To wonder if anyone has or is considering moving to a country that's less likely to be involved if Putin attacks a NATO country. (title edited by MNHQ at request of OP)

Huh? I was just reacting to the part of the OP asking about moving countries to avoid conscription. I thought, genuinely as it happens(!), that perhaps it wasn’t widely known that N.I has historically had a different situation than the rest of the UK re this point. It’s also a fantastic place to live with great people, super schools and access to some amazing natural sights. Not sure how that’s disingenuous, I feel like you may have misinterpreted my post. 💓

Disingenuous at best 😐

Why not move to a part of the UK that historically is Excluded from conscription? Namely, N Ireland.

• When the UK introduced conscription in the First World War (1916) and Second World War (1939–60 period), Northern Ireland was explicitly exempted from the conscription laws, even though it was part of the UK.

Short flight to England / rest of UK. Easy transition with many UK companies having offices in Belfast etc. Same currency / banks / tax system etc

Tbf the casualties and wounded are over a million so even if we don’t think it’ll impact us directly Putin is making many suffer in an awful war.

I agree.

There is an incredibly stupid man loose in the world who in the fact few weeks swooped in, murdered guards and abducted the president of another country.

He also announced plans to annex a large territory which has never belonged his country and which has no linguistic or historical connection with it (unlike Russia and the Donbas).

He has also had armed troops on the streets brutally suppressing his own citizens
.. protest, and you get shot multiple times in the head like Renee Nicole Good.

He also has a well-equipped army, a large budget to be diverted from things like education and vaccines for babies to the army, and a wildly erratic personality disorder of some kind.

People should be worried because there is a giant fucking baby with his finger on the button that makes the missiles fly.

And people are still fixated on the evil Rooskies.

I'm not saying it about this situation specifically, I'm talking more generally about people who don't think any significant change is possible, whether via war, disease, climate change or anything else, as though we are somehow protected now.

I don’t see the comparison. The threat of Hitler was clear.
And not even he tried to invade the UK until
once WW2 had started.

I just cannot see a situation where Putin decides he wants to attempt to invade the UK. Especially where he has not been able to take Ukraine in almost 5 years of fighting.

Come on now.

Russia hasn't even managed to take Ukraine after 4 years trying

Putin thought that a 1960s-style, Soviet invasion of rolling some tanks into town would be enough ... but clearly didn't think beyond that

You're watching too much news, politely you sound insane. Turn your tv off and go for a walk or something

But there's a big conceptual difference between "If it's going to happen, there's nothing any of us can do so why worry" and "People have been saying this for decades and things have been fine, I'm just focusing on my family, nothing happened when everyone was so worried during the Cold War" etc like change is pretty much impossible, as though the last few decades of relative stability are for some undefined reason now set in stone as what life is like (at least for us in the west). And acting as though that blinkered view is the basic, common sense truth. It's just annoying, that's all.

Yep if people think everything will change or whatever then move now. There’s no point in waiting for it to happen, it’ll be too late.

No point in scare mongering. What are people going to do, move?

If not then why spread it’s all going to change rhetoric.

I know! Completely laughable that some people cannot imagine that every country will shut down airports, close every port and border and would post armed guards to stop anyone entering! There won't be any way to leave your country apart from walking - all roads would be jammed, no petrol to be had.

How far can you walk carrying everything you need? What will you drink and eat?

The OP seems to think that if it looks like conflict is imminent she can set off for the airport and catch the next flight to NZ - and she'll be the only one doing so!! 😂

Well yes there is lot of head in the sand stuff. It makes people feel secure. A few years ago in the UK we were all legally made to stay in our homes by the government.

Nothing stays the same forever. The world is unstable. More so than at any point since 1945. The world is rearming. It’s redividing in areas of political influence. The Americans are gearing up to fight each other and their neighbours.

I agree with EligibleTern. We've got used to living in a relatively stable and well-off country, where we're led to believe that other, grown-up people are in charge and that we will be protected if we lose our jobs, become disabled, etc (although we're less well protected than we may like to believe). It can be easy to think that nothing really bad can happen. It's like the young people in the Swiss nightclub - some of them stayed in the room and took videos of the fire, rather than using the extremely short window of opportunity to get out. They had been looked after by their parents and teachers all their lives and couldn't fathom that something bad would be allowed to happen to them. They paid with their lives.

Something I've noticed is that during any discussion about the possibility of a situation that would change our way of life (typically war, a disease, climate change), there is a core of people who seem to believe that it's absurd to think that our way of life CAN change.

I wonder if in the early stages of the Black Death, our Civil War, the French Revolution, WW2, etc etc etc, there were people saying, "When I look out my window everything's fine, so stop scaremongering." Everything staying basically the same isn't a guarantee, and it's not ridiculous to think about what you would do if things change.

OPs gone very quiet.

It's Sunday lunchtime in Russia.

why should a country take you in as a refugee?

Maybe it’s best to just keep as calm as you can and live your life as best as you can, as you can’t control any of this stuff.

I mean this kindly, but you seem pretty anxious over something that’s completely out of your control and probably not likely to happen soon, for all the reasons discussed here. It might be helpful to get therapy to help manage that anxiety.

I will go to Switzerland, but I am Swiss and have a place there. With a shelter…

Shhh stop talking about NZ, we're trying to hide behind Australia here 🫣😁

Would swap you for Peter Thiel though, would give me great pleasure to deny him his bought-and-paid-for bolthole.

What do you think our biggest threat is right now?

Some people on this thread seem to think they're very special. They can enjoy their lives in the UK until the UK is on the brink of war, and then they can swan off to the safe country of their choice. It doesn't seem to occur to them that by that stage vast numbers of other people will have emigrated or be trying to emigrate and immigration systems will probably have shut down.

The main risk of a big war remains the Middle East. Sectarian religion squabbles hold no rules. Just tit for tat.

Away from that one to watch for is this Greenland thing escalating into Trump pulling the US out of NATO. That would indeed give Putin a green light to go in on the Baltic nations.

I don't think China would go into Taiwan whilst the US offers a security guarantee. China know their economy, and indeed the global economy, would go pear shaped if they went into direct conflict with the US.

OP is
a) a very motivated (for some reason) scaremongerer/propagandist,
b) someone who hasn't lived through the ups and downs of the last 70 years and come to realise through experience and maturity that if you fret yourself silly ever time the world situation takes a dive you will never enjoy a beautiful sunrise.
c) both.

My money is on A.