Thinking through how you'd protect your family in a war situation

[readytogo79]

Sorry this is not a nice conversation and is not meant to trigger anyone but its a bit weird to have this chat with people at school pick up or similar, so I'm wondering how others are thinking about this. I'll caveat this by saying I'm not "hysterical" (an insult I've seen flying about on here today), or dramatic, and not a conspiracy theorist or anything. I'm a professional academic, pretty moderate left, pretty pragmatic I like to think. I follow politics very closely and it's been a few weeks since I said to my husband that I think there is a case to be made that the US is no longer our ally and that we (the UK & Europe / Allies) should be preparing for the prospect of them being an adversary. I'm now pretty convinced of that.

In practice what could this mean? Article 5 and therefore NATO is looking likely to be rendered meaningless, - so an emboldened Russia invading Moldova, Lithuania, Finland... then Europe having to step up without the US, and potentially - worst case scenario but much more likely than 6 months ago - nuclear war.

I live in central London (zone 2) which my husband and child. I've been trying not to imagine this worst case scenario but given Russia are already attacking us with cyber attacks, undermining our democracy and of course the Skripol attacks etc, it's certainly a possibility one has to think about. If it started to look likely I've been thinking about what we'd do, how we could act fast and where we could go. It's a truly horrible thought and not something I ever thought I'd have to consider. But I've only got one child, and my husband and they are all I have in the world and I can already feel my protectiveness kicking in.

Even though London is our home I'd plan to leave and go somewhere in the UK less of a target. The Lake District, Snowdonia or the Highlands perhaps. I don't know how we would manage to do this but I just feel so strongly I'd want to protect my child and my family unit.

In all seriousness, has anyone thought through a scenario where we are at war, and what you would do to protect your family?

I hadn't thought about it, but having watched Trudeau's statement this afternoon, I'm not sure you're overreacting.

We are pretty good earners, but the reality is we're not nearly wealthy enough to be able to just pack up and leave our pretty city central home.

A bigger worry for me is conscription; I have three teenage sons, two of whom have just turned 16. It makes me feel sick to think they could be conscripted.

I think it would end up like The Road (film and book). Gangs would form who would pick people off at will. You’d need to kill in order to survive.

For civilian conscription into the army we'd have to have lost our professional army, our reservists and be in an existential situation (and if we get there, we've gone too far down the potential nuclear path which all want to avoid). Also, if we were at war with Russia it'd be as part of a larger European force, remember. Conscription into some form of civil/home defence, perhaps. All this to say, support increased defence spending!

It's very noble to think we'd all try to protect our families and 'go to the Lakes' (like that would be realistic! Everyone would be doing the same) or similar. I won't waste time making plans in my head because if it comes to that, we're all pretty helpless and if anything would be weighing up bringing things to a speedier end.

However I don't think it will happen so it's not something I worry about.

Crucial difference of course being that William the Conquerer didn't have nukes!

Can someone humour me with what a post-nuclear bomb drop would look like? Everyone says they rather die immediately.

There's a nuclear submarine based in Scotland. I'd imagine that would be a target.
Look at the covid years and how crowded the beautiful/secluded places of the country became when everyone tried to visit them when we couldn't go abroad. There will be no chance to move there en masse. I'd imagine that laws would prevent that.
Anyway I spent my youth terrified of nuclear war I'm not letting it rule my life now.

Watch ‘Threads’.

@NC28 slow but painful death via radiation poisoning. Total collapse of society so you might well starve or, more likely, die of dehydration first.

It would be interesting to see the impact of things like solar panels. In theory you could have a decentralised functioning power supply and transport system which would (I assume) be harder to attack. Personally I'd prep for a cyber attack.

Agreed. I'd want to stand on the top of a hill right in the blast zone rather than survive.

Cheery conversation!

TBH there's so little you can do to influence this or survive it. I think ostrich is the only sane approach. Honestly. I'm not being glib.

So after reading this batshit, fear mongering nonsense, I can safely say that I won’t be subscribing to MN if that is the only ad free option.

I live in Scotland. About five miles from an army base. Don't all bother coming here 😁

Doseofreality · Today 16:51
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We’ll just all go The Winchester for a lock in until it all blows over.

😂👏

This might not be all that comforting but I think Putin is aware that he has overextended himself and I don’t think the Russian population has a lot of appetite for more war, although they probably have incomplete information.

While that sounds dramatic, it's not true at all.
After William defeated/killed the king, Harold Godwinson, at the battle of Hastings, he then marched towards London, where the Anglo-Saxon Witan (government) had chosen Edgar the Aetheling as king instead, until they quite literally surrendered to William outside London and he was crowned, by them. He then faced rebellion for much of the next decade or two.

I bought my two teens radiation tablets for their stockings this year as a joke present.

Im actually secretly now glad I bought them just in case..

A film of it's time. Nicknamed the night that nobody slept when it was first shown.

haufbiskiy · Today 22:55
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I bought my two teens radiation tablets for their stockings this year as a joke present.
Im actually secretly now glad I bought them just in case..

WTAF?
Why would you do that?

I really can't tolerate any kind of disruption - I get really pissed off if my broadband is slow so I would do everything possible to make sure I didn't survive!

We were talking about this last week. We live in the Highlands and have a big enough garden that each child and their partner could have their own pod/tent if they could get up here.
We grow vegetables, have open fires and an old fashioned range. We are close to the Spey for water/ fish etc. I tend to have a stock of non perishables.
Though if there was a nuclear war I wouldn't want to survive anyway.

I don’t think it’s possible to plan for a nuclear war (although if those who were affected by Chernobyl (largely Belarus) had iodine tablets and weretold to stay indoors, that would have made a difference I believe) or conscription (like others, I don’t think the whole of London can realistically go to Scotland or the Lakes!!) but presumably there are many reasons for a mild version of “prepping” in case of a power /water cut pr food disruption? I’ve been thinking for a while of getting some bottles water, purification tablets, tinned food, batteries, torches, radio, candles etc to keep in a box in case there’s a cyber attack or similar (or just some “glitch” that means normal services are disrupted). Maybe I’m succumbing to the crazy!! We grow a lot of veg which I feel is its own form of small scale self reliance, we have logs for the fire and and there’s a stream in the garden!

That's exactly it. Nuclear attacks are extremely unlikely, because everyone knows what the end of point of that is and no one wants that. But attacks to infrastructure causing power cuts and damaging water supplies, that's a possibility, though unlikely in the UK, unless it can be done via cyber attack.

Conventional war on the Eastern borders is a bit more likely (I've thought unlikely for a long time but the recent Trump actions are making me lose a bit of hope about that) which would mean British troops helping as part of NATO response, and those of us in the East all doing everything we can to resist. The Finnish plan used to be to allow the Russians in but hobble with with guerrilla warfare, that isn't the plan any more after seeing what they did in Ukraine to civilians.

Sad - yet again the so called grown ups in the room couldn’t have a conversation.

if it’s war it won’t be boots on the ground….it will be cyber and things like utilities hit. Eventually someone hitting the red button so to late.

It’s sad the selfishness of people. Trump & unelected Musk have been in power not even months and already unstable to make America great again was to say a huge f@@k to the rest of the world unless your willing to dance to their tune (or provide a bits for a Tesla and yeah we don’t worry about MAGA)

All that’s happening as the stock markets are hit …and a few very rich people get richer.

Europe have had their heads in their hands a while naively thinking it will be ok. For a while now people have been saying there’s a playbook here, we’ve been here before and now it’s beginning to hit home.

Untill Trump/Musk suddenly realise Russsia is always first too and their plans don’t quite come to life we stuck in the privileged rich person game.

I don't know why people still think war won't be boots on the ground when there's a war currently going on that's very much boots on the ground. Yeah it won't be conscription for Brits because Britain won't get invaded but British troops would help their allies.

I live in NL - family in Cornwall. if we're going to get blown up, I'd rather kick the bucket instantaneaously rather than survive on tinned food and torches. The ground will be so contaminated growing carrots won't be a great idea. Netflix will be blown out the sky so it'll be zero fun in this household. the iodine tablets we've been issued for our DD (we live within 100km of nuclear power plant - Germany) are going to make no difference whatsoever. Pretty sarcastic, I know, but it is what it is.