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?

We can hear it extremely well and have a modern house with triple glazing. It’s certainly not useless.

I agree. Must have been really quiet sirens. Our house is well insulated and warm wheter it’s -25 or not. We can hear the siren every time. There are three different ones.

More of a worry now Trump has dropped Ukraine is that Ukraine out of desperation fires nuclear weapons at Russia. They obviously have the capability to start making them again as they once had before.

A relative asked me "What would anyone invade the UK for? We have no mineral resources left."

Basically, we are useful to the US as Airstrip One, a place to put airbases in the north-west Atlantic, and the only time someone else would invade us would be to prevent the US from maintaining airbases here.

Also to take control of our nuclear weapons and because it has strategic value. It would be hard to use the North sea and English channel safely if at war with the UK

I had been thinking about this earlier - less about nuclear war but more about conscription, disruption, higher COL and scarcity of supplies. We're in London Zone 2 as well and DH and DCs are dual UK/US citizens. I think it would make sense for us to move to the US, there is physically much more space there. I don't think we'd need to prepare much if we had to leave suddenly, we'd leave almost everything behind and start afresh. DH works for a US firm and could get transferred back to a US office.

There was no need to nuke Tōkyō. Tokyo had already been firebombed- biggest bombing raid in human history with over 100,000 dead.

There was no need to nuke Hiroshima and Nagasaki either.

Dunno why everyone is so worried about Russia unleashing nuclear weapons. It's the USA that has form for actually using the damn things.

I'm foreign and I've lived through social unrest in my life where people tried to rape and kill my race. It makes me think about worst case scenario a lot. That's why I always make sure I have some us dollar at home in case my family need to make a getaway. That's what saved me when I was young.

There is little we could do, I’ll check the passports this weekend and buy some batteries 🤷‍♂️

personally we do have an allotment. We don’t grow enough to feed us , and it wouldn’t be too hard for someone to steal them , maybe I’ll encourage dh to grow an extra couple of tomatoe plants 🤣

This is unrealistic on short notice. It easily takes a year+ to organise a move to NZ.

That's true. I've always thought in WW3 we would be taken out first for that reason. It was Germanys mistake they didn't do that the first two world wars and so we could be used as a base for invasion and the US could use us as a base for its army too (maybe we won't need to worry about the last bit this time particularly if JD is the next President. His lack of proper education and knowledge of history and the World is pretty evident. He just doesn't care).

I don't think we'd need to prepare much if we had to leave suddenly, we'd leave almost everything behind and start afresh.

If you felt you had to leave suddenly that means something bad was about to happen imminently - in which case everyone with somewhere else to go to would have the same idea!

I don't think it would be easy to just get up and go at that late stage.

1. Everyone else will have the same idea at the same time, so commercial flights will be chocka.
2. It's not a given that the US Govt will provide repatriation flights to its citizens.
3. It's not a given that there will be a seat for you, the alien wife and mother of US citizens, on any repatriation flights.

If you have a route to US citizenship, pursue it now.

Good luck getting on a flight. Even when covid hit my DH (dual citizenships) nearly got stranded on the other side of the world. Had it not been for that he was awake at three o’clock in the morning and managed to throw himself in a taxi to the airport, he would not have made it. It was still very, very close. He was lucky there was a taxi prepared to take him. Even in the air the pilot was not certain which country he could land in, as the borders were shutting.

Everyone that is saying that they would move to a different country. Are you making plans to emigrate now or is it more of an option that you may consider some time in the future?
I'm just wondering if people are taking life changing decisions now or if we are not at that stage yet.

Quoting @Bananafofana: "history shows me that by the time you realise you need to leave, it’s too late". If you want to emigrate, don't wait until it looks like war is a month away.

I have thought about it.
I live in rural Wales, but I would travel into England to be with my mother, because I’d rather we were together.

I’m considering keeping an emergency bag in the boot of the car (for home emergencies like the storms this winter, as well as the worst case scenario).

To be honest though, I don’t think there will be a nuclear war. I think the US will basically just run the biggest protection racket the world has ever seen. Russia will threaten us, and the US will keep us safe - but at a cost. We will be forced to sell out the NHS, our media corporations, food and fuel, etc. Basically the US will pillage Europe and bring us effectively under US control, to their benefit and our detriment.

I heard this evening that it looks as though our nuclear deterrent is reliant on the US to even be operated. We’ve sleepwalked into this situation very naively, I’m afraid they have us over a barrel.

@Doseofreality has the only correct answer

I don’t really think there will be a nuclear war. And if there is I don’t think we can prepare for it.

I’m worried about cyper attacks by Russia. Definitely will have some emergency cash hidden in the mattress.

Cyber attacks will also screw up logistics and EPOS, so there may not be food in the shops and, if there is, you might not be able to buy it.

Having long-life food in your home, and bottled water, is at least as important as having cash.

Me and my partner (US citizen) will be moving to the US and plan on having a well and a farm and the means to defend ourselves if it came to it, I would not like to be in the UK or Europe if WW3 broke out.

A pp talked of going to New Zealand.

New Zealand, Australia, the Pacific island nations and SE_Asian countries are concerned about China.

There is nowhere.

Hopefully the rich people like Musk, Bezos, Zuckerberg begin to realize that their NZ bunkers won’t save them, and work to create a better world instead of feeding the beast known as Donald Trump, Project 2025 and themselves, (maybe Musk is the beast in this - not sure - he’s mad as a hatter anyway)

Have you got a Green card yourself? You are banking on the fact that the Us Government will let you in.

If you're going to move, sort it now. I have friends and family who married Americans and their visa process took years in one case.

And it's a bit rich all the Americans on this thread saying oh well we'll just move back to the US and leave you to it when their country/government is responsible for this mess anyway. Typical yanks.

The hard part is if it's risky enough people are wanting to leave it's unlikely you can get out easily. Plane tickets will be difficult to get.

I mean I'm glad we've got other passports but really it's a when it's all fine move, not when it's impacting people.

Horrible as that is, hopefully won't be the case anyway.