It's not the 1980s. The world is a different place with different priorities, facing different challenges.
Some of this current stuff in the press is about argument for more money for the armed forces but some is about the changing axis of world power- political, industrial, geographic, cultural. It no longer sits in the West and in Europe. It isn't the white-centric EU/US/Canada block. It is moving rapidly to China/Russia/Middle-East.
They are countries with different morals and priorities to us. They see people as resources to be exploited and used for a country's gain, not as individuals who can do what they like with their lives. They are expansionist at whatever cost. They are greedy for power, money, domination. They have historic scores to settle, particularly with the US but also the UK. They will remove threats/barriers to their progress, in small steps at first. Russia for example- they have started with Ukraine, next a cleared border to encompass Kalingrad back inside Russia-via the Baltic states. Belarus will go back to Russia, as will Slovakia. And then you have the scenario of Russia/Rissian allies having direct large borders with EU countries like Poland, Finland and smaller borders with Austria/Czechoslovkia/Hungary, Slovenia, Moldova. Poland in particular will become a conflict zone. Finland is very vulnerable. Where will it lead? It's unthinkable but there will be serious, large-scale conflict.
Then there is China and Taiwan. What would happen to countries like Japan - geographically small and very vulnerable from China and Russia.
The Middle-East.
We (in the West) will need to decide where our priorities are. My thoughts would be to leave the Middle-East and China to it entirely and focus on protecting Europe but I am no strategist.
The UK needs to accept its a pissy little country now, irrelevant on the world stage and on any other stage. We don't matter and have not the resources to be a contributor. We are useless- have ground ourselves into complete reliance on other countries by focussing on pathetic, low-skill service sectors as one if our main employment sources and allowing our industrial manufacturing and food production to die out because of greed for wealth and unwillingness to invest by big business, demand for cheap crap by consumers and demand for cheap food and unwillingness to work to produce our own food.
We have had 15 years of a Tory government that has failed to invest in what matters; we are now the only country in Western Europe to not produce heavy steel from scratch- that's absolutely shocking and could have enormous consequences for us. And that loss is all about Brexit.
We should be self-sufficient in many fruit and veg but we're not. No one will pick the stuff so it is imported. That's why you are paying £3 + for a single cauliflower at the minute. Almost all of our apples and pears are imported- yet 40 years ago we produced dozens of kinds of apples and pears in southern England. No one can be bothered to pick them. FFS- we import most of our carrots, swede, onions, sprouts, cucumbers, tomatoes, potatoes, leeks, plums. We grow 90% less fruit and veg than we did 40 years ago. When the power balance tips over and there is conflict, where will our food come from?
The EU has put contracts in place with drugs companies to produce and stockpile prescription medications for all EU countries. We already have shortages because the government has messed up procurement. Now they have no deals in place and that shortage is going to get much, much worse.
There will be no tourist industry in a war- the bars, pubs, hotels, restaurants, big venues, holiday rentals, air BnBs won't have the resources or the footfall to stay open. What will the employees do?
We have very very few military resources- and no steel production to make any.
And any war would, at first be conventional. It would rely on traditional fighting to a significant extent. The propaganda machine will be huge. The Tory capitalists will be rubbing their greedy hands together thinking how much money they'll make from it- as they did in the pandemic.
What we are seeing now in The Daily Mail and the voices shouting for conscription, is just the start of the propaganda.We are being prepared.