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?

Really interesting thread as a lot of these conversations have been taking place in certain circles but with ‘war’ replaced by ‘climate breakdown’…

To those people saying they'd move to Scotland...Faslane would be a hitlist, as would probably Perth due to it being a central point for the energy market.

Personally I'm not going to worry about something I can't control.

Thanks for this
I just went out and withdrew some cash just in case. Not a lot but enough to buy staples.

I think there's a lot of people with the same idea. I couldn't find a cash point anywhere local with money in.

I want a refund on the taxes my parents paid for my history lessons at school. My teachers didn't tell me this and it's noted in there that the fate of the Anglo-saxons after 1066 is dropped "like a hot potato" in mediaeval history studies.

I was at least aware of the rebellions and subsequent Harrying of the North.

I still don't think that you actually need to have a Govt to do surrendering or even have a surrender. The Dzungar Genocide was a war that ended without a surrender.

A stash of non-perishable food makes even more sense. If you have £1000 in notes and I have 5kg of rice but logistics and govt have broken down to the point that food distribution has ceased, your pretty pieces of paper polymer sheeting no longer mean anything so I'm not giving you my rice.

It's unlikely that civil aviation will still be operational because of GPS spoofing and jamming, which already affects flights over the Middle East.

Lack of GPS wont prevent civil aviation but does make it less efficient (arguably less safe). Bigger issue is active warzones to cross.

If things deteriorate to the extent that war is unavoidable, I'm having my pets put to sleep at the vets. I wouldn't wait until I was forced to do the job myself.

DH talked about renewing our NZ passports. I'm hoping we can board the repatriation planes with our expired passports and the kids naturalisation documents. But the plans are moving to NZ. I have no idea how we'll live though given all the money we have is in the UK. We can't afford to buy anything in Auckland even if we manage to sell our house in the UK. And if there's a war, unlikely anyone will want to buy our house.

Well even though we all have NZ citizenships, it's not easy to move given we are middle aged. If we move now, what jobs will we do? We can't afford to buy anything in Auckland (where I'm from). We even looked at houses in Taranaki (where DH is from), and we can't afford New Plymouth either.

I always imagined escaping to a house in the middle of nowhere until I read Nuclear War A Scenario. Great book. The book quotes "the living will envy the dead".
I live and work in Zone 1 so I imagine should the worst happen I will be one of the envied ones.

Are we moving now in case a war is going to happen? If we don't, like others say, it might be too late to leave too.

Good point, barter or cash would be exchanged for the resources that are available depending on how long the chain is disrupted. An average homes food supply would soon run out. particularly with mn teenagers who eat like horses 😉

You aren't the only one thinking ahead OP.

I have a Canadian friend who has already offered us safe haven. I'm just not sure which would be safer, being closer to the US or being closer to Russia.

Both are pretty rabid at the moment.

Well in fairness, I do have a master's degree in medieval history, so your history lessons weren't necessarily any worse than anyone else's. It's a fascinating but definitely under taught period, made even more so by the 2014 national curriculum. I know nothing about the Dzungar Genocide so I will have to look that up! But yes logically I agree and don't see why you would need a government to surrender, unless ideology you're trying to unify and rule legitimately in a pre-modern period. I'm thinking of Queen Emma who married Cnut after his invasion in 1015. I have no idea how this would play out in current affairs however.

No, lived quite far from the siren.
Interesting that the UK decided they're useless while other countries decided the opposite. Seems more likely to me that the UK just couldn't be bothered with the upkeep and testing.

I’m growing more of my own veg and thinking about getting some chickens (I only have geese at the moment).

It seems an obvious thing for me to do as we’ll benefit from good homegrown food with it without a war, but have at least some protection from food shortages if it does happen.

Well, in all honesty, as soon as the Cold War ended there were far better things to spend money on.

I honestly can't believe some of the attitudes in this thread. Nothing is going to happen.

If it came to real end game and a nuclear war type scenario it would end up being like Threads and The Road, survival of the fittest.

So much of life is based on online stuff and needing a connection and power these days that things would deteriorate far more quickly than before we were so reliant on power.

If it was a regular land based war then DS would be prime age for conscription and has been in cadets and is a decent sniper as is DH. I have medical training so could work back in an operating theatre though it’s been 30 years, plus my backs bad these days.

This is why my grandparents always had a stash of gold sovereigns. The theory being that gold will hold its value much more than bank notes.

I must pop out to the bureau de change at our local Tesco to swap our leftover Euros for gold. Anyone know the exchange rate?

Well we all know now that reducing spending on defence after the end of the cold war was a mistake.

A lot of people thought nothing was going to happen 3 years ago too.
Though I would say that it's highly unlikely anything beyond hybrid warfare will happen in the UK, it's elsewhere in Europe that things might happen unless Russia is dealt with now.

My concern is that there won't be time to book him in. What did someone upthread say? "By the time you realise that you need to leave, it's already too late" ir similar?

I can't eat your gold either so you still aren't getting my rice.

Don't rely on there being any repatriation flights.