Are you worried about conscription… *trigger warning - discusses risks of war**

[Shushhh]

I don’t know why, but I feel like a huge penny has dropped for me today, on the risks we all face in such uncertain times. I have thought about my nephews, who are 17 and 16. If WW3 happens, they would be at risk of conscription I would imagine, as they turn 18. This has petrified me. They are still babies to me (although I know they are older and wiser than I give them credit for). My husband is a soldier, so I am aware of the risks he faces. Of course I am worried for him too. But I’m just worried for us all. I am worried for our children. Where will they go? Will it be like old war times when they were evacuated? Will my brothers be conscripted? Will females also be put on the front lines? And ultimately, will we survive this.

I know this is scary, and I’m hoping my anxiety (previously diagnosed) is getting the better of me here. But it doesn’t feel like anxiety. It feels like real fear and a real threat.

AIBU?

But again this is not going to happen - mainly because we are NOT AT WAR.

Nope, not even crossed my mind.

My children are only 11 and 8. The fact I'm glad they're too young makes it pretty obvious to me that I would definitely be worried were they older. 😕

But they only need an extra 140000 people to be at US military levels. That doesn’t warrant conscription! There are over 4 million people between the ages 18-24

Yes, which is why military conscription doesn’t make sense. But aren’t there a bunch of other problems too? Crumbling NHS? Pot holes everywhere? This is what national service is for (and some could CHOOSE to have their national service be in the military - I imagine at least 140000 of 4 million probably would) and why I highly recommend it over conscription. You should absolutely have people doing national service plugging some of these holes the system has.

You can’t print more money to buy back the years of austerity, BUT it’s time for a new plan, and you already have people sitting there waiting.

Even a 20-year old NEET could have picked up the phone and buzzed people in on my hospital ward. That was all that was required; services are so stretched that they no longer have someone manning a dedicated desk in the waiting area that was just sitting there. And the door to the ward was locked going in or out so you really did need somebody there. It was annoying as fuck having to have the ward nurses buzz you in, and sometimes, of course, they were too busy to pick up because they already have a job.

This is so true. We don’t need “money”- we need resources. People, productivity.

This is what the Swiss did during Covid; they dedicated their medical professionals to treating it and then called up a lot of young people doing their national service to handle the “admin” of it (checking people in, taking their details, putting them in the list, etc). And they came through it a lot better than a lot of other countries. Swiss lockdown seemed early and short in comparison to UK lockdown.

I have teenagers, it worries me slightly but there's no use borrowing worries from tomorrow. We're not at that point just yet.

Realistically, what you're proposing would have to be voluntary. The resources aren't there to enforce and supervise the least willing and able, and these are the people whose labour is least likely to be worth the cost of extracting it from them. We particularly don't want anyone who's been forced to be there in NHS wards, for obvious welfare reasons.

The thing with the other countries that have compulsory national service is they've invariably got at least one of a police state, neighbours that invade regularly or a much better social contract on offer for young people than we do. Without ticking at least one of those boxes, it doesn't work.

I totally agree that culturally we are very different to states that have conscription. My best friend is norweigen, and is easy to get out of and she and most she knows didn’t do it. That’s not to say it shouldn’t be in place- young people do on the whole want opportunity. If you want to be a doctor what better in could you as for? Where else would you get such experience? Even the civil service apprenticeship/ graduate schemes are popular, why wouldn’t people want to be given a chance to do it and shine?

but when we’re talking about the less attractive stuff- military, hard labour- well you have to consider what people would do in the face of no alternative. No jobs, benefits taken away….. what would the young people of the uk do, starve or go and work for the government?

US take on things

Better social contract. You need to promise a safety net worth asking them to sacrifice a year of their life, yes. I know people don’t believe me, but I believe the UK could have that again. I think the Greens winning the by-election was a good start; it’s a very, VERY small start of a very, VERY long road, yes. But hey, you don’t get from a Tory government to Star Trek (for those not familiar, Star Trek takes place in a post-money society) in a day… or a year… or probably even a decade, sadly. And then you have to rely on your countrymen to not keep voting in a whole troop of cunts (America’s lost already for that reason - they had Trump once, they knew, and they voted him in again anyway. Now half of America knows how selfish, misogynistic, racist, and hateful the other half of America is. Game over.). But I’m dead serious. IF people stop voting in selfish arseholes, there is hope. If they keep doing it, there isn’t. There is no world that contains both “things are getting better” and “Prime Minister Farage.”

If you want to be a doctor, I can think of a lot of things that would be more use than buzzing people into an NHS ward, to be quite honest. I certainly agree that decent state run apprenticeship schemes would be brilliant and popular, but that's not what you were proposing. There is a pretty vast gulf between enforced pothole filling and the civil service fast stream. Any training scheme good enough wouldn't need to be obligatory.

As for what people would do, it's wrong to present this as a binary comply or starve, because that's so obviously not the case. Loads would have other options.

Other jobs exist, not all of which would necessarily have to be on the books. Support from family: if mine got told they were doing something they didn't fancy, I wouldn't be telling them to comply or starve. Though in fairness mine are Irish too so they'd just leave. Which brings us to going abroad- millions of people in the UK are dual nationals, including pretty much the whole population of one of our constituent countries (though I'm not sure any government would be daft enough to try and enforce compulsory national service in NI anyway). There would have to be essential carer and also pregnancy/maternity exemptions, so there's another route. And then there's crime.

Of course, we can sit and think up ways out of it until the cows come home.

Plenty of people got out of conscription in ww2 for the reasons you’re saying, and many others.

The point wasn’t really to respond to all the holes that can be picked on the idea but to ponder on a different society, one where people recognise buzzing people into nhs wards is a valuable contribution, and where they want to play their part.

Perhaps our time might be better spent thinking up ways to improve opportunities for our young people until the cows come home instead. To offer them desirable training, in ways that might make them more productive, instead of deluding ourselves.

Pothole filling is a skill, so if we need pothole fillers (as opposed to just not properly paying the ones we have) then the most sustainable option is to attract and train any young people who actually have an interest in it. This would have the benefit of meaning they don't have to be forced, and we might hope to retain the benefit of their training for longer.

Ultimately, there's a rather big gap between you thinking 19 year olds should want to buzz people into NHS wards all day, presumably unpaid/low paid since you talked about resources, and the people who you think should do it buying into that. The easiest contributions are the ones we expect of other people, after all.

I think we are completely misunderstanding each other- I don’t understand the ratty tone of your post. I don’t think we should do anything. I do disagree that conscription of young people would fail due to their to their refusal because I don’t think that is a strong argument.

I have said that the the idea of helping society as part of your development on adult hood is appealing in many ways, and aligns with opportunity and growth.

I thought the rattiness started in your last but one post, personally. But these things can get misconstrued over the internet, so let's assume both of us want to be constructive.

We're agreed on the principle of the second paragraph, but I think this has to look like something more attractive than enforced, low/no paid pothole filling for people who don't want to do that. Because refusal is, actually, a very strong argument. People vote with their feet. For those willing, we would also need to consider whether that's actually the best use of their time, energy and our societal resources. Especially as, by the time any such scheme got off the ground, we'd be looking down the barrel of shrinking birth cohorts (they started to drop in about 2013). So we need to be thinking about voluntary training programmes.

I do also, I must admit, find some people's idea that society is entitled to the unpaid/low paid labour of an already generationally disadvantaged age cohort to be rather unpleasant. If we have such a need for unskilled labour like buzzing people into NHS wards and can't pay for it, younger pensioners are right there. I don't find that a remotely practical option personally, but then neither is pretending that we could collectively piss on 19 year olds legs and them all think it's raining. Yet people who want this invariably default to the young.

Conscription is Ukraine, a country actually at war is all men 25 -60 and women on a voluntary basis.
In our household that's just me, should I volunteer, as everyone else is too young/has health conditions that would automatically make them exempt from serving.

Would I volunteer to fight to protect my way of life and my family? Probably.

Maybe the question you should be asking OP is why wouldn't people volunteer to defend their way of life/freedom and to protect their families.

I thought Russia did....?

In 1933 Oxford university debated "I will not fight for king or country" . The vote was passed. In 1939/1940 how many who had said "no" had signed up or joined?
Many would not be willing to fight a war overseas or for a cause whose aims were not clear. It would be a different story if we were under attack or likely to be.

So would the Government then let even more domestic abusers and rapists out to imprison the refusers. They have already done the former.

I mean that is a bit of a reach - I have no idea how the entirely hypothetical and entirely not going to happen modern conscription law might impact the current prison population.

I think everyone on this thread needs to take a deep breath and step away from the internet.

They officially do but it's very unevenly applied. Some men are much more equal than others! Those with resources and money can get out of it, even without having to flee Russia.

I can see some people responding with

Oh now patriotism is ok again.

I worry about this too - my oldest son is 16. He went to an army day yesterday with explorer scouts to do activities etc.. (not because he has any intention of joining the army) and he said they were talking there about being prepared for conscription and the next war like it was definitely going to happen at some point. I know this was just the younger army personnel chatting but still it shows they think soldiers will still be needed not just drones..