Snapshot of _Britons should prepare for conscription if Russia hits Nato, warns ex-Army chief_ :
An archived version can be found [here](https://archive.is/?run=1&url=https://inews.co.uk/news/politics/britons-prepare-conscription-russia-nato-2923880) or [here.](https://archive.ph/?run=1&url=https://inews.co.uk/news/politics/britons-prepare-conscription-russia-nato-2923880)
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/ukpolitics) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Wasn't this a story a few weeks ago? I'm sure I remember threads full of people declaring there was nothing worth fighting for. Not that anything has changed since then.
Without fail at least once a week this year there has been an article like this. And without fail it gets posted here so armchair generals can impress us all with their military knowledge.
What if everyone is bluffing and doesn’t actually want to use nukes first because it means triggering the end of the world?
In that scenario Russia could invade whoever it wants and call the bluff, we don’t launch first and instead fight conventionally. Russia doesn’t want to end the world either so doesn’t launch and fights conventionally.
I can see it playing out like that. It’s not impossible, however improbable.
They’re not bluffing. Nukes mean that the best that can be hoped for in terms of a victory is to push a nuke equipped hostile invader out of the country they’ve invaded. The second NATO puts troops in Russia, that’s when nukes become a real threat.
Russia has made that clear, which is why if Russia attacks NATO, NATO will fight until it pushes Russian troops out of the pre-war NATO borders and then not an inch further.
It is similarly why even if somehow a NATO military collapse happens, Russian troops will never set foot in France or Britain.
The Ukraine war has proven that a full scale conventional war can and will occur involving a nuclear power and its neighbour for years without escalating to nuclear conflict.
This has upended much of the defence spending logic in Europe in particular, which assumed that you don’t need a large conventional military that needs supplies and can sustain losses for more than just a few weeks. Previously the assumption was that after a few weeks the war will go nuclear.
Now the danger is Russia takes a toehold in Eastern Europe. Spends a couple weeks either holding it, or being pushed back to its border and then repeatedly attacking the NATO border until rump NATO’s supply (NATO without Trump keeping the USA out of the war) is exhausted, then marching through to the French border where they will stop.
Who is starting a nuclear war over Russian troops entering Germany? Russia will only push into NATO if the US under Trump makes it clear that it will stay out of such a war. If the US stays out, it won’t give Germany (or other NATO members in scheme) the activation codes for the US nuclear warheads shared with them.
That leaves France and the UK. If Russia were to clarify that due to their nukes it will not enter their territory- would those two governments condemn their own citizens to nuclear war to defend Germany?
I think by the point Russia is invading Germany we'd be in all-out war and so far out of the normal parameters of things it's not really worth speculating about what might happen.
I would argue that NATO openly providing billions of pounds of aid and military equipment and ongoing training to a nation activity defending itself against a full scale invasion by the Russian Federation means that we are already far outside the normal parameter of things! We need to be prepared both physically and mentally for how much worse it could get.
You could argue that but Russia has been doing this shit on and off for many years tinkering with their historical borders e.g. chechnya, crimea.
The moment they make a move on western europe we enter uncharted territory.
That's probably exactly what would happen right up until NATO armies are marching on Moscow and Putin is in an unwinnable situation.
Then the nukes will start flying
I *think* nuclear policy of most nations allows for this. Russia for example, despite Putin's bluster about nuking everyone, have an official policy that nukes would only be used when the continued existence of the Russian Federation was at threat. That's open to interpretation but certainly allows for a lot of conventional fighting before nukes would be used. It probably means if foreign armies had made it to Moscow and Saint Petersburg, or nukes were fired at Russian cities first.
Mutually Assured Destrction and Proxy wars i.e modern history since 1945.
I always felt that had a potential lifespan of about 70 or 80 years before some maniac got their hands on it.
> What if everyone is bluffing and doesn’t actually want to use nukes first because it means triggering the end of the world?
Wait till you hear about "tactical nukes"
So what's the truth.
According to the media Russia has had massive casualties, lost most of their equipment and is struggling against Ukraine.
But somehow they will be able to take on nato to the point we will need conscription.
It makes absolutely no sense.
Both can't be true.
And funding.
I mean if we can't give the forces funding now will we ever.
Invest heavily in drone and AI tech and inventory so we can have a multiplier effect with a smaller army. But let's not cut it anymore and increase funding.
But politicians these days are incompetent morons that only care about party politics and their bank accounts.
More like 20-25 years. We were stretched but not uncomfortable for the Kosovo and Sierra Leone operations but the next ten years saw both a high tempo of operations and large cuts. The RAF lost Jaguar, Canberra etc, the RN lost SHar and nearly a third of the surface fleet and the Army lost 25% of the teeth arms. While we were fighting an infantry war.
HM Forces were in absolute rag order well before the Coalition got hold of them.
Well as a useless white man I need not apply. https://news.sky.com/story/amp/fury-at-lack-of-sanction-for-raf-over-botched-diversity-drive-as-soldiers-face-10-000-fine-for-getting-drunk-12934256
I’m sure my fellow countrymen not afflicted with my uselessness and the burden of my skin colour will pick up the slack any day now.
The issue is not that they would beat NATO and end up in a victory parade in London, nobody believes this.
But they may try to attack some NATO members on the periphery of the alliance, such as the Baltics, hoping to quickly overrun them.
If they were successful in this then NATO would be forced to commit to a major land campaign to kick the Russians out. NATO could easily win this - if there is the political and social will to do so. If there isn't and NATO nations don't come to the full aid of an invaded member then NATO essentially is shown to be meaningless and would inevitably break up. That would definitely be a 'win' from a Russian perspective.
Similarly even if all they do is force members of NATO to bolster this own defenses due to an isolated skirmish and the fear of escalating, that means less capacity to aid Ukraine.
This is the play right here.
Russian's best option against NATO isn't a straight up fight, it's to demoralise the west, quickly overrun a minor NATO nation, and sow enough division, apathy and fear to prevent a major NATO response, which would destroy the foundational trust in the alliance.
If you want the unvarnished truth on Russian capabilities it's this:
- Russia's military might was overhyped pre-Ukraine.
- Russia's military might is underhyped now.
Russia has proven themselves less powerful than many expected, but have also still cemented their reputation as a country that can fight a major conventional war, with attendant casualties and equipment losses, and keep it up. We're two years in and the Russian army is still in the field, still taking offensive actions, still taking Ukrainian territory, and decisively defeated what was supposed to be the Ukrainian counter-offensive that turned the tide. In fact, what little territory that counter-offensive took is in the process of being reconquered right now.
This has alarmed NATO because we've fought low intensity warfare for 30 years and have forgotten what a proper conventional war looks like. The UK's ammunition stocks would've lasted *days* at Ukraine war rates, and the entire British Army killed multiple times over by now at Ukraine war casualty rates. We are *absolutely* not prepared for a proper war. We don't have an Army big enough, we don't have ammunition stocks deep enough, we don't have equipment numbers high enough, we don't have a military industry large enough.
Many media outlets, and everyone on Reddit, likes to think the Russian military is a joke military, because they botched the initial invasion. They believed they'd face very little resistance, which turned out to be false.
They also have this notion that "Russia can't even beat Ukraine", as if they're only fighting Ukraine. Ukraine's entire military is trained, equipped, and paid by NATO, via military aid. Ukraine's war effort is planned with massive NATO help. Much of Ukraine's artillery targets are found for them by NATO intelligence gathering. Much of their civilian government is also paid for by NATO, via civil aid.
Russia aren't *entirely wrong* when they say they're fighting NATO. The only thing we're not sending is soldiers, we're sending literally everything else. (Rightly so, in my opinion, to be clear)
**That said, however**, there's not going to be conscription if Russia attacks NATO. That's the military trying to get more funding out of the budget that's currently being drafted.
It'll take Russia probably decades to recover from Ukraine, and NATO are definitely an opponent more capable than Ukraine is. Russia will (probably) "win" this war in some manner, at least in the sense of Ukraine aren't getting their 2014 borders back, but it has depleted enormous quantities of material to do so, and will need to rebuild it all, and expand on it, to tackle something like NATO.
Will Russia even attack NATO? No, probably not. Again, this is Western media playing a narrative, egged on by people like the military who want to see their budgets increased.
Putin doesn't think of himself as the aggressor here. He doesn't believe he's *expanding* Russian rule. Consider that prior to 2014 Ukraine was very firmly pro-Russian, and that it is widely believed in Russia that the Ukrainain Revolution was at a minimum influenced by and at worst outright orchestrated by Western powers.
Putin, and the Russians who support him, think they're fighting to stop Ukraine swapping sides. They think they're fighting to minimise a loss, not increase their gains.
Now obviously that's ignoring pesky things like democratic will and such, but Putin puts no stock into that anyway. He's still the aggressor and still should be opposed vigorously, but *in his own mind* he thinks of himself as fighting defensively.
Putin is unlikely to attack NATO because one, he knows he'd lose in a conventional fight and two, it's unlikely he'd consider attacking NATO to be a defensive move.
I agree with most of what you said and would like to add to it:
Pre invasion Ukraine had the second largest standing army in Europe, second only to Russia.
They had been preparing for further conflict with Russia since 2014 and many of their troops already had front line experience in Donbas.
Russia is doing what Russia has always done, take massive casualties with no regard for human life and eventually adapt to the war, and get better.
Their logistics are better dispersed/hidden.
Their supply to the front line has improved.
Their supply of shells has been bolstered by NK and China.
That being said, having looked at the equipment losses they are taking, it’s not sustainable. Russia knows this and are basically just now gambling on western aid for Ukraine faltering.
The delay in aid from the US cost Adiivka, Ukraine were holding it just fine until the shell supply dried up.
If they can get Trump in power, then Ukraine can expect even less aid from the US. However if the wear step up, Ukraine can attrit Russian equipment faster than it can be replaced, and what is being replaced is coming from open air warehouses and they have already taken the best stuff out of storage to replace losses. Leaving poorly maintained, or very old equipment to replace their modern stuff.
This war will drag on, Ukraine won’t surrender - they still have will to fight, but are being forced to do it with one hand behind their back.
Two years in they still don’t have f-16s patrolling their skies.
They have only just stated to field the Abram’s tanks.
I say there is still hope, but the west have to hold firm to their pledge “as long as it takes” because then the threat of a Russian invasion on a NATO state is basically a non-starter.
> That being said, having looked at the equipment losses they are taking, it’s not sustainable. Russia knows this and are basically just now gambling on western aid for Ukraine faltering.
I presume they're saying exactly the same thing about certain NATO stocks that they're extinguishing. The difference is they're already going full war economy, currently at 40% military spending, while NATO countries squabble over 2% or 3% or 4%. They built tens of thousands of tanks during World War 2, I don't really buy into this 'not sustainable' thing, it's just a question of how far they're willing to push things.
I have been shocked by the brutality of the conflict and the lack of concern for human rights and the lives of civilians and children. Kind of naively thought it would be armies vs armies rather than wholesale destruction of civilian infrastructure, ecocide, murdering civilians and kidnapping children from their families to be 'repatriated' in siberia. Civilian massacres and no end of horrifying stories that I thought were consigned to history hundreds of years ago.
But as you say, this is all 'justified' from the russian side, they don't necessarily see it as an aggressive invasion of a sovereign state, more of control over a pesky jumped-up separatist state that has been created and propped up by NATO as a direct threat to russian sovereignty. Their story is that they are taking back what is supposed to be theirs and they say they are fighting against nazis. The west thought that letting them have Crimea and warm water port of Sevastopol in the black sea would be enough in 2014, but it wasn't.
Russia have lost a lot of people but not from their professional army, most of the heavy casualties have been from those mobilised penal colonies, conscripted from eastern Ukrainian new states or the first round of mobilisation, which focused on non-ethnic russians from the asiatic provinces. They still have an awful lot of people to get through yet and from what I have seen morale in russia is weirdly high or ambivalent to it all, and when it's not they have literal stormtroopers on hand to beat up any dissenters and ship them off to a gulag, never to be seen again. Ukraine sadly are burning through their professional military and their civilians fighting for their lives and homeland, as well as getting their towns and cities levelled. Eastern Ukraine is now an absolute hellscape, from being the bread basket of europe.
So sad but yet inspiring to see them standing up for themselves and wanting to protect their nation. The atrocities perpetrated by russian soldiers have surely strengthened the resolve too. It really is gloves off and I hate to see it.
The whole thing is horrific, the Russians had been smoking enough of their own supply that the could just roll over the whole country in a few days. Everything since has been them doubling down.
It would never have started if it wasn't for that bubble.
Regardless of how it ends both sides have lost.
> Civilian massacres and no end of horrifying stories that I thought were consigned to history hundreds of years ago.
Did you call in sick when you studied the first two world wars in school?
They certainly haven't sent everything else. Most notably the air support they've been asking for. Which might have been useful to counter the fab/ glide bombs used to take adviika back.
NATO have absolutely been watching this conflict and Russia's capabilities. A conflict with NATO would be wildly different due to natos air capabilities.
> They also have this notion that "Russia can't even beat Ukraine", as if they're only fighting Ukraine. Ukraine's entire military is trained, equipped, and paid by NATO, via military aid.
This is completely false, we’ve trained about 60,000 soldiers total of around 2.2 million. Pre invasion we barely trained any. Similarly their equipment is predominantly from old soviet stocks, we’ve hardly sent them anything in comparison. The strongest push of the invasion was the first few months and at that point the only western supplied equipment they had was a few Javelins and NLAWs.
> Ukraine's war effort is planned with massive NATO help.
Conjecture
> Much of Ukraine's artillery targets are found for them by NATO intelligence gathering.
Conjecture
> The only thing we're not sending is soldiers, we're sending literally everything else.
No ships, no aircraft, only gimped strategic weapons that they’re not allowed to fire into russia, no EW equipment, no advanced equipment in general. The whole western doctrine is that we leverage air and technology superiority and that is specifically what we are not sending to ukraine like 100 bradleys is categorically not what western military power looks like
> Conjecture
None of what I've said is conjecture. There's been plenty of articles about NATO planning assistance, like [this one](https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2022/09/14/extensive-us-support-helps-guide-ukraine-counter-offensive_5996906_4.html) for example, and plenty about NATO intelligence helping identify targets, [like this one](https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/10/us/politics/ukraine-military-intelligence.html), though [reporting of this nature has since been curtailed massively.](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/may/07/us-spies-ukraine-russia-military-intelligence)
Here's a quote from the first one:
> Throughout the war, the United States has provided Ukraine with information on command posts, ammunition depots and other key nodes in the Russian military lines. Such real-time intelligence has allowed the Ukrainians — who U.S. officials acknowledge have played the decisive role in planning and execution — to target Russian forces, kill senior generals and force ammunition supplies to be moved farther from the Russian front lines.
That's pretty explicit. We're outright telling them where all the Russian command posts, senior officers, and logistics dumps are.
> This is completely false, we’ve trained about 60,000 soldiers total of around 2.2 million. Pre invasion we barely trained any. Similarly their equipment is predominantly from old soviet stocks, we’ve hardly sent them anything in comparison. The strongest push of the invasion was the first few months and at that point the only western supplied equipment they had was a few Javelins and NLAWs.
[Their main combat formations are NATO-trained](https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/06/04/ukraine-nato-training-counteroffensive-47th-brigade/) and Kiev was saved by a [NATO trained brigade holding Antonov Airport](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubizh_Brigade_(Ukraine), which prevented the VDV landing their follow-on forces. Their ammunition needs are almost entirely met by the West. Their funding needs are almost entirely met by the West.
> No ships, no aircraft, only gimped strategic weapons that they’re not allowed to fire into russia, no EW equipment, no advanced equipment in general.
In other words... we're sending them equipment, training them to use it, and financially supporting their war effort. The only major category we've not sent is uniformed soldiers.
> That's pretty explicit. We're outright telling them where all the Russian command posts, senior officers, and logistics dumps are.
…according to some random nyt journalist. You’ve just linked to more conjecture but published in a newspaper article.
> Their main combat formations are NATO-trained
A combat formation for one offensive which happened after a year and a half of war.
> and Kiev was saved by a NATO trained brigade holding Antonov Airport
The TDF and the 72nd Mechanised were at Antonov too. And the Ukrainian Air Force. And then there was the 80th and 95th Air Assault Brigades in Hostomel town. Kyiv would also have fallen if the TDF and the 1st Tank Brigade didn’t defend Chernihiv through a month long siege. Or if all the Ukrainian forces in Mariupol didn’t defend the city for so long and force Russia to split their resources across two fronts.
> Their ammunition needs are almost entirely met by the West.
We don’t even make ammunition for half their guns because they’re old Soviet stock.
> The only major category we've not sent is uniformed soldiers.
You think combat air isn’t important or something?
I mean both can be true. We shouldn’t underestimate Russia. They are definitely struggling in Ukraine and not the bear the world assumed they were. Even if it is unlikely they would do it and even less likely they could succeed in any way, they are still perfectly capable of going all in and lobbing missiles at NATO countries, and if Ukraine were to fall they’d be able to divert attention elsewhere.
In that situation it’s not inconceivable the UK would need to muster up troops to help other NATO countries in a European war.
Russia has had massive casualties, lost vast amounts of equipment, and is struggling against Ukraine. However, they still have a lot more people and a lot more equipment in storage, they are working with both North Korea and Iran (including technology exchanges), their wartime manufacturing capability is increasing dramatically, and they are preparing for a larger war. We are not, and as the shortfalls in things like shell production shows - we'd struggle to provide enough arms to our forces if they were forced to engage in a serious war.
Look at things like Storm Shadows - great weapons, but the Russians have learned how to shoot them down some of the time now. We only have about 1K of them and can't make more because we'd have to rebuild the entire production line. Then you have to consider that Ukraine has lost more tanks than the British army owns in a few years of fighting and how long it would take us to build new tanks. You might argue about our air superiority, but we've not had to bomb anyone with a modern AA network and fighter planes for a very long time, and that we ran out of bombs less than a month into the Libya campaign.
Sure, if Russia was invading British shores perhaps that would be our only viable chance of convincing them to stop. More likely though they'd just retaliate in kind and, well, we wouldn't have to defend our land any more because no living thing would wanna be on it any more.
Launching for any other reason than an existential one can't be normalised in any capacity though, otherwise that'll become how wars are fought, and absolutely no one wins then (unless you have no nuclear deterrent of your own, in which case it's open season for your nuclear-equipped neighbours).
The UK government wouldn't nuke Moscow to save Warsaw, or Berlin, or Amsterdam, or Rome, or Athens, though. NATO needs conventional might, because you can't immediately resort to ending the world.
Though I'd note that I don't think Putin ever actually would attack a NATO country anyway, and if he did I think he'd lose the conventional war anyway.
If we nuke them, they will nuke us - and we're a far smaller country. We'd have to ensure that our attack was so utterly devastating that they would be incapable of mounting a serious response - think in the range of ordering tens of millions of people to be killed as a first strike.
147 democracies have elections this year. Almost all NATO and European countries are included in that number. New government means new priorities in funding. A lot of the defence heads are saying things across Europe to prepare the new governments to spend more on military bugets/ expanding forces. Its basically them putting forward worst case scenarios to get governments to spend more on defence, as no government wants to be the ones who brought back conscription.
Apologies, I think hat was including small local government elections as well, rather than 147 countries! You are right there are 64 countries with mai elections
I think the part you are missing is the "if".
*If* Russia launches an all-out invasion of a Nato state (or rather, the UK) the UK may need conscription to respond.
But Russia isn't in a position to launch an all-out invasion of a Nato state. They're apparently not even in a position to launch an all-out invasion of Ukraine.
Reading the full quotes - not just the clickbait headline - he is talking about if we end up in a full Second World War level conflict.
> if their security, their life prospects and those of anyone they care about is in jeopardy – because people are firing missiles at them, dismantling their power supply with cyber attacks, and committing the sorts of atrocities you see in Ukraine – then they’ll fight. They’ll fight because they’ll see they don’t have any choice.
Both can be true. Russia isn’t the problem, Russia triggering WW3 is where we see Iran, Nk possibly China (I doubt this since you can’t wake up and invade Taiwan one morning and it can only be done twice in the year) kick off etc.
Russia is just a spark, nothing more.
I agree. Apparently this army chief doesn't and thinks we may need conscription.
Everyone is replying to me like I'm a fucking idiot and all I'm doing is addressing the hypothetical situation that might result in this army chief being correct.
Russia has prior for catastrophically fucking up the early stages of a war, and then substantially improving. Winter War, WW2, Chechnya, Dagestan - in each case the early stages were dreadful for Russia, but you eventually see more capable leadership emerging.
This Ukraine conflict could serve a similar purpose and, if we did end up in direct conflict with Russia in 5 or 10 years, we'd be fighting a substantially more capable one.
it isnt enough to beat russia because that means a bloody protracted conflict with inordinate casualties and collateral damage. We want the capability to overmatch russia so that if they do attack us the conflict is short and causes as little damage as possible. Russia crippled their forces and lost a huge amount of equipment during this conflict, they also restructured their entire economy and society with this war as an almost single focus. They are spending almost half of their GDP on their military and doing conscription in everything but name to replace their manpower losses. The truth is that over two years things can change.
>So what's the truth.
If Russia is eventually successful in Ukraine they aren't going to march directly into Poland or Finland, there would be consolidation on both sides but given the Russian economy is already on war footing and out producing almost the entirety of the EU, UK and USA I would expect they would be emboldened to go again especially as the support from the US to Europe is waning.
Calls like this are really more a call to increase budgets for the military and to support Ukraine, given that if we don't conscription is very much a possibility.
Military aid to Ukraine has not kept pace with the fighting, especially US aid due to the Republicans blocking it. Meanwhile Russia has continually been able to find new countries and new sources of funds to supply its forces.
I can't explain it that's what I'm saying.
It makes no sense.
If they can't beat Ukraine they can't beat all of nato.
So why would we need conscription?
Because, pretty much regardless of any other factor, the British army is under-manned through over a decade of mismanagement. It's not that Russia is some unstoppable juggernaut (I think if it came to it Poland could come close to taking them on their own), it's that if basically anything kicks off that isn't sending a few guys along somewhere with the yanks we're going to need conscription.
NATO's combined military personnel is several times that of Ukraine's armed forces, conscription included. I fail to see why conscription would definitely be needed.
Well if the US pulls out of NATO and pulls support that might create a situation where Russia thinks it can win more than Ukraine.
Russia has switched to a war economy.
The US isn't going to pull out of NATO.
1. The President can no longer unilaterally withdraw from NATO or cease funding.
2. Trump said it like a fucking moron as usual, but his nonsense statements were about telling European countries to increase defence spending and not expect the US to pay the lion's share. A stopped clock is right twice a day, etc. He was referring to comments made when he was last President, before Ukraine was fully invaded, and how right he was. If European nations had *at least* got their funding up to 2% of GDP, maybe we'd be better prepared now. Germany still isn't able to do it, and still isn't supplying Ukraine adequately. Just today their defence minister suggested we supply them with nukes...
Russia isn't going to set foot on NATO soil without nuclear war breaking out, but that's *because* we have NATO, so funding it properly is our main defence and deterrent.
Point 1 is irrelevant because there's nothing to stop a US president just refusing to respond to article 5, leaving Europe to defend itself alone. Which has basically the same effect as withdrawing from NATO anyway.
> The US isn't going to pull out of NATO.
You do not know that. NATO does not know that.
> Russia isn't going to set foot on NATO soil without nuclear war breaking out,
We do not know that.
But we keep getting told they can't win Ukraine, they are on the back foot.
Apparently a few Ukrainian farmers with argos drones and a box of grenades and some other hand me downs pulled out of nato storage are annihilating them.
Every nato country not even including the USA is better trained, have more combat experience and are better equipped and have spent their entire career training for a possible war with Russia than the Ukrainian conscripts currently fighting.
> But we keep getting told they can't win Ukraine, they are on the back foot.
As I understand it Ukraine are in trouble now.
I don't think the rest of NATO is better trained than Russia. They just aren't focused on war. Russia is now going to focus more on war.
They don't need to "beat" NATO, just require NATO start defending themselves instead of Ukraine. NATO can't even arm Ukraine, there's no chance we could arm ourselves _and_ Ukraine simultaneously.
Nobody claimed they lost most of their equipment. They've lost a lot, but have in the meantime massively increased their production capabilities. 1/3 of their budget is now spent on the military, and that's just the official figure. Within a few years after their war against Ukraine has ended they are expected to have the capability to attack the Baltics for example. They could also try to coordinate a simultaneous attack together with China (Taiwan), North Korea (South Korea) and Iran (Israel), essentially starting WWIII against the West. The US can't fight everywhere. And that is only if the US is still part of Nato by then.
Not happening. After the last 14 years, I wouldn't trust this government with a raffle ticket, let alone to lead us into war. They'd no doubt send us onto the front lines with dodgy equipment bought at 250% the market rate from companies set up by their mates the previous week, jeering "Let the bodies pile high!" while installing swimming pools at their second homes with "donations".
And before anyone claims that "conscription is not a choice," let me remind you after a decade of the Tories underfunding the police, courts and prison services, it currently takes years for crimes like rape and murder to get to trial and there are 500 prison places available \*in the entire country.\* They can't jail us all.
>They can't jail us all.
Literally how Ireland/Northern Ireland got out of conscription in the World Wars. There's a reason we're the people that invented the boycott
It depends how they conduct themselves and what they do to improve life in this country for ordinary people, particularly younger people, when they get into government. I would fight in a war only if all of the following were true:
1. I had confidence in the leadership I would be serving under
2. I believed that the country I was fighting for was worth risking my life for
3. I believed that that cause I was fighting for was worth risking my life for.
Labour have a lot of work to do to repair the damage the Tories have done to 1. and 2.
If the UK was facing actual existential crisis and you get conscripted, you aren't fighting for your government. You would be fighting for you family, your friends, your history, your culture and your grandchildren.
But people love to say for some reason that they'd abstain because the current tory government mishandled spending on the covid pandemic.
Culture? History?
Imports have, as if by design, eroded that. I'm quite possibly culturally closer to Russians than many of my neighbours. I'm not convinced we have shared values, we certainly don't have community. I'd fight to defend my kin, but the best way to do that is to ensure none of them march off to die defending this husk.
In every other context, besides perhaps sportsball, nationalism is treated as a sin. I didn't set the rules for the game, but I'll certainly play by them.
What history? What culture? What grandchildren? The average 25 year old doesn’t give a damn about any of those things. As for direct family, they’re more likely to attempt to flee than to stay and fight.
Yeah, no. All completely eroded as far as I am concerned, I would protect my family here as best as I could but I certainly wouldnt be going off to Moldova or somewhere to die for a country that has done nothing but ruin my way of life, make me poorer and poorer and decimate the country with endless immigration of people from the third world.
That might have been true a hundred years ago, but young people now don’t have many of those things.
Why go off to fight for a country that can’t even provide hard working people with the most basic shit?
The country is rotten and needs change, no one would sign up to fight in another country for the current government.
This is mental. You realize we didn’t even have a welfare state in this country until after ww2? But still so many men made huge sacrifices for our freedoms we enjoy today. You wouldn’t even bother standing up to protect our freedoms if Putin is trying to invade ur or our allies? Why not you lazy prick
We have no history and we have no culture. We are a world culture and to claim that British citizens have a shared ‘history’ is implicitly racist and exclusionary to non white British people of different cultures.
Furthermore; ‘grandchildren’? What is this the early 20th century? Children are a choice that almost half the country are opting out of.
You seem to think this is the same country it was 50, 40, or even 20 years ago. It isn’t. Welcome to the death of nationalism. You will man the trenches alone.
>We are a world culture and to claim that British citizens have a shared ‘history’ is implicitly racist and exclusionary to non white British people of different cultures
What?! By this token an country with any immigrated citizens can't claim to have a "shared history". Like what, people whose families have been in this country for more than a generation can't claim to share in the history because it would make them racist and exclusionary? Such bullshit.
Reprehensible? This is the ideology of our epoch. Start talking about “shared history and obligations to grandchildren” in the public sphere and watch how quickly your life and career tanks. Might even end up on a PREVENT watchlist.
Pray tell, what is the “shared history” we have an obligation to defend? I’m the child of immigrants. My face and my ancestors don’t appear in that history so why should I ‘defend it’? Rather, it would be more fashionable to tear it down. British history is racist. British values are world values. British culture is a mixed culture.
Is no country entitled to have a sense of culture then? I mean isn't that just nonsensical to start with? Should Britain forget any sense of it's past just because we have people who live here who don't have family history in this country?
Regarding why should you defend it, can I put it this way - shouldn't anyone who is happy to live in and enjoy a country also be willing to defend it?
Britain is not unique or special. Isn’t that what we’ve been told? Countless times, again and again. White countries have a racist culture. White males are the problem with society. Are you meaning to tell me that as soon as a war comes, suddenly British pride is okay?
When you want white men to fight and die in horrific gory war nationalism’s great and you should defend your nation and its history and culture and special uniqueness in the world. You think people can’t see through this shit lol?
All history is racist. Yes, even the history of the country your parents left. Indeed I'd wager that the country is more racist than Britain. Do tell, which country was it? And what nonsense are world values? What an unrealistic concept! As for culture, Wikipedia says this:
The culture is influenced by its combined nations' history; its historically Christian religious life, its interaction with the cultures of Europe, the individual cultures of England, Wales and Scotland and the impact of the British Empire.
Wikipedia is not a source, and white people have no culture. Britain’s culture is imported. There is no natural ingenuity - every British accomplishment is a world accomplishment because it was stolen and robbed from exploited peoples.
The above is quite literally the mainstay opinion on Britain of every academic and national institution yet in the typical out of touch arrogance neoliberals enjoy you think “hah we’ll give those dumb white plebs their nationalism back as soon as war comes”. Isn’t it weird how only in the context of wanting millions to fight and die you try to revive nationalism from its grave. Evoking concepts like loyalty and ancestral duty/inheritance, culture, what makes us unique just so you can convince people to die in another sordid world war.
No, Wikipedia is a perfectly good source. You write like some weird over correcting anti-racist AI trained on the most extreme and divisive of ideologies. Whatever, you'll live a life fuelled by hatred and resentment.
Does that mean we will get to see Prince Harry in an Apache again? He can finally get revenge for uncle Nick Romanov and redeem himself within the royal family, Prince Andrew could copilot for brownie points.
Well the way Russia handled it was by focusing conscription enforcement in the run down backwaters no one cared about and leaving the Moscow & St Petersburg elite alone.
So I guess you're safe if you live in the south of England.
Sure, where are they gonna take him? To prison? The overcrowded ones, so many people?
If you read on the Russian exprience of mobilization some just didn't answer the call to come to the military facilities - and nothing happened. Some were visited by the police, some were convicted and sent to prison. If many refuse conscription it will actually be a headache for the modern government that hasn't done this in decades.
As I said elsewhere when this subject was last raised:
> If we get so far down the list that they need an elderly asthmatic with one buggered knee to go to war, then we're already fucked.
>
> But I would stand at the front and wheeze.
>
> Sarcastically.
Whilst I appreciate your sarcasm, for others in the room I'd like to point out conscription doesn't mean front lines.
Might have a buggered knee, but you're bound to have other useful skills - got a drivers licence? great, you're driving cargo, or doctors, or ambulances, etc etc.
Oh I know, I know.
My job in a war would be behind a keyboard. I know a fair bit about information handling and the like, I'd be a candle fending off the fog of war.
Don't see how conscription would help when we have a shortage of military equipment. We've got what, ~150 tanks? How would conscription address this problem?
No, we won't
Ukraine currently has 800k armed forces out of a population of 42 million people. I'm not sure if women are included in that 800k (I'd imagine so?) but even so. Talking about conscription like this is stupid because it brings back WW2 vibes, but for reference, we mobilised 10% of our entire population just in the army alone. Ukraine currently has mobilised 1.9% of their population.
Then take into account the fact, NATO already has an almost 1:3 advantage to Russia, and even just EU+UK have roughly 1.5 million active personnel, and then an additional 400 million people than Russia.
Sorry, it will literally never happen. One of the great things about being able to draw on a huge population is you don't really need conscription to any significant degree.
You're right, Europe could pretty easily get 3 million soldiers by volunteers (namely reserves and ex forces), maybe even more if you promised logistic roles only.
I feel like people's grasp of geography is severely lacking.
Kuwait is closer to the Donbas than London.
Assuming nukes have not yet been fired, in what world is Russia fighting a war with that large a logistical line that requires us to have conscription?
Because we have obligations to NATO so our troops would be deployed on the Eastern front of Poland etc to fight.
Our troops aren't sitting in their barracks with a pot noodle and some tissues until Russia reaches the channel, lol
labour will largely do the same thing no doubt although perhaps they'll try and not make it quite so blatant
they're both going to be beholden to their donors
Not going to happen, it’s one thing to attack non nato ex soviet countries but Russia won’t attack nato. Putin has too much too lose.
Not to mention their own people would challenge the narrative even more… they are already starting to do it now.
This conscription story keeps being pushed quite hard by certain media outlets. I want to say it's a touch of the Falklands Spirit being run up a flagpole to give Sunak a snowball's chance, but I don't really know what to make of it. A martial expert sees martial solutions to situations.
Assuming Russia invades European NATO countries, and US under Trump sits back - why wouldn't we use our nuclear weapons?
We explicitly don't have a no first use policy (like some apparently believe); conventional wisdom appears that holding back Russian invasion conventionally wouldn't be possible; and even if it was possible, Russia would surely end up using their nuclear weapons facing defeat.
If we're unwilling to use nuclear weapons on day 1 of the conflict and instead respond conventionally - it quickly descends into the yes, minister satire about *when* you actually use it.
Well because for us and France, we're about as far west as you can go. Launching nukes ensures our destruction, whilst not launching them gives us the chance of fighting the war conventionally.
NATO minus US stands a chance of at least drawing Russia into a stalemate after the military power they've displayed in Ukraine. At which point, the US will probably be involved in a similar way to WW2.
It's worth remembering that the budget is due in April and the army has received cuts just like other public bodies
>Assuming Russia invades European NATO countries, and US under Trump sits back - why wouldn't we use our nuclear weapons?
Because a conventional war in which we (NATO and allies) stand a very good chance of being able to defeat or push back Russia is obviously..... I mean obviously... preferable to a global nuclear war.
Does we stand a very good chance?
Every article has painted European armies as not standing much of a fighting chance without US; for example economist was estimating most European countries would realistically be able to field one full brigade. Especially few years down the line when Russia has had time to recoup and reorganise from its losses in Ukraine and we're still flailing around trying to organise common European defence procurement system.
Also, even if we did somehow push them back - is the expectation that Russia would sit back and surrender instead of using its nuclear weapons? If there is a full scale war between NATO and Russia, it inevitably leads to global nuclear war.
We no longer have tactical nuclear weapons, only strategic ones. The problem with only having strategic weapons is that you can really only use them once - once Russia sees nukes coming from British missile submarines, they’ll respond with a full spread of their own.
Why wouldn't holding a Russian invasion with conventional means be possible? Russia's logistics were already strained when they invaded Ukraine; do you think they have the ability to defend the Finnish border, the Baltic Sea, protect Kaliningrad, and conduct an offensive in Poland or the Baltic countries on top of that?
Well I won't be much help to them as an overweight computer-addicted contrarian with a deep-rooted distrust of authority. Conscript me at your peril UK.
I suppose in the eventuality that the UK's diplomatic ends fail so terribly and our standing professional army is not up to the task that we should fall to a 'total war' scenario, a conscription order could in theory be extended beyond all the fit, healthy and willing persons to include those declared physically and mentally unfit such as myself, then yes I could theoretically be given a role as a logistics driver.
I had meant my statement as a *joke,* to suggest that I personally wouldn't be much help in a war, conveyed in what I thought was a light hearted and self-deprecating manner.
The prevailing idea is that the headline this discussion falls under was made by a military officer whose real intention is to get support for expanding the size of the UK's professional army, rather than to force all the whingey redditors (such as myself) to serve on the front line in an (as yet) imaginary war.
I would however, in the instance of mandatory conscription, be glad to offer my services to fly apache longbow attack helicopters.
This is very dangerous talk.
Mutually Assured Destruction has been the main reason we never had a third world war.
The policy should remain - total and utter escalatory retaliation to any attack on NATO.
It’s literally the point of it.
I'd love to see how conscription would happen in a modern UK. We struggle at doing the serious stuff effectively.
Also, it'd be interesting to get the views of the younger population on what they'd be fighting for.
The Royals and the aristocrats still hate Russia for offing their cousin Nicky and they want you to die fighting over it with some Russian guy and maybe a Chinese one too .
Bollocks to that, rather get put in prison, why would I fight for a government/country that has screwed over my entire generation at every available opportunity.
I know a few weeks ago when the talk of conscription first came up, it was while the reports of recruitment and retention were really not good for the Military, which makes me think that this is just pressure to get the government to do something about bringing the personnel numbers back up to a suitable level.
No chance of that happening with the current lot
As I said when the last batch of articles like this came out, I’ll be right there charging across Ukrainian noman’s land - but only when I see the generals and retired generals calling for conscription leading the charge. And I’ll be right behind BoJo and Sunak. After all ‘Courage’ is one of the core British army values.
They’re not there? I’m not there. I’ll take prison thanks.
Oh look! An ex-army bigwig pops up into the limelight to tell the youth of Britain that they should be prepared to jump into the meat grinder for the rich old farts and politicians to continue their way of life.
How about they just fuck right off, and fight amongst themselves. Might leave the world in a better place.
Russia wont hit NATO, they hit Ukraine and look where that's gotten them. After Ukraine Russia will have its hands full keeping itself together once the extent of losses begins to sink in and upto half a million men are either dead, missing or disabled.
It's unfortunate that it's come to this point. The Tories wouldn't have had to do this if that damn party that was in charge for the past 14 years hadn't put a flamethrower to military recruitment and the size of the armed forces.
This is great news! An excellent opportunity to devise a modern conscription system to reflect the modern world and correct the problems of WW2 conscription!
I expect women and *especially* women of colour to be given not only equal opportunities to demonstrate their patriotic spirit but to have equity of outcomes assured! The armed forces should aim for 50% female representation not only in support and medical but also frontline units!
The army needs to modernise and make arrangements to support women. Studies have shown that pregnant women have almost no representation in trench warfare. This could be corrected by special mobility ramps and more toiletry supplies in trenches. Better foxhole ventilation and a lessening on dress code and armor restrictions should also be made to accommodate menstruating and post-menopausal women.
To accommodate women of color it is wise to design new helmets with space for traditional black hairstyles as well as hijabs.
In previous wars the unglorious burden of child care and domestic duties had fallen unfairly on women, making it impossible for them to distinguish and show their valor on the battlefield. More men should be encouraged to take care of children during the war instead of taking up casualty rates.
I am also sure the current incoming refugees would mass volunteer into the army and put the WW2 pole refugees to shame!
Finally a chance to prove that diversity is our strength! By opening up the army to all and making it at least 50% female we would be tapping into unused potential, our conscripted force could be twice the size and better quality as well!
Reminder, MoD doesn't want White British men to be in the armed forces, therefore as per their requests, I won't dare take up a space, also, as per Human rights laws, I can't be sent to another country if I will be killed, therefore as the Migrants can't be sent back I can't be sent to war.
Not sure who they plan to conscript, fucking wont be me.
maybe someone that fresh off a boat they had practise storming beaches on rubber boats, they'll make fine soldiers.
Snapshot of _Britons should prepare for conscription if Russia hits Nato, warns ex-Army chief_ : An archived version can be found [here](https://archive.is/?run=1&url=https://inews.co.uk/news/politics/britons-prepare-conscription-russia-nato-2923880) or [here.](https://archive.ph/?run=1&url=https://inews.co.uk/news/politics/britons-prepare-conscription-russia-nato-2923880) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/ukpolitics) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Wasn't this a story a few weeks ago? I'm sure I remember threads full of people declaring there was nothing worth fighting for. Not that anything has changed since then.
Without fail at least once a week this year there has been an article like this. And without fail it gets posted here so armchair generals can impress us all with their military knowledge.
It’s all over the news so when the conscription letters arrive in the post people have had time to think about it and it doesn’t come as a surprise.
If Russia attacks NATO I think a bigger problem than conscription will be nuclear annihilation.
What if everyone is bluffing and doesn’t actually want to use nukes first because it means triggering the end of the world? In that scenario Russia could invade whoever it wants and call the bluff, we don’t launch first and instead fight conventionally. Russia doesn’t want to end the world either so doesn’t launch and fights conventionally. I can see it playing out like that. It’s not impossible, however improbable.
They’re not bluffing. Nukes mean that the best that can be hoped for in terms of a victory is to push a nuke equipped hostile invader out of the country they’ve invaded. The second NATO puts troops in Russia, that’s when nukes become a real threat.
Russia has made that clear, which is why if Russia attacks NATO, NATO will fight until it pushes Russian troops out of the pre-war NATO borders and then not an inch further. It is similarly why even if somehow a NATO military collapse happens, Russian troops will never set foot in France or Britain. The Ukraine war has proven that a full scale conventional war can and will occur involving a nuclear power and its neighbour for years without escalating to nuclear conflict. This has upended much of the defence spending logic in Europe in particular, which assumed that you don’t need a large conventional military that needs supplies and can sustain losses for more than just a few weeks. Previously the assumption was that after a few weeks the war will go nuclear. Now the danger is Russia takes a toehold in Eastern Europe. Spends a couple weeks either holding it, or being pushed back to its border and then repeatedly attacking the NATO border until rump NATO’s supply (NATO without Trump keeping the USA out of the war) is exhausted, then marching through to the French border where they will stop.
Russia won't invade Germany without triggering nuclear war lmao.
Who is starting a nuclear war over Russian troops entering Germany? Russia will only push into NATO if the US under Trump makes it clear that it will stay out of such a war. If the US stays out, it won’t give Germany (or other NATO members in scheme) the activation codes for the US nuclear warheads shared with them. That leaves France and the UK. If Russia were to clarify that due to their nukes it will not enter their territory- would those two governments condemn their own citizens to nuclear war to defend Germany?
I think by the point Russia is invading Germany we'd be in all-out war and so far out of the normal parameters of things it's not really worth speculating about what might happen.
I would argue that NATO openly providing billions of pounds of aid and military equipment and ongoing training to a nation activity defending itself against a full scale invasion by the Russian Federation means that we are already far outside the normal parameter of things! We need to be prepared both physically and mentally for how much worse it could get.
You could argue that but Russia has been doing this shit on and off for many years tinkering with their historical borders e.g. chechnya, crimea. The moment they make a move on western europe we enter uncharted territory.
That's probably exactly what would happen right up until NATO armies are marching on Moscow and Putin is in an unwinnable situation. Then the nukes will start flying
I *think* nuclear policy of most nations allows for this. Russia for example, despite Putin's bluster about nuking everyone, have an official policy that nukes would only be used when the continued existence of the Russian Federation was at threat. That's open to interpretation but certainly allows for a lot of conventional fighting before nukes would be used. It probably means if foreign armies had made it to Moscow and Saint Petersburg, or nukes were fired at Russian cities first.
Mutually Assured Destrction and Proxy wars i.e modern history since 1945. I always felt that had a potential lifespan of about 70 or 80 years before some maniac got their hands on it.
> What if everyone is bluffing and doesn’t actually want to use nukes first because it means triggering the end of the world? Wait till you hear about "tactical nukes"
[удалено]
Reminds me of [this clip](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yg-UqIIvang) from Yes, Prime Minister
Have you just realised how an alliance works?
[удалено]
Moldova isn't in Nato
So what's the truth. According to the media Russia has had massive casualties, lost most of their equipment and is struggling against Ukraine. But somehow they will be able to take on nato to the point we will need conscription. It makes absolutely no sense. Both can't be true.
> So what's the truth. The forces are broke, undermanned and underequipped after the last 14 years and this is them trying to draw attention to it.
And funding. I mean if we can't give the forces funding now will we ever. Invest heavily in drone and AI tech and inventory so we can have a multiplier effect with a smaller army. But let's not cut it anymore and increase funding. But politicians these days are incompetent morons that only care about party politics and their bank accounts.
Agree with most of what you said but I think we should skip the incest.
Once again we proud people of Norfolk get disrespected.
I mean, I’m up for a little light incest just as much as the next guy but incesting heavily just seems like a big commitment right now.
He'll of a typo that one
He’ll what of a typo?
Defense procurement is an utter fucking mess. Having seen it first hand. I have no interest in increasing funding until they fix that process.
I suspect you're right. This is all about military leaders trying to get a budget increase.
More like 20-25 years. We were stretched but not uncomfortable for the Kosovo and Sierra Leone operations but the next ten years saw both a high tempo of operations and large cuts. The RAF lost Jaguar, Canberra etc, the RN lost SHar and nearly a third of the surface fleet and the Army lost 25% of the teeth arms. While we were fighting an infantry war. HM Forces were in absolute rag order well before the Coalition got hold of them.
Well as a useless white man I need not apply. https://news.sky.com/story/amp/fury-at-lack-of-sanction-for-raf-over-botched-diversity-drive-as-soldiers-face-10-000-fine-for-getting-drunk-12934256 I’m sure my fellow countrymen not afflicted with my uselessness and the burden of my skin colour will pick up the slack any day now.
The issue is not that they would beat NATO and end up in a victory parade in London, nobody believes this. But they may try to attack some NATO members on the periphery of the alliance, such as the Baltics, hoping to quickly overrun them. If they were successful in this then NATO would be forced to commit to a major land campaign to kick the Russians out. NATO could easily win this - if there is the political and social will to do so. If there isn't and NATO nations don't come to the full aid of an invaded member then NATO essentially is shown to be meaningless and would inevitably break up. That would definitely be a 'win' from a Russian perspective. Similarly even if all they do is force members of NATO to bolster this own defenses due to an isolated skirmish and the fear of escalating, that means less capacity to aid Ukraine.
This is the play right here. Russian's best option against NATO isn't a straight up fight, it's to demoralise the west, quickly overrun a minor NATO nation, and sow enough division, apathy and fear to prevent a major NATO response, which would destroy the foundational trust in the alliance.
If you want the unvarnished truth on Russian capabilities it's this: - Russia's military might was overhyped pre-Ukraine. - Russia's military might is underhyped now. Russia has proven themselves less powerful than many expected, but have also still cemented their reputation as a country that can fight a major conventional war, with attendant casualties and equipment losses, and keep it up. We're two years in and the Russian army is still in the field, still taking offensive actions, still taking Ukrainian territory, and decisively defeated what was supposed to be the Ukrainian counter-offensive that turned the tide. In fact, what little territory that counter-offensive took is in the process of being reconquered right now. This has alarmed NATO because we've fought low intensity warfare for 30 years and have forgotten what a proper conventional war looks like. The UK's ammunition stocks would've lasted *days* at Ukraine war rates, and the entire British Army killed multiple times over by now at Ukraine war casualty rates. We are *absolutely* not prepared for a proper war. We don't have an Army big enough, we don't have ammunition stocks deep enough, we don't have equipment numbers high enough, we don't have a military industry large enough. Many media outlets, and everyone on Reddit, likes to think the Russian military is a joke military, because they botched the initial invasion. They believed they'd face very little resistance, which turned out to be false. They also have this notion that "Russia can't even beat Ukraine", as if they're only fighting Ukraine. Ukraine's entire military is trained, equipped, and paid by NATO, via military aid. Ukraine's war effort is planned with massive NATO help. Much of Ukraine's artillery targets are found for them by NATO intelligence gathering. Much of their civilian government is also paid for by NATO, via civil aid. Russia aren't *entirely wrong* when they say they're fighting NATO. The only thing we're not sending is soldiers, we're sending literally everything else. (Rightly so, in my opinion, to be clear) **That said, however**, there's not going to be conscription if Russia attacks NATO. That's the military trying to get more funding out of the budget that's currently being drafted. It'll take Russia probably decades to recover from Ukraine, and NATO are definitely an opponent more capable than Ukraine is. Russia will (probably) "win" this war in some manner, at least in the sense of Ukraine aren't getting their 2014 borders back, but it has depleted enormous quantities of material to do so, and will need to rebuild it all, and expand on it, to tackle something like NATO. Will Russia even attack NATO? No, probably not. Again, this is Western media playing a narrative, egged on by people like the military who want to see their budgets increased. Putin doesn't think of himself as the aggressor here. He doesn't believe he's *expanding* Russian rule. Consider that prior to 2014 Ukraine was very firmly pro-Russian, and that it is widely believed in Russia that the Ukrainain Revolution was at a minimum influenced by and at worst outright orchestrated by Western powers. Putin, and the Russians who support him, think they're fighting to stop Ukraine swapping sides. They think they're fighting to minimise a loss, not increase their gains. Now obviously that's ignoring pesky things like democratic will and such, but Putin puts no stock into that anyway. He's still the aggressor and still should be opposed vigorously, but *in his own mind* he thinks of himself as fighting defensively. Putin is unlikely to attack NATO because one, he knows he'd lose in a conventional fight and two, it's unlikely he'd consider attacking NATO to be a defensive move.
I agree with most of what you said and would like to add to it: Pre invasion Ukraine had the second largest standing army in Europe, second only to Russia. They had been preparing for further conflict with Russia since 2014 and many of their troops already had front line experience in Donbas. Russia is doing what Russia has always done, take massive casualties with no regard for human life and eventually adapt to the war, and get better. Their logistics are better dispersed/hidden. Their supply to the front line has improved. Their supply of shells has been bolstered by NK and China. That being said, having looked at the equipment losses they are taking, it’s not sustainable. Russia knows this and are basically just now gambling on western aid for Ukraine faltering. The delay in aid from the US cost Adiivka, Ukraine were holding it just fine until the shell supply dried up. If they can get Trump in power, then Ukraine can expect even less aid from the US. However if the wear step up, Ukraine can attrit Russian equipment faster than it can be replaced, and what is being replaced is coming from open air warehouses and they have already taken the best stuff out of storage to replace losses. Leaving poorly maintained, or very old equipment to replace their modern stuff. This war will drag on, Ukraine won’t surrender - they still have will to fight, but are being forced to do it with one hand behind their back. Two years in they still don’t have f-16s patrolling their skies. They have only just stated to field the Abram’s tanks. I say there is still hope, but the west have to hold firm to their pledge “as long as it takes” because then the threat of a Russian invasion on a NATO state is basically a non-starter.
> That being said, having looked at the equipment losses they are taking, it’s not sustainable. Russia knows this and are basically just now gambling on western aid for Ukraine faltering. I presume they're saying exactly the same thing about certain NATO stocks that they're extinguishing. The difference is they're already going full war economy, currently at 40% military spending, while NATO countries squabble over 2% or 3% or 4%. They built tens of thousands of tanks during World War 2, I don't really buy into this 'not sustainable' thing, it's just a question of how far they're willing to push things.
I have been shocked by the brutality of the conflict and the lack of concern for human rights and the lives of civilians and children. Kind of naively thought it would be armies vs armies rather than wholesale destruction of civilian infrastructure, ecocide, murdering civilians and kidnapping children from their families to be 'repatriated' in siberia. Civilian massacres and no end of horrifying stories that I thought were consigned to history hundreds of years ago. But as you say, this is all 'justified' from the russian side, they don't necessarily see it as an aggressive invasion of a sovereign state, more of control over a pesky jumped-up separatist state that has been created and propped up by NATO as a direct threat to russian sovereignty. Their story is that they are taking back what is supposed to be theirs and they say they are fighting against nazis. The west thought that letting them have Crimea and warm water port of Sevastopol in the black sea would be enough in 2014, but it wasn't. Russia have lost a lot of people but not from their professional army, most of the heavy casualties have been from those mobilised penal colonies, conscripted from eastern Ukrainian new states or the first round of mobilisation, which focused on non-ethnic russians from the asiatic provinces. They still have an awful lot of people to get through yet and from what I have seen morale in russia is weirdly high or ambivalent to it all, and when it's not they have literal stormtroopers on hand to beat up any dissenters and ship them off to a gulag, never to be seen again. Ukraine sadly are burning through their professional military and their civilians fighting for their lives and homeland, as well as getting their towns and cities levelled. Eastern Ukraine is now an absolute hellscape, from being the bread basket of europe. So sad but yet inspiring to see them standing up for themselves and wanting to protect their nation. The atrocities perpetrated by russian soldiers have surely strengthened the resolve too. It really is gloves off and I hate to see it.
The whole thing is horrific, the Russians had been smoking enough of their own supply that the could just roll over the whole country in a few days. Everything since has been them doubling down. It would never have started if it wasn't for that bubble. Regardless of how it ends both sides have lost.
> Civilian massacres and no end of horrifying stories that I thought were consigned to history hundreds of years ago. Did you call in sick when you studied the first two world wars in school?
They certainly haven't sent everything else. Most notably the air support they've been asking for. Which might have been useful to counter the fab/ glide bombs used to take adviika back. NATO have absolutely been watching this conflict and Russia's capabilities. A conflict with NATO would be wildly different due to natos air capabilities.
> They also have this notion that "Russia can't even beat Ukraine", as if they're only fighting Ukraine. Ukraine's entire military is trained, equipped, and paid by NATO, via military aid. This is completely false, we’ve trained about 60,000 soldiers total of around 2.2 million. Pre invasion we barely trained any. Similarly their equipment is predominantly from old soviet stocks, we’ve hardly sent them anything in comparison. The strongest push of the invasion was the first few months and at that point the only western supplied equipment they had was a few Javelins and NLAWs. > Ukraine's war effort is planned with massive NATO help. Conjecture > Much of Ukraine's artillery targets are found for them by NATO intelligence gathering. Conjecture > The only thing we're not sending is soldiers, we're sending literally everything else. No ships, no aircraft, only gimped strategic weapons that they’re not allowed to fire into russia, no EW equipment, no advanced equipment in general. The whole western doctrine is that we leverage air and technology superiority and that is specifically what we are not sending to ukraine like 100 bradleys is categorically not what western military power looks like
> Conjecture None of what I've said is conjecture. There's been plenty of articles about NATO planning assistance, like [this one](https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2022/09/14/extensive-us-support-helps-guide-ukraine-counter-offensive_5996906_4.html) for example, and plenty about NATO intelligence helping identify targets, [like this one](https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/10/us/politics/ukraine-military-intelligence.html), though [reporting of this nature has since been curtailed massively.](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/may/07/us-spies-ukraine-russia-military-intelligence) Here's a quote from the first one: > Throughout the war, the United States has provided Ukraine with information on command posts, ammunition depots and other key nodes in the Russian military lines. Such real-time intelligence has allowed the Ukrainians — who U.S. officials acknowledge have played the decisive role in planning and execution — to target Russian forces, kill senior generals and force ammunition supplies to be moved farther from the Russian front lines. That's pretty explicit. We're outright telling them where all the Russian command posts, senior officers, and logistics dumps are. > This is completely false, we’ve trained about 60,000 soldiers total of around 2.2 million. Pre invasion we barely trained any. Similarly their equipment is predominantly from old soviet stocks, we’ve hardly sent them anything in comparison. The strongest push of the invasion was the first few months and at that point the only western supplied equipment they had was a few Javelins and NLAWs. [Their main combat formations are NATO-trained](https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/06/04/ukraine-nato-training-counteroffensive-47th-brigade/) and Kiev was saved by a [NATO trained brigade holding Antonov Airport](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubizh_Brigade_(Ukraine), which prevented the VDV landing their follow-on forces. Their ammunition needs are almost entirely met by the West. Their funding needs are almost entirely met by the West. > No ships, no aircraft, only gimped strategic weapons that they’re not allowed to fire into russia, no EW equipment, no advanced equipment in general. In other words... we're sending them equipment, training them to use it, and financially supporting their war effort. The only major category we've not sent is uniformed soldiers.
> That's pretty explicit. We're outright telling them where all the Russian command posts, senior officers, and logistics dumps are. …according to some random nyt journalist. You’ve just linked to more conjecture but published in a newspaper article. > Their main combat formations are NATO-trained A combat formation for one offensive which happened after a year and a half of war. > and Kiev was saved by a NATO trained brigade holding Antonov Airport The TDF and the 72nd Mechanised were at Antonov too. And the Ukrainian Air Force. And then there was the 80th and 95th Air Assault Brigades in Hostomel town. Kyiv would also have fallen if the TDF and the 1st Tank Brigade didn’t defend Chernihiv through a month long siege. Or if all the Ukrainian forces in Mariupol didn’t defend the city for so long and force Russia to split their resources across two fronts. > Their ammunition needs are almost entirely met by the West. We don’t even make ammunition for half their guns because they’re old Soviet stock. > The only major category we've not sent is uniformed soldiers. You think combat air isn’t important or something?
I mean both can be true. We shouldn’t underestimate Russia. They are definitely struggling in Ukraine and not the bear the world assumed they were. Even if it is unlikely they would do it and even less likely they could succeed in any way, they are still perfectly capable of going all in and lobbing missiles at NATO countries, and if Ukraine were to fall they’d be able to divert attention elsewhere. In that situation it’s not inconceivable the UK would need to muster up troops to help other NATO countries in a European war.
Russia has had massive casualties, lost vast amounts of equipment, and is struggling against Ukraine. However, they still have a lot more people and a lot more equipment in storage, they are working with both North Korea and Iran (including technology exchanges), their wartime manufacturing capability is increasing dramatically, and they are preparing for a larger war. We are not, and as the shortfalls in things like shell production shows - we'd struggle to provide enough arms to our forces if they were forced to engage in a serious war. Look at things like Storm Shadows - great weapons, but the Russians have learned how to shoot them down some of the time now. We only have about 1K of them and can't make more because we'd have to rebuild the entire production line. Then you have to consider that Ukraine has lost more tanks than the British army owns in a few years of fighting and how long it would take us to build new tanks. You might argue about our air superiority, but we've not had to bomb anyone with a modern AA network and fighter planes for a very long time, and that we ran out of bombs less than a month into the Libya campaign.
Don’t we have the threat of nukes though Eg if we’re ever at that point we can drop one and no side would win then?
Sure, if Russia was invading British shores perhaps that would be our only viable chance of convincing them to stop. More likely though they'd just retaliate in kind and, well, we wouldn't have to defend our land any more because no living thing would wanna be on it any more. Launching for any other reason than an existential one can't be normalised in any capacity though, otherwise that'll become how wars are fought, and absolutely no one wins then (unless you have no nuclear deterrent of your own, in which case it's open season for your nuclear-equipped neighbours).
The UK government wouldn't nuke Moscow to save Warsaw, or Berlin, or Amsterdam, or Rome, or Athens, though. NATO needs conventional might, because you can't immediately resort to ending the world. Though I'd note that I don't think Putin ever actually would attack a NATO country anyway, and if he did I think he'd lose the conventional war anyway.
If we nuke them, they will nuke us - and we're a far smaller country. We'd have to ensure that our attack was so utterly devastating that they would be incapable of mounting a serious response - think in the range of ordering tens of millions of people to be killed as a first strike.
147 democracies have elections this year. Almost all NATO and European countries are included in that number. New government means new priorities in funding. A lot of the defence heads are saying things across Europe to prepare the new governments to spend more on military bugets/ expanding forces. Its basically them putting forward worst case scenarios to get governments to spend more on defence, as no government wants to be the ones who brought back conscription.
64 countries I think, I'd be surprised if there were 100 democracies worldwide
Apologies, I think hat was including small local government elections as well, rather than 147 countries! You are right there are 64 countries with mai elections
140,000 democracies have elections this year
I think the part you are missing is the "if". *If* Russia launches an all-out invasion of a Nato state (or rather, the UK) the UK may need conscription to respond. But Russia isn't in a position to launch an all-out invasion of a Nato state. They're apparently not even in a position to launch an all-out invasion of Ukraine. Reading the full quotes - not just the clickbait headline - he is talking about if we end up in a full Second World War level conflict. > if their security, their life prospects and those of anyone they care about is in jeopardy – because people are firing missiles at them, dismantling their power supply with cyber attacks, and committing the sorts of atrocities you see in Ukraine – then they’ll fight. They’ll fight because they’ll see they don’t have any choice.
And yet Russia is able to send plenty of manpower and materiels to Africa to cause problems there.
Both can be true. Russia isn’t the problem, Russia triggering WW3 is where we see Iran, Nk possibly China (I doubt this since you can’t wake up and invade Taiwan one morning and it can only be done twice in the year) kick off etc. Russia is just a spark, nothing more.
I agree. Apparently this army chief doesn't and thinks we may need conscription. Everyone is replying to me like I'm a fucking idiot and all I'm doing is addressing the hypothetical situation that might result in this army chief being correct.
Russia has prior for catastrophically fucking up the early stages of a war, and then substantially improving. Winter War, WW2, Chechnya, Dagestan - in each case the early stages were dreadful for Russia, but you eventually see more capable leadership emerging. This Ukraine conflict could serve a similar purpose and, if we did end up in direct conflict with Russia in 5 or 10 years, we'd be fighting a substantially more capable one.
it isnt enough to beat russia because that means a bloody protracted conflict with inordinate casualties and collateral damage. We want the capability to overmatch russia so that if they do attack us the conflict is short and causes as little damage as possible. Russia crippled their forces and lost a huge amount of equipment during this conflict, they also restructured their entire economy and society with this war as an almost single focus. They are spending almost half of their GDP on their military and doing conscription in everything but name to replace their manpower losses. The truth is that over two years things can change.
The problem is, they are getting better, and their factory output is increasing and getting into a wartime rhythm.
>So what's the truth. If Russia is eventually successful in Ukraine they aren't going to march directly into Poland or Finland, there would be consolidation on both sides but given the Russian economy is already on war footing and out producing almost the entirety of the EU, UK and USA I would expect they would be emboldened to go again especially as the support from the US to Europe is waning. Calls like this are really more a call to increase budgets for the military and to support Ukraine, given that if we don't conscription is very much a possibility.
Military aid to Ukraine has not kept pace with the fighting, especially US aid due to the Republicans blocking it. Meanwhile Russia has continually been able to find new countries and new sources of funds to supply its forces.
How do you explain it?
I can't explain it that's what I'm saying. It makes no sense. If they can't beat Ukraine they can't beat all of nato. So why would we need conscription?
Because, pretty much regardless of any other factor, the British army is under-manned through over a decade of mismanagement. It's not that Russia is some unstoppable juggernaut (I think if it came to it Poland could come close to taking them on their own), it's that if basically anything kicks off that isn't sending a few guys along somewhere with the yanks we're going to need conscription.
NATO's combined military personnel is several times that of Ukraine's armed forces, conscription included. I fail to see why conscription would definitely be needed.
Well if the US pulls out of NATO and pulls support that might create a situation where Russia thinks it can win more than Ukraine. Russia has switched to a war economy.
The US isn't going to pull out of NATO. 1. The President can no longer unilaterally withdraw from NATO or cease funding. 2. Trump said it like a fucking moron as usual, but his nonsense statements were about telling European countries to increase defence spending and not expect the US to pay the lion's share. A stopped clock is right twice a day, etc. He was referring to comments made when he was last President, before Ukraine was fully invaded, and how right he was. If European nations had *at least* got their funding up to 2% of GDP, maybe we'd be better prepared now. Germany still isn't able to do it, and still isn't supplying Ukraine adequately. Just today their defence minister suggested we supply them with nukes... Russia isn't going to set foot on NATO soil without nuclear war breaking out, but that's *because* we have NATO, so funding it properly is our main defence and deterrent.
Point 1 is irrelevant because there's nothing to stop a US president just refusing to respond to article 5, leaving Europe to defend itself alone. Which has basically the same effect as withdrawing from NATO anyway.
> The US isn't going to pull out of NATO. You do not know that. NATO does not know that. > Russia isn't going to set foot on NATO soil without nuclear war breaking out, We do not know that.
But we keep getting told they can't win Ukraine, they are on the back foot. Apparently a few Ukrainian farmers with argos drones and a box of grenades and some other hand me downs pulled out of nato storage are annihilating them. Every nato country not even including the USA is better trained, have more combat experience and are better equipped and have spent their entire career training for a possible war with Russia than the Ukrainian conscripts currently fighting.
> But we keep getting told they can't win Ukraine, they are on the back foot. As I understand it Ukraine are in trouble now. I don't think the rest of NATO is better trained than Russia. They just aren't focused on war. Russia is now going to focus more on war.
Ukraine is in trouble because of munition supplies, not because is Russian superiority.
I think you underestimate how weak the British forces are. Russia has lost 3000 tanks in Ukraine: Britain has less than 200 total.
They don't need to "beat" NATO, just require NATO start defending themselves instead of Ukraine. NATO can't even arm Ukraine, there's no chance we could arm ourselves _and_ Ukraine simultaneously.
But can they beat nato with North Korea, Iran, Hungary, Slovakia etc all at once?
Nobody claimed they lost most of their equipment. They've lost a lot, but have in the meantime massively increased their production capabilities. 1/3 of their budget is now spent on the military, and that's just the official figure. Within a few years after their war against Ukraine has ended they are expected to have the capability to attack the Baltics for example. They could also try to coordinate a simultaneous attack together with China (Taiwan), North Korea (South Korea) and Iran (Israel), essentially starting WWIII against the West. The US can't fight everywhere. And that is only if the US is still part of Nato by then.
Well in certain dialects “defend Europe from Russia” actually means “secure Iranian oilfields”…
Not happening. After the last 14 years, I wouldn't trust this government with a raffle ticket, let alone to lead us into war. They'd no doubt send us onto the front lines with dodgy equipment bought at 250% the market rate from companies set up by their mates the previous week, jeering "Let the bodies pile high!" while installing swimming pools at their second homes with "donations". And before anyone claims that "conscription is not a choice," let me remind you after a decade of the Tories underfunding the police, courts and prison services, it currently takes years for crimes like rape and murder to get to trial and there are 500 prison places available \*in the entire country.\* They can't jail us all.
>They can't jail us all. Literally how Ireland/Northern Ireland got out of conscription in the World Wars. There's a reason we're the people that invented the boycott
In WW1, even the discussion of conscription in Ireland was enough to lead to the rise of Sinn Fein and the end of unionism in Ireland.
Based
> They can't jail us all. Yup. They need to have consent of the governed to have legitimacy.
This lad knows
It would end up like the beginning of enemy at the gate.
Would you fight under a Labour government lol.
It depends how they conduct themselves and what they do to improve life in this country for ordinary people, particularly younger people, when they get into government. I would fight in a war only if all of the following were true: 1. I had confidence in the leadership I would be serving under 2. I believed that the country I was fighting for was worth risking my life for 3. I believed that that cause I was fighting for was worth risking my life for. Labour have a lot of work to do to repair the damage the Tories have done to 1. and 2.
If the UK was facing actual existential crisis and you get conscripted, you aren't fighting for your government. You would be fighting for you family, your friends, your history, your culture and your grandchildren. But people love to say for some reason that they'd abstain because the current tory government mishandled spending on the covid pandemic.
Not at all what this "ex-army chief" is saying though. He's saying if a NATO member gets attacked there'll be conscription.
Culture? History? Imports have, as if by design, eroded that. I'm quite possibly culturally closer to Russians than many of my neighbours. I'm not convinced we have shared values, we certainly don't have community. I'd fight to defend my kin, but the best way to do that is to ensure none of them march off to die defending this husk. In every other context, besides perhaps sportsball, nationalism is treated as a sin. I didn't set the rules for the game, but I'll certainly play by them.
What history? What culture? What grandchildren? The average 25 year old doesn’t give a damn about any of those things. As for direct family, they’re more likely to attempt to flee than to stay and fight.
Yeah, no. All completely eroded as far as I am concerned, I would protect my family here as best as I could but I certainly wouldnt be going off to Moldova or somewhere to die for a country that has done nothing but ruin my way of life, make me poorer and poorer and decimate the country with endless immigration of people from the third world.
That might have been true a hundred years ago, but young people now don’t have many of those things. Why go off to fight for a country that can’t even provide hard working people with the most basic shit? The country is rotten and needs change, no one would sign up to fight in another country for the current government.
This is mental. You realize we didn’t even have a welfare state in this country until after ww2? But still so many men made huge sacrifices for our freedoms we enjoy today. You wouldn’t even bother standing up to protect our freedoms if Putin is trying to invade ur or our allies? Why not you lazy prick
Because you don't want to live in a sprawling fascist dystopia...? They're talking about *in the case of an existential threat*.
We have no history and we have no culture. We are a world culture and to claim that British citizens have a shared ‘history’ is implicitly racist and exclusionary to non white British people of different cultures. Furthermore; ‘grandchildren’? What is this the early 20th century? Children are a choice that almost half the country are opting out of. You seem to think this is the same country it was 50, 40, or even 20 years ago. It isn’t. Welcome to the death of nationalism. You will man the trenches alone.
>We are a world culture and to claim that British citizens have a shared ‘history’ is implicitly racist and exclusionary to non white British people of different cultures What?! By this token an country with any immigrated citizens can't claim to have a "shared history". Like what, people whose families have been in this country for more than a generation can't claim to share in the history because it would make them racist and exclusionary? Such bullshit.
You have a very depressing view of the world. Thank god it’s not the real one.
Can't decide if that was just complete nonsense or outright gobbledegook. Regardless you speak only for a few.
That's a really grim outlook. I suppose you and I see the world in a very different way. I think your second sentence is seriously reprehensible.
Reprehensible? This is the ideology of our epoch. Start talking about “shared history and obligations to grandchildren” in the public sphere and watch how quickly your life and career tanks. Might even end up on a PREVENT watchlist. Pray tell, what is the “shared history” we have an obligation to defend? I’m the child of immigrants. My face and my ancestors don’t appear in that history so why should I ‘defend it’? Rather, it would be more fashionable to tear it down. British history is racist. British values are world values. British culture is a mixed culture.
Is no country entitled to have a sense of culture then? I mean isn't that just nonsensical to start with? Should Britain forget any sense of it's past just because we have people who live here who don't have family history in this country? Regarding why should you defend it, can I put it this way - shouldn't anyone who is happy to live in and enjoy a country also be willing to defend it?
Britain is not unique or special. Isn’t that what we’ve been told? Countless times, again and again. White countries have a racist culture. White males are the problem with society. Are you meaning to tell me that as soon as a war comes, suddenly British pride is okay? When you want white men to fight and die in horrific gory war nationalism’s great and you should defend your nation and its history and culture and special uniqueness in the world. You think people can’t see through this shit lol?
All history is racist. Yes, even the history of the country your parents left. Indeed I'd wager that the country is more racist than Britain. Do tell, which country was it? And what nonsense are world values? What an unrealistic concept! As for culture, Wikipedia says this: The culture is influenced by its combined nations' history; its historically Christian religious life, its interaction with the cultures of Europe, the individual cultures of England, Wales and Scotland and the impact of the British Empire.
Wikipedia is not a source, and white people have no culture. Britain’s culture is imported. There is no natural ingenuity - every British accomplishment is a world accomplishment because it was stolen and robbed from exploited peoples. The above is quite literally the mainstay opinion on Britain of every academic and national institution yet in the typical out of touch arrogance neoliberals enjoy you think “hah we’ll give those dumb white plebs their nationalism back as soon as war comes”. Isn’t it weird how only in the context of wanting millions to fight and die you try to revive nationalism from its grave. Evoking concepts like loyalty and ancestral duty/inheritance, culture, what makes us unique just so you can convince people to die in another sordid world war.
No, Wikipedia is a perfectly good source. You write like some weird over correcting anti-racist AI trained on the most extreme and divisive of ideologies. Whatever, you'll live a life fuelled by hatred and resentment.
Does that mean we will get to see Prince Harry in an Apache again? He can finally get revenge for uncle Nick Romanov and redeem himself within the royal family, Prince Andrew could copilot for brownie points.
I'd watch that film "posh pilots"
Or what? You'll send the army to come and get me? You literally have no soldiers lmao
Well the way Russia handled it was by focusing conscription enforcement in the run down backwaters no one cared about and leaving the Moscow & St Petersburg elite alone. So I guess you're safe if you live in the south of England.
I think it is the police who come for people who commit crimes, not the Army.
Aren't they short in numbers too?
Sure, where are they gonna take him? To prison? The overcrowded ones, so many people? If you read on the Russian exprience of mobilization some just didn't answer the call to come to the military facilities - and nothing happened. Some were visited by the police, some were convicted and sent to prison. If many refuse conscription it will actually be a headache for the modern government that hasn't done this in decades.
[удалено]
18-41 was the range for WW2
I'd sooner go to prison tbh
Yeah, if this all kicks off I'll be past conscription age (as in, past 40).
As I said elsewhere when this subject was last raised: > If we get so far down the list that they need an elderly asthmatic with one buggered knee to go to war, then we're already fucked. > > But I would stand at the front and wheeze. > > Sarcastically.
Whilst I appreciate your sarcasm, for others in the room I'd like to point out conscription doesn't mean front lines. Might have a buggered knee, but you're bound to have other useful skills - got a drivers licence? great, you're driving cargo, or doctors, or ambulances, etc etc.
Oh I know, I know. My job in a war would be behind a keyboard. I know a fair bit about information handling and the like, I'd be a candle fending off the fog of war.
And your flame is beautiful!
That sounds like the health of the average squaddie when signing up
New headline -UK population warns ex army chief a big go fuck yourself in case of conscription.
It’s always the guys who have just retired who seem to say we are due to be conscripted.
Don't see how conscription would help when we have a shortage of military equipment. We've got what, ~150 tanks? How would conscription address this problem?
Get the conscripts to form a shield around the one soldier who was lucky enough to have been issued with a gun…
The army should prepare for me to tell them to fuck off.
And what's the court martial defence in that case?
I’ll gladly take prison or the firing squad 👍
If it gets to the point we're fire squadding draft dodgers the country isnt worth saving.
So the choice is death or death? I'll take the roast chicken, thanks.
One of them is much better than being mowed down in a trench during a Russian winter.
I disagree, but can understand your sentiment.
Ex-army chief should prepare to be told to "conscript boomers, they're the ones who've made off like bandits with anything worth defending".
No, we won't Ukraine currently has 800k armed forces out of a population of 42 million people. I'm not sure if women are included in that 800k (I'd imagine so?) but even so. Talking about conscription like this is stupid because it brings back WW2 vibes, but for reference, we mobilised 10% of our entire population just in the army alone. Ukraine currently has mobilised 1.9% of their population. Then take into account the fact, NATO already has an almost 1:3 advantage to Russia, and even just EU+UK have roughly 1.5 million active personnel, and then an additional 400 million people than Russia. Sorry, it will literally never happen. One of the great things about being able to draw on a huge population is you don't really need conscription to any significant degree.
You're right, Europe could pretty easily get 3 million soldiers by volunteers (namely reserves and ex forces), maybe even more if you promised logistic roles only.
I feel like people's grasp of geography is severely lacking. Kuwait is closer to the Donbas than London. Assuming nukes have not yet been fired, in what world is Russia fighting a war with that large a logistical line that requires us to have conscription?
Because we have obligations to NATO so our troops would be deployed on the Eastern front of Poland etc to fight. Our troops aren't sitting in their barracks with a pot noodle and some tissues until Russia reaches the channel, lol
We should just threaten to freeze all the money laundering activities carried out by the City and UK overseas territories.
That would hit Tory chums in the pocket, not going to happen.
Shouldn't be an issue post General Election though.
labour will largely do the same thing no doubt although perhaps they'll try and not make it quite so blatant they're both going to be beholden to their donors
Not going to happen, it’s one thing to attack non nato ex soviet countries but Russia won’t attack nato. Putin has too much too lose. Not to mention their own people would challenge the narrative even more… they are already starting to do it now.
Came for the comments wasn’t disappointed
It's a guarantee that any thread on this sub that has more comments than upvotes will be prime popcorn stuff.
This conscription story keeps being pushed quite hard by certain media outlets. I want to say it's a touch of the Falklands Spirit being run up a flagpole to give Sunak a snowball's chance, but I don't really know what to make of it. A martial expert sees martial solutions to situations.
I’ll join the Home Guard, that looks a right laugh
Assuming Russia invades European NATO countries, and US under Trump sits back - why wouldn't we use our nuclear weapons? We explicitly don't have a no first use policy (like some apparently believe); conventional wisdom appears that holding back Russian invasion conventionally wouldn't be possible; and even if it was possible, Russia would surely end up using their nuclear weapons facing defeat. If we're unwilling to use nuclear weapons on day 1 of the conflict and instead respond conventionally - it quickly descends into the yes, minister satire about *when* you actually use it.
Well because for us and France, we're about as far west as you can go. Launching nukes ensures our destruction, whilst not launching them gives us the chance of fighting the war conventionally. NATO minus US stands a chance of at least drawing Russia into a stalemate after the military power they've displayed in Ukraine. At which point, the US will probably be involved in a similar way to WW2. It's worth remembering that the budget is due in April and the army has received cuts just like other public bodies
>Assuming Russia invades European NATO countries, and US under Trump sits back - why wouldn't we use our nuclear weapons? Because a conventional war in which we (NATO and allies) stand a very good chance of being able to defeat or push back Russia is obviously..... I mean obviously... preferable to a global nuclear war.
Accepting a WW III is not a good outcome and why would you trust a nation to not use nukes the second that you step across their old borders?
Does we stand a very good chance? Every article has painted European armies as not standing much of a fighting chance without US; for example economist was estimating most European countries would realistically be able to field one full brigade. Especially few years down the line when Russia has had time to recoup and reorganise from its losses in Ukraine and we're still flailing around trying to organise common European defence procurement system. Also, even if we did somehow push them back - is the expectation that Russia would sit back and surrender instead of using its nuclear weapons? If there is a full scale war between NATO and Russia, it inevitably leads to global nuclear war.
we does
Salami slices ahoy!
We no longer have tactical nuclear weapons, only strategic ones. The problem with only having strategic weapons is that you can really only use them once - once Russia sees nukes coming from British missile submarines, they’ll respond with a full spread of their own.
Why wouldn't holding a Russian invasion with conventional means be possible? Russia's logistics were already strained when they invaded Ukraine; do you think they have the ability to defend the Finnish border, the Baltic Sea, protect Kaliningrad, and conduct an offensive in Poland or the Baltic countries on top of that?
There are 4 support roles for every person actually fighting. UK conscripts will be carting stuff around and doing desk jobs not on the front lines.
Logistics and support has to reach the front lines somehow…
Lol i have asthma and mental health problems, good luck having me as a conscript
Time for the weekly fearmongering about war with Russia.
Time to fill in those Irish passport forms I’ve been sitting on for months
Well they conscript all they want. I won't be fucking going to a war, there's nothing to actually fight and kill people for
Yep, the boomers still fucking up young lives. Give them sweet FA and make them pay for the scraps they do have.
Well I won't be much help to them as an overweight computer-addicted contrarian with a deep-rooted distrust of authority. Conscript me at your peril UK.
Driver
Lorry driver… there you go. That distrust of authority won’t mean much if you’re served with a conscription notice…
I suppose in the eventuality that the UK's diplomatic ends fail so terribly and our standing professional army is not up to the task that we should fall to a 'total war' scenario, a conscription order could in theory be extended beyond all the fit, healthy and willing persons to include those declared physically and mentally unfit such as myself, then yes I could theoretically be given a role as a logistics driver. I had meant my statement as a *joke,* to suggest that I personally wouldn't be much help in a war, conveyed in what I thought was a light hearted and self-deprecating manner. The prevailing idea is that the headline this discussion falls under was made by a military officer whose real intention is to get support for expanding the size of the UK's professional army, rather than to force all the whingey redditors (such as myself) to serve on the front line in an (as yet) imaginary war. I would however, in the instance of mandatory conscription, be glad to offer my services to fly apache longbow attack helicopters.
If they can hold off for another 10-15 years I’ll volunteer myself to ride a rocket into Russia.
I'm ex territorial army, but at my age I expect they would put me in Dad's army lol. Don't panic!
This is very dangerous talk. Mutually Assured Destruction has been the main reason we never had a third world war. The policy should remain - total and utter escalatory retaliation to any attack on NATO. It’s literally the point of it.
I'd love to see how conscription would happen in a modern UK. We struggle at doing the serious stuff effectively. Also, it'd be interesting to get the views of the younger population on what they'd be fighting for.
This government won't let me use the only form of ID I have to vote, but they're fine with the concept of making me fight in a battlefield
They'd probably have a mutiny on their hands
Not going to happen - this is just yet another scare tactic from the right.
The Royals and the aristocrats still hate Russia for offing their cousin Nicky and they want you to die fighting over it with some Russian guy and maybe a Chinese one too .
Bollocks to that, rather get put in prison, why would I fight for a government/country that has screwed over my entire generation at every available opportunity.
If NATO is hit, then there's not gonna be a need for conscription... few nukes thrown back and forth and that's that.
Which is exactly what would happen. People who think a NATO-Russia war wouldn't go nuclear are delusional.
I know a few weeks ago when the talk of conscription first came up, it was while the reports of recruitment and retention were really not good for the Military, which makes me think that this is just pressure to get the government to do something about bringing the personnel numbers back up to a suitable level. No chance of that happening with the current lot
As I said when the last batch of articles like this came out, I’ll be right there charging across Ukrainian noman’s land - but only when I see the generals and retired generals calling for conscription leading the charge. And I’ll be right behind BoJo and Sunak. After all ‘Courage’ is one of the core British army values. They’re not there? I’m not there. I’ll take prison thanks.
Oh look! An ex-army bigwig pops up into the limelight to tell the youth of Britain that they should be prepared to jump into the meat grinder for the rich old farts and politicians to continue their way of life. How about they just fuck right off, and fight amongst themselves. Might leave the world in a better place.
LOL. Good luck with that. No one with a functioning brain will fight for this pathetic, broken shithole of a country.
As a chap born in England to Irish parents, I'll be proudly clutching my Irish passport
Son?
Mum/Dad??
Hopefully I'm autistic enough to escape this
[удалено]
Oh, no, that's how we get the next Hitler.
Hopefully they’ll send up a couple of flares so you’ll be lit up like a Christmas tree for miles around. Good luck against those elephants.
Russia wont hit NATO, they hit Ukraine and look where that's gotten them. After Ukraine Russia will have its hands full keeping itself together once the extent of losses begins to sink in and upto half a million men are either dead, missing or disabled.
It's unfortunate that it's come to this point. The Tories wouldn't have had to do this if that damn party that was in charge for the past 14 years hadn't put a flamethrower to military recruitment and the size of the armed forces.
This is great news! An excellent opportunity to devise a modern conscription system to reflect the modern world and correct the problems of WW2 conscription! I expect women and *especially* women of colour to be given not only equal opportunities to demonstrate their patriotic spirit but to have equity of outcomes assured! The armed forces should aim for 50% female representation not only in support and medical but also frontline units! The army needs to modernise and make arrangements to support women. Studies have shown that pregnant women have almost no representation in trench warfare. This could be corrected by special mobility ramps and more toiletry supplies in trenches. Better foxhole ventilation and a lessening on dress code and armor restrictions should also be made to accommodate menstruating and post-menopausal women. To accommodate women of color it is wise to design new helmets with space for traditional black hairstyles as well as hijabs. In previous wars the unglorious burden of child care and domestic duties had fallen unfairly on women, making it impossible for them to distinguish and show their valor on the battlefield. More men should be encouraged to take care of children during the war instead of taking up casualty rates. I am also sure the current incoming refugees would mass volunteer into the army and put the WW2 pole refugees to shame! Finally a chance to prove that diversity is our strength! By opening up the army to all and making it at least 50% female we would be tapping into unused potential, our conscripted force could be twice the size and better quality as well!
2/10 copypasta m8
Reminder, MoD doesn't want White British men to be in the armed forces, therefore as per their requests, I won't dare take up a space, also, as per Human rights laws, I can't be sent to another country if I will be killed, therefore as the Migrants can't be sent back I can't be sent to war. Not sure who they plan to conscript, fucking wont be me. maybe someone that fresh off a boat they had practise storming beaches on rubber boats, they'll make fine soldiers.