To wonder why people aren’t worried about this??

[Mummytotwonow]

https://news.sky.com/story/time-to-think-the-unthinkable-and-consider-uk-conscription-says-britains-former-top-nato-commander-13056148

Sorry if I’ve missed any threads on this.

It’s not just sky news reporting this but for days now in the media this is being raised.

AIBU - to be extremely worried and concerned about this?

Is anyone else not worried?? Are we being prepared ready as “the higher up” know more and the threat is bigger than we’re told.

what age would it be from and to??

l‘m so scared for the world our children are growing up in 😢

That's a good point

@sugarrosepetal come on. You can’t seriously even half believe this.

@EasternStandard

let it bug you if you want to.

it made me laugh.

it's so true.

I think it’s hard to say what people would and wouldn’t do during a time when there is no immediate threat. We might feel totally different if push came to shove. I do know that my DGPs left Lithuania which was then under Russian occupation because they knew Russia were about to bring in conscription and Jews would be treat like dogs. My DF was conscripted to the UK army before WWII and wanted to do his part out of gratitude to the UK for taking in Jewish refugees. He always tried to get us to join the Navy and was always suggesting it to his DGC. None of us did though. But if there was the need for conscription although I’d be terrified I’d want my loved ones to do it.

I wonder what would happen if Russia attacked Ireland with a missile or something, because Ireland isn't part of NATO so the US/UK don't need to get involved, but it's hard to imagine they wouldn't. And the EU as well. They would have to make some tough decisions. Not sure there would be appetite in the US to fund a third country's war.

I zoomed in on it. But I didn't want to expose the poster

well maybe I’ll consider fighting/letting my children fight if they are standing shoulder to shoulder with the politicians and their children and grandchildren. The royal family. Etc.

and I don’t mean conscript these pampered arseholes into cushy little office jobs. I mean treat everybody equally. Everyone the same.

But that won’t happen. I’m absolutely sick of being preached to by these people who won’t put their money where their mouth is. Covid has absolutely cemented it for me. People died while they partied. Absolutely fuck them.

Its alot harder than previous to get people "fighting for their country", especially those of us in the West. Folk are becoming more worldly/educated via access to travel and the internet. Eyes are being opened. Numbers in the military are way down in the US for example, a period that has coincided with the tearing down of statues of presidents (who owned slaves), the renaming of schools, and increasing numbers shunning their national anthem given who wrote it (slave owner) and its content (a third verse which excoriated the slaves who joined the British to gain freedom). A Black person would be a lunatic to fight for a nation who did this to them. When he rejected conscription in the 1960s to go and kill brown people in Vietnam Muhammad Ali knew then what many know now.

The more we know, the more we question, thus the less accepting of what we are told. No generation of people have questioned things more than this one, and given things tend to progress (generally speaking) as time passes this trend will continue. Most wars are futile, so forcing young men to leave their families and go off to fight in one will meet an almighty backlash.

That was one of the very rare just wars. Has there been any anywhere since?

The great scientist Carl Sagan with his "pale blue dot" I think sums up the silliness of humans and the futility of war.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pale_Blue_Dot

"From this distant vantage point, the Earth might not seem of any particular interest. But for us, it's different. Consider again that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.

Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.
It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known."

Can non British people seeking asylum be called up though.
Plus the threat is ‘sometime in the next 20years’. Many may be too old in 10/15/20 years.
Or is the idea to keep housing year in year out newly arrived people of fighting age….just in case

Im thinking conspiracy theory more likely.

Staying out of other people's conflicts would be a start wouldn't it?

Switzerland won't be considering conscription.

I agree (and love the Pale Blue Dot) but unfortunately the war mongering lunatics will not be watching it and we still have to defend ourselves from them.

As for not getting involved in other people’s wars, it depends on what treaties we are part of. If we were attacked and still part of the EU we would expect our fellow members to stick to their obligations to defend us rather than running for the hills and pretending we have nothing to do with them. Now we are no longer in the EU we have fewer obligations but also fewer allies. We are still a member of NATO though which afford protection but also means we would be expected to intervene if a fellow member was attacked. This is how Britain and France entered WW2 - a direct response to Germany’s invasion of Poland.

As for Ireland, its proximity to Britain would make it desirable from an invasion POV I expect. I presume Ireland would main their position of neutrality (which in practice means tacitly relying on Britain to defend the U.K. as a whole and therefore Ireland as a whole). Although faced with a direct threat I expect they would be forced to defend themselves like any other country.

Really?

How can people simultaneously think "We are staying out of other people's wars" and "NATO will protect us anyway"? So "other people" have to go to war for you, but you won't for them?

Be honest then, leave NATO if you're not prepared to get involved over the attack on Poland or Baltics.

And lol to all the posters who think Russian rule will be better than tories. I don't even know where to start.

We import a significant percentage of our food and fuel. If a land war occurred in mainland Europe that could disrupt our supply lines. Putin wouldn’t have to land here, he could simply stop us getting imports.

If he timed that for the winter we would be facing shortages during the months we put the greatest demand on our energy supply.

We may not be involved directly at that point, but are the people who say they are vehemently opposed to British involvement in land conflicts abroad really prepared to starve and freeze? Or watch that happen to their children and grandparents? Maybe you expect the French, German and Belgians to put their lives at risk and fight for your right to put the heating on, safely away from the site of conflict? Grow up.

During WW2 people were encouraged to grow vegetables at home, now we have plastic grass and paved driveways. Can you imagine trying to convince people who can’t be bothered to mow the grass that they need to start cultivating potatoes? 😂

With fuel shortages we don’t just lose petrol, we also face rationing of electricity - this will impact heating, lighting, electric vehicles, cooking and the safe storage of perishable foods. People commute long distances to work now, something that wasn’t common 80 years ago. If the workforce can’t get to their place of employment then the economy will collapse. Forget WFH, if Putin, striding throughout Europe, put pressure on our imports of gas then whatever electricity we manage to generate here will be diverted to support essential services such as hospitals. Your need to charge your laptop or mobile so you can have a Teams meeting will be far down the list of priorities!

The Swiss conscript every able man into their armed forces as reservists, with a period of national service to train and then frequent refreshers throughout life. It's a substantial reason why the Swiss can remain neutral: taking them on is too much hassle because the whole country's men can mobilise into a trained fighting force within 24 hours.

You reckon? You couldn't have chosen a better country 😁

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscription_in_Switzerland

Switzerland are neutral because they are banned from war. Historically they were 'well hard' (shall we say). Don't let the the pyjamas at St Peters fool you.

I was being facetious.

It is worrying. Nato has slept for decades, now war is on their doorstep they are looking increasingly unable to implement a reasonable force to deter or even fight directly.
Russia is a war economy now, these coming spring months will be important as offensives begin again. There are nearly a million military personnel fighting in the Ukraine. Anyone thinking there won't be a land battle with troops is in denial. There has been a land battle since the war began. Nato is currently involved in Steadfast Defender the largest military exercise this century. However, this mobilisation is dwarfed by the war in Ukraine.
I don't see an attack on UK soil though the war will be fought in the Ukraine and the Baltic areas.

Personally, neither of us wants to see our children die in a war oversees.

Overseas not oversees.😆

Of course they will
Be digging up there gardens drives. Hunger does funny things to people.

You only have to watch I'm a celeb to see that. Imagine a whole country of hungry people.

Ah, Ok fair enough…

Problem is I suspect there might be a few who might take the comment at face value and then we get..“oh yes, why can’t we be more like the Swiss”….😉

Salaaaaah. In principle I totally agree with you . In theory if the Russia, North Korea or whichever other war-mongering warmonger had lined their forces at our borders, would we contemplate the futility of mankind and our irrelevance as a dot in the cosmos? Or would we instinctively do everything we could to repel them and try get the young, the old and the vulnerable out of the most dangerous zones?

Would we have the time/instinct to sit and contemplate philosophy or how just the conflict was at that point? My GPs gathered up everyone they could, left their home with a few treasured items and got the hell out. The men who were able went on to fight in the armed forces wherever they had settled. They didn’t want their sons to be conscripted into the Russian forces to fight for a country who had invaded and occupied their own.

Just to set the scene, we have a ruthless dictator who has stockpiled weapons and raised a large army. He has managed to persuade his citizens that his attack on a neighbouring democratic country is in some way justified and part of his plan to build a larger empire. He has ruthlessly cracked down on dissent in his own country. He has read about the distaste for waging war of the citizens of the opposing countries and is emboldened.

It is 1938, not 2024 though and the UK Prime Minister comes back from negotiating with the dictator banging on about peace in our time albeit selling Czechoslovakia down the river. The UK's prime minster believed in the policy of appeasement i.e. giving in to a dictator so he invades somewhere other than the UK. I think even those whose knowledge of history is a bit shaky know what happened as a result of the policy of appeasement.

I think before you bang on about not fighting, you have to think what the alternative is. Your sons could be conscripted to fight on the Russian side.

I think that should a world war scenario arise such as WW2 we would be beaten now. People just wouldn't fight. We'd become part of the winning side.