing to fight. I'm sure I could learn to make bombs and as women my age are invisible i might get close enough to set them off.

Of course none of us was there. It's very easy to be brave across the water.

We had auxiliary units in the UK/ Predicted lifespan after invasion was estimated in days and weeks.

Non.. wouldn't let them

Have ASD or MH or disabled .

I so wish there was an laugh emoji😂I would add to that super-noodles. 😂

I would have done, but I’d probably be a liability. We had compulsory CCF at school, so I know I can’t shoot for toffee.

My only son is high functioning ASD. Exceptionally bright with languages, maths and music, but he’d be about as useful as me on a battlefield. He’d have been in his element at Bletchley Park during WW2, which is where one of my female ancestors worked as a decoder.

.....there's a foot-shuffling ambivalence about all that in the Channel Islands too.

@SerendipityJane oh good point - I’d forgotten about Jersey.

If the country was invaded and successfully occupied, what are everyone’s views on collaboration?

What happened in Jersey ?

@Natsku I would put the expressed intentions of the Kremlin and their media mouthpieces in the same category as Starmer's idiotic ramblings: grandstanding intended for domestic audiences. I guess we'll only know with hindsight whether the UK is over- or under-reacting, but I maintain that the bellicose rhetoric is cynical and unhelpful.

Part of the problem is the media has dishonestly been complicit in peddling the idea that "crossing the Channel" is some sort of adventure ride that wasn't quite thrilling enough for Alton Towers.

The reality is one of the most treacherous and potentially fatal stretches of water in the world is the 22 miles or more between Britain and France. To peddle the notion that people are doing it for shitz and lolz is underwhelming at best.

Anyone with a brain would immediately wonder why cross channel companies wasted untold billions on ferries (which won't sail in bad weather anyway) when all then needed were a few inflatable dinghies going cheap from last years holiday season.

I'm going to go out on a limb and posit that I am the first - maybe only - person to ask that question. If P&O reply, I will post it here. Apparently it has to go to their operations division first.

DD2 would take up arms for a pop tart, never mind her country. 😂

FREAKING TALK is what I suggest suites no-one to have another war which will only destroy our society, the most vulnerable with suffer the worst.

However, I have neighbours who are Christadelphians & of the opinion that the end of the world is nigh & welcoming the current conflict. They quote scripture which upholds their views.

As a Christian I counter their augments. They are creationists - I accept that in itself, the bible is correct in the time-line in that the earth separated from the heavens, sea & land etc , but remember also bible says every day for God is 1000 years which could well be as much as the early bible transcribers could imagine so lengthen that to 10,000 or 1m years. I have also challenged them that there are 2 creation of human stories. One where God as the King James bible puts it: 'So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them' - a bit later in Genesis we have this thing about God taking one of Adam's ribs. which one do they believe?

They coming back to me on that one. 😂

@Charlottejbt thank you for your interesting post. I must read up more on occupied France.

If collaborators had been punished in any systematic way there would have been far fewer people left. There were quite a few lynchings, with collaboration as a convenient cover for what were presumably local feuds. To listen to French people born after the war, you'd think that 90% of the population had been in.the resistance (which, as every schoolboy knows, stood alone against the Germans. I don't know what they think the allies did.)

Older French people tell a more nuanced story. They tend to be (understandably) very preoccupied with their own lived experience and that of their families. Some had a good war, some didn't.

That's true that many governments do this kind of thing and don't get enough scrutiny, Russia didn't get enough scrutiny prior to the invasion. But it is quite different when its a government that is already at war with one European country and has expressed their intentions to go further - you definitely have to pay more attention to their hybrid warfare acts, and they are definitely more worrying. We can hold our governments to account and keep an eye on Russia at the same time. And if anything, the British government is underreacting, so ought to be held to account for that.

It's evident, but it's also true that governments do nefarious stuff on foreign soil all the time and it doesn't get the same level of scrutiny. Just because a situation is worrying doesn't mean it can't be exaggerated for clicks or political gain - and while we're all.fretting about Putin (who's already bitten off more than he can chew in Ukraine) who is holding our governments to account?

If the country was invaded and successfully occupied, what are everyone’s views on collaboration?
It’s easy to say oh I’d never do that, but if one’s family is starving or it could lead to a means of escaping or whatever, then the waters are muddied.
From what I’ve read French collaborators were severely punished (though Coco Chanel seemed to escape censure).

The level of risk cannot be evaluated, sure, or what will happen next, but the fact that there is risk, and we are already under attack, isn't debatable, its evident.

What an ignorant post

@Natsku The level of risk from Russia certainly is impossible to evaluate and always has been, which is why experts disagree among themselves and have little success in predicting the Kremlin's next move. Whatever your instincts, it's important to evaluate critically some of the shriller speeches coming from jingoistic western governments and their cheerleaders in the press. This point has been made repeatedly by people who know much more about Russia than I do:
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/jun/13/russia-adviser-fiona-hill-alarming-conclusion

I enjoy history podcasts (it's like the news, but in costume). Only a couple of days ago, I caught a discussion about WW2 in which the US War Department approach to propaganda and motivating the US troops.

One guest then asked : "Was there anything similar in the Russian military ?" to which the rather tart answer was "Well, they didn't feel the need for it, what with having actual Nazis actually invading their actual country."

Says quite a bit really.

Britain has always been a little bit of an odd case when it comes to invasion compared to the rest of Europe (and that is the basis for an entire political movement). And that speaks of the fact that to the military invasion and occupation are two distinct operations. Ask anyone from Yorkshire who knows their own history.

*depends on whether I thought my country was in the right.

What is the social contract?

That may well be true. I'm counting the months until I can get an EU passport and get into a better paid job market elsewhere.

That said, there really are limited opportunities for some nationalities based on very limited formal education in their countries of origin, plus a degree of colour prejudice. I'm not sure that having free movement would solve the problems of these least advantaged populations.