Conscription, in this day and age.

[Vebrithien]

Somewhat morbid thinking, but I was wondering what would happen with conscription now days, if it was ever used again.

As far as I can recall, in WWII, it started with young, single men (after volunteers). Then moved up in age, and into the married men.

Given that so many people now have children without marrying, how would the powers that be get around it? Would you be conscripted if you didn't have children? Would absent father's suddenly be claiming their children? Or would it be linked to marital status still. Would there be a rush of weddings? And again, would it still only ever be men? What would happen to non-binary people, or trans people? If women with children were conscripted, would there be fail safes to ensure that their other parent wasn't conscripted?

What do you think?

we employ a lot of young people

i'm sorry but they can barely manage a 4 hour shift without looking at their phones, i can't see it

BUT ...it might be a good thing, and surely girls will be called same as boys....if it DID happen

What conscription did in WW2 was lead many to join reserved occupations such as the police and bus/train drivers. You will see every 20 or so years the police have recruitment or shortage issues, which is an indirect result of that.

i'm sorry but they can barely manage a 4 hour shift without looking at their phones, i can't see it

🙄 This is why no young person should fight.

@swirlsy

i'm sorry but they can barely manage a 4 hour shift without looking at their phones, i can't see it

🙄 This is why no young person should fight.

i also include the 20 somethings in this!!

@LabraDabraDoo

I’m not sure the average U.K. estate agent or social media manager would be of much use in the face of the complex and high tech warfare we see in modern times. Just as WWI saw a new type of warfare ( British chaps on horses facing tanks), so will we now.

Ukraine has a huge military, bigger than the U.K. If and when they need our military support, I can’t see how it will be in form of green young men and women.

to be fair, it was the British in the tanks!

A lot has changed since 1939, including how warfare is conducted, and I think people have a pretty good understanding that conscription is essentially sending young working class men out to be cannon fodder. I don't think that people would stand for it in the same way they did 70 years ago.

Surely they'd be more likely to target people with particular skills.
As pp have said, they don't need large quantities of untrained bodies now. They need people with technical know how.

So I'm guessing there might be a very specific skill-based recruitment drive rather than generalised conscription.

I think conscription should be compulsory for everyone on this thread who: EITHER has a DH capable of waging war from a home PC; OR who thinks that young people are incapable of anything.

It’s not going to be trench warfare in this day and age. They are more likely to take tech savvy people than men and boys and even that’s unlikely. NATO will send in troops (hopefully) we will get cyber attacks but I very much doubt there will be any fighting with uk civilians. There’s more chance of Atom bombs than anything.

@DinnoWoman

I think conscription should be compulsory for everyone on this thread who: EITHER has a DH capable of waging war from a home PC; OR who thinks that young people are incapable of anything.

They can have mine frankly. Ideally not in a WFH capacity! 🙄

As an aside, some people on this thread seem woefully confused between WWI and II.

I can’t imagine conscription could work now. So many people would not have national loyalty, others would be leafing through the medical book looking for exemptions, there would be much identifying as something else, and everyone of childbearing age would get pregnant to avoid call-up.

I have previously suggested a sort of Citizens Service for young people, but this gets the bum’s rush from many on MN (my child’s not doing that; caring is vocational and should be done by people who love old people )

Of course it wouldn't work today.
In the past, there was a real shame in not joining up or being an objector. Society has changed now. Warfare has changed. Just like people wouldn't tolerate sending their kids off to be evacuees with God knows who in the countryside today.

The thing with women being conscripted is a lot of them would try to get pregnant before going on duty..
I don't think people would stand for it nowadays, a lot would suddenly have "debilitating" mental health issues, or maybe even feign physical health problems to try avoid it.
Queue men pretending they all identify as women etc or on purposely failing the fitness tests.

It should apply equally to men, women and all pronoun persons. No exceptions.

@miltonj

People just wouldn't get on board any more. And rightly so!

I doubt back during WW2 people also didn't want to 'get on board' either, but that's not really how it works!

@Christmas1988

It’s not going to be trench warfare in this day and age. They are more likely to take tech savvy people than men and boys and even that’s unlikely. NATO will send in troops (hopefully) we will get cyber attacks but I very much doubt there will be any fighting with uk civilians. There’s more chance of Atom bombs than anything.

This.

I suspect most conscripted would be useless in modern warfare. It's no longer needing to have lots of cannon fodder. Incidentally, British chaps on horses did not face tanks in WW1 - the tanks were a British invention. But I think the Polish cavalry tried to attack mechanised German units.

@ThatsNotMyGolem

I think some time in the military would do a lot of people good, to be perfectly frank.

Off you go, then.

When the Royal family and all their children, all of the politicians and their children, and all of the children of retired-generals scaremongering in the Daily Hate are visibly on the front line, only then would I even consider it.
Even then they would have to prise my children from my cold dead hands before I allowed them to fight in another country's war.

@Pyewhacket

It should apply equally to men, women and all pronoun persons. No exceptions.

the problem is the people of the correct age are also likely to be the ones with young kids. My MIL couldn't take on my three, neither could my Dad. My Mom couldn't take on 7. What exactly do you do with the kids? In previous wars largely the Moms stayed with the kids.

There won’t be conscription. It just wouldn’t be tolerated. We have an extremely effective professional army. The world is very different to how it was in the middle of the last century.

No British people will be conscripted to Ukraine. If he pushes further into Europe I can see people being conscripted (after reserves and ex military) to do things like man refugee camps, farming, munitions factories according to their skill set. If it hasn't all gone nuclear by then.

@LabraDabraDoo

I’m not sure the average U.K. estate agent or social media manager would be of much use in the face of the complex and high tech warfare we see in modern times. Just as WWI saw a new type of warfare ( British chaps on horses facing tanks), so will we now.

Ukraine has a huge military, bigger than the U.K. If and when they need our military support, I can’t see how it will be in form of green young men and women.

A social media media would play a crucial role actually.

You've heard of the Ministry of Information right?

They’d conscript cybersecurity professionals and the air traffic controllers and engineers and other highly qualified people whose skills could immediately be put to use in ways that are not obvious to people worrying their husband is going to be sent to war.

See this actually worries me more not less (and its something I've considered for a while on the crisis). I know exactly what would happen to my family and who in it would be conscripted in this way, very early on. Or possibly contracted in.

The idea that you are 'safe' somehow because you'd be working from home is naive.

If you have lots of people working from home who are performing cruical roles in cyberware, what do you think happens if you have a bunch of medium range missiles?

What becomes a strategic target?

We are talking things like internet and telephone infrastructure. And people with these skills and their places of work.

It just makes it 'legitimate' for someone like Putin to actively target civillians. It doesn't need to hit the intended target, though thats nice. It becomes a justification for sending missles to residential areas.

If you are paying attention, you'll know that Putin is happy to make up shit and give dodgy pretexts for war as it is.

Sweden removed general conscription in 2010, but this has now been reverted (yes because of increased threats from Russia) and all 18 year olds, male and female are tested to determine if they will be conscripted.

Just saying.

If we were going to war young man would willingly sign up. I used to be a careers officer and when the Falklands war started loads of teenaged boys wanted to know how to join the army so they could go and fight.