Ukraine: would you fight or run?
Poll: Ukraine: would you fight or run?
Total Members Polled: 238
Discussion
Ah, good old King and Country. Very rousing.
Still, the point of a conversation is to hear other opinions, so here's one -
"War is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small 'inside' group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes."
Still, the point of a conversation is to hear other opinions, so here's one -
"War is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small 'inside' group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes."
2xChevrons said:
Good to see I am not quite as alone as I seemed in the earlier pages of this thread!
Charitably, I think some of the responses came from posters not really engaging with the question and taking it as them - as British people - fighting for Ukraine in the here and now or not properly putting themselves in the hypothetical shoes of a Ukranian having their country annexed and attacked by Russia.
If Russia - authoritarian, ethnonationalist, chauvinist, kleptocratic Russia - suddenly started dropping missiles and bombs on London, paratroopers dropped onto Teeside Airport and landing craft hove into view off Skegness, how many of you would really hold to the "not my fight, this place isn't worth it" stance and scramble for the first ferry to France?
I do have this passage of Monsarrat copy/pasted.
Written in his cabin aboard his sloop in early 1945 when victory was virtually assured but hadn't been achieved, his thoughts turned to the future. These are the closing paragraphs of an account he had kept virtually day to day since early 1940:
A lot of the Greatest Generation had precious little love for their politicians or society. A lot of them utterly loathed Churchill for his repeated and costly blunders in WW1 and his actions against workers in the 1920s. Even if they respected his wartime leadership, they were not going to have him in peace. They may have had little time or love for the Establishment, but they were fighting against something much worse and fighting for something much better.
I know this has precious little direct relevance to Ukrainians in 2024 (I don't know what - if any - 'sales pitch' has been made to them about what Ukraine will look like when/if Russia is turned back) but this is more in surprised - rather shocked, actually- and baffled counterpoint to the seemingly quite common feeling that fighting an invading hostile force requires you to approve of a relative handfull of politicians.
I’m sure the Russian Special Forces would be absolutely crapping themselves after they invaded when faced with Captain Mainwaring and the rest of the PH hardmen. You would run. I’ve mentioned before that I spend a lot of time abroad some of it with Ukrainians. Real life people who have faced this. I also know from family what it’s like when armed forces invade and start spraying bullets around and how running is the only realistic option. Charitably, I think some of the responses came from posters not really engaging with the question and taking it as them - as British people - fighting for Ukraine in the here and now or not properly putting themselves in the hypothetical shoes of a Ukranian having their country annexed and attacked by Russia.
If Russia - authoritarian, ethnonationalist, chauvinist, kleptocratic Russia - suddenly started dropping missiles and bombs on London, paratroopers dropped onto Teeside Airport and landing craft hove into view off Skegness, how many of you would really hold to the "not my fight, this place isn't worth it" stance and scramble for the first ferry to France?
borcy said:
I can only add to what others have written. Post WW2 society changed as well, many in uniform became interested in politics, quite a few of Labours MPs came from the military.
Many were determined to change what had gone on before WW2. I think a few lead the post WW2 strikes in the RAF.
Many were determined to change what had gone on before WW2. I think a few lead the post WW2 strikes in the RAF.
I do have this passage of Monsarrat copy/pasted.Written in his cabin aboard his sloop in early 1945 when victory was virtually assured but hadn't been achieved, his thoughts turned to the future. These are the closing paragraphs of an account he had kept virtually day to day since early 1940:
Nicholas Monsarrat said:
I abhore war-time strikes...but, by God, you can understand how strikes come about! The dictum "As ye sow, so shall ye reap," covers them exactly, and it is idle to look beyond that. Many of these men who strike now were treated like dirt for years before the war; almost literally like dirt- they were tipped and shovelled out of the way and on to a sort of slag-heap of unemployed and unemployables. They didn't learn love of country from that...
Now they have power, almost paramount power, and they use it to square up the account. It isn't patriotism, certainly (the system which pauperized them wasn't patriotism either); it is not in the end even common sense; but it is assuredly human nature. The argument seems, to them, crystal clear; why should they listen to appeals to their better feelings now, when they wore their hearts sick making those appeals - futile and neglected ones - in the lean and seedy years between the wars?
Why indeed should they have better feelings? They are working at the same jobs as in peace-time, jobs which present no challenge to their courage, no real incentive to selfless endurance; naturally they fall back on peace-time tactics whenever a chance of improvement comes their way.
Are we going to do better this time? Are we going to improve on that sort of world, where competing forces, individual and national, snap and snarl at each other like so many hyenas, enforcing a cut-throat competition in which the real loser is the common man; where human values are disdained; where the weakest goes to the wall - and even there is charged a luxury price for standing-room? There are signs of hope, I know, but there are other signs too; indeed, one current pointer indicates that we are not going to improve at all, except to make the competition fiercer and the fate of the losers more permanently miserable.
That pointer is, shortly, that there are still people, of consequence (or at least of financial standing) whom the war has not affected at all, except that it has served to enrich them at a prodigious rate. They are not contributing to the national effort; they are playing a lone hand, with some very familiar cards in it. After the war, clearly, these people expect Britain to pick up exactly where she left off, and the fact that this means the dying and futile 1930s again, with their masses of victims, doesn't seem to have penetrated at all, except as a clarion call to plunder.
Is this the sort of world we are coming back to? Is this the noble future? We might as well chuck it in here and now if it is.
We might as well chuck it in because it means that all the jokes we make in the wardroom about life after the war - about match-selling, about hawking trays of carbon-paper and india-rubbers, about buying chicken-farms and selling vacuum cleaners - all those grime fancies, products of a sense of insecurity, aren't going to be jokes at all. They are going to come true; there will be millions of unemployed, medals pawned, Welsh miners in the gutters of London; there will be barrel-organs again, with men as the flea-bitten monkeys in attendance.
Unless we improve on that grisly process, we can all forecast its exact course and its gross and pitiful details. A blue-print of misery exists already - the one we used last time. Some people are acting as if we are going to use it again; as if, indeed, there was no other sort to be had, and no real need for a different one either.
There is a different one; there must be; and of course we won't chuck in because we are hopeful - and, it may be said, determined. Perhaps only some of us, perhaps only a few, but enough for the spark - for such ideas spread easily, backed by the stimulus to co-operation which war furnishes, and the plain success of comradeship which it demonstrates.
We are going to improve on last time, because we clearly have the collective will, spread through all the Forces - the young men. An army does not fight the breadth of Africa and then allow itself to be sold down the river when it gets home; sailors develop qualities of determination which are useful in any sphere; the "few to whom the many owe so much" can easily decide to collect their debt.
It need not demand money as the mainspring, this new world, but it will certainly require generosity and understanding, and continued service, too. It will need, most important of all, a social conscience working continuously, all through the social scale. With a few blind spots, the war has produced evidence of all these things, in abundance. If we can carry them over to peace-time, we have high hopes of the future.
There's a reason why the Beveridge Report sold by the millions and copies were found in virtually every field kitchen, mess deck, canteen, guardhouse, hangar and dispersal shed where British forces were found around the world. Now they have power, almost paramount power, and they use it to square up the account. It isn't patriotism, certainly (the system which pauperized them wasn't patriotism either); it is not in the end even common sense; but it is assuredly human nature. The argument seems, to them, crystal clear; why should they listen to appeals to their better feelings now, when they wore their hearts sick making those appeals - futile and neglected ones - in the lean and seedy years between the wars?
Why indeed should they have better feelings? They are working at the same jobs as in peace-time, jobs which present no challenge to their courage, no real incentive to selfless endurance; naturally they fall back on peace-time tactics whenever a chance of improvement comes their way.
Are we going to do better this time? Are we going to improve on that sort of world, where competing forces, individual and national, snap and snarl at each other like so many hyenas, enforcing a cut-throat competition in which the real loser is the common man; where human values are disdained; where the weakest goes to the wall - and even there is charged a luxury price for standing-room? There are signs of hope, I know, but there are other signs too; indeed, one current pointer indicates that we are not going to improve at all, except to make the competition fiercer and the fate of the losers more permanently miserable.
That pointer is, shortly, that there are still people, of consequence (or at least of financial standing) whom the war has not affected at all, except that it has served to enrich them at a prodigious rate. They are not contributing to the national effort; they are playing a lone hand, with some very familiar cards in it. After the war, clearly, these people expect Britain to pick up exactly where she left off, and the fact that this means the dying and futile 1930s again, with their masses of victims, doesn't seem to have penetrated at all, except as a clarion call to plunder.
Is this the sort of world we are coming back to? Is this the noble future? We might as well chuck it in here and now if it is.
We might as well chuck it in because it means that all the jokes we make in the wardroom about life after the war - about match-selling, about hawking trays of carbon-paper and india-rubbers, about buying chicken-farms and selling vacuum cleaners - all those grime fancies, products of a sense of insecurity, aren't going to be jokes at all. They are going to come true; there will be millions of unemployed, medals pawned, Welsh miners in the gutters of London; there will be barrel-organs again, with men as the flea-bitten monkeys in attendance.
Unless we improve on that grisly process, we can all forecast its exact course and its gross and pitiful details. A blue-print of misery exists already - the one we used last time. Some people are acting as if we are going to use it again; as if, indeed, there was no other sort to be had, and no real need for a different one either.
There is a different one; there must be; and of course we won't chuck in because we are hopeful - and, it may be said, determined. Perhaps only some of us, perhaps only a few, but enough for the spark - for such ideas spread easily, backed by the stimulus to co-operation which war furnishes, and the plain success of comradeship which it demonstrates.
We are going to improve on last time, because we clearly have the collective will, spread through all the Forces - the young men. An army does not fight the breadth of Africa and then allow itself to be sold down the river when it gets home; sailors develop qualities of determination which are useful in any sphere; the "few to whom the many owe so much" can easily decide to collect their debt.
It need not demand money as the mainspring, this new world, but it will certainly require generosity and understanding, and continued service, too. It will need, most important of all, a social conscience working continuously, all through the social scale. With a few blind spots, the war has produced evidence of all these things, in abundance. If we can carry them over to peace-time, we have high hopes of the future.
A lot of the Greatest Generation had precious little love for their politicians or society. A lot of them utterly loathed Churchill for his repeated and costly blunders in WW1 and his actions against workers in the 1920s. Even if they respected his wartime leadership, they were not going to have him in peace. They may have had little time or love for the Establishment, but they were fighting against something much worse and fighting for something much better.
I know this has precious little direct relevance to Ukrainians in 2024 (I don't know what - if any - 'sales pitch' has been made to them about what Ukraine will look like when/if Russia is turned back) but this is more in surprised - rather shocked, actually- and baffled counterpoint to the seemingly quite common feeling that fighting an invading hostile force requires you to approve of a relative handfull of politicians.
Good luck with your view on what you’d do. Here’s a first hand report of what it was like 50 years ago when Turkey invaded Cyprus. Good luck playing at being a Wolverine facing that.
https://youtu.be/Zb7wrbXfh_o?si=ZL50gKCCqt5qen_z
djc206 said:
egor110 said:
LF5335 said:
Gargamel said:
I mean this is such a load of BS, its unbelievable.
No-one - literally no-one is cut out for being cold, wet, terrified and in a fox hole with shells bursting around them. To excuse yourself by saying I am a bit tubby and I prefer a warm office is ridiculous. Should only outdoor workers fight ? What if the factory isn't heated, is those people ok to fight? Does anyone with central heating at home get to choose not to fight - I am no walt warrior - but this is what is called cowardice.
Obviously given what happened in WW1 and WW2 we are right to reject war as a means to resolve disputes between nations. But in defence of your country, all bets are off.
People are capable of many things, fighting is also one of them
If I offer to pay for a flight here so you can tell my Ukrainian friends to their faces what cowards they are. What would you do? No-one - literally no-one is cut out for being cold, wet, terrified and in a fox hole with shells bursting around them. To excuse yourself by saying I am a bit tubby and I prefer a warm office is ridiculous. Should only outdoor workers fight ? What if the factory isn't heated, is those people ok to fight? Does anyone with central heating at home get to choose not to fight - I am no walt warrior - but this is what is called cowardice.
Obviously given what happened in WW1 and WW2 we are right to reject war as a means to resolve disputes between nations. But in defence of your country, all bets are off.
People are capable of many things, fighting is also one of them
I asked a simple question. I’ll wait to see if that poster replies in the next few hours, days maybe even weeks or whether he’s run away.
Edited by LF5335 on Monday 6th May 11:39
LF5335 said:
I’m sure the Russian Special Forces would be absolutely crapping themselves after they invaded when faced with Captain Mainwaring and the rest of the PH hardmen. You would run. I’ve mentioned before that I spend a lot of time abroad some of it with Ukrainians. Real life people who have faced this. I also know from family what it’s like when armed forces invade and start spraying bullets around and how running is the only realistic option.
Good luck with your view on what you’d do. Here’s a first hand report of what it was like 50 years ago when Turkey invaded Cyprus. Good luck playing at being a Wolverine facing that.
https://youtu.be/Zb7wrbXfh_o?si=ZL50gKCCqt5qen_z
That would be tricky as most of them died in 2022, being used as infantry because the regular infantry were completely useless.Good luck with your view on what you’d do. Here’s a first hand report of what it was like 50 years ago when Turkey invaded Cyprus. Good luck playing at being a Wolverine facing that.
https://youtu.be/Zb7wrbXfh_o?si=ZL50gKCCqt5qen_z
grumbledoak said:
Ah, good old King and Country. Very rousing.
Still, the point of a conversation is to hear other opinions, so here's one -
"War is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small 'inside' group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes."
I'm not sure anyone is calling for "King and Country" or "dulce et decorum est, pro patria mori". As far as I can tell all the 'Fight' opinion-havers have been saying that there are far better reasons to fight than that. Lesser or greater, depending on your point of view. Certainly more tangible and relevant to us as individuals than a monarch who doesn't know we exist and a 300-year old political construct.Still, the point of a conversation is to hear other opinions, so here's one -
"War is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small 'inside' group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes."
Smedley Butler said a lot of very good and very true things. But bear in mind that 'War Is A Racket' was based on his USMC career of invading small countries in the Western Hemisphere who only posed a threat to the USA is as much as they were suggesting United Fruit give up unused land or weren't paying back their loans to Brown Brothers fast enough or making Standard Oil pay local business rates.
That's very a different matter to tanks rolling across a border towards your capital city.
Monsarrat also lambasted hawks, profiteers, spivs and money-grabbers. But he still judged that it was better to fight despite them than submit to the alternative.
I don't think anyone would deny that the Western Military-Industrial Complex is doing very well out of the war in Ukraine - both financially and in having a long-sort-for test/display ground for its products.
But does that change the calculus for choosing whether to run or fight when the T-90s start crossing the border, the minelayers start blocking your ports and the bombs start dropping on your cities?
LF5335 said:
I’m sure the Russian Special Forces would be absolutely crapping themselves after they invaded when faced with Captain Mainwaring and the rest of the PH hardmen. You would run. I’ve mentioned before that I spend a lot of time abroad some of it with Ukrainians. Real life people who have faced this. I also know from family what it’s like when armed forces invade and start spraying bullets around and how running is the only realistic option.
Good luck with your view on what you’d do. Here’s a first hand report of what it was like 50 years ago when Turkey invaded Cyprus. Good luck playing at being a Wolverine facing that.
I've already said I'm a military reservist, so if the balloon really did go up and the sGood luck with your view on what you’d do. Here’s a first hand report of what it was like 50 years ago when Turkey invaded Cyprus. Good luck playing at being a Wolverine facing that.
t really did hit the fan, I don't exactly have a choice in the matter. I made that decision about what I'd do in the worst-case scenario (life at a risk in a combat situation) years ago when I signed on the dotted line. I'm also not really sure what relevance your reply about Captain Mainwairing and 'PH hardmen' has to my post (that you quoted it full)? I'm not aghast, shocked or appalled at people choosing to 'Run' - personally I'd say that "I have a partner and kids, I'd get us all away from danger ASAP so we'd at least be alive together" as a perfectly justified reason for not staying and letting yourself be maimed by shrapnel-laden drones. As would a principled pacifist response ("All violence can only make the world worse in the long run and I won't take part in any of it"). My shock and lack of understanding comes from the number of people saying (in effect) "I wouldn't fight because I can't stand Rishi Sunak or Keir Starmer and there are too many potholes on the roads."
Edited by 2xChevrons on Monday 6th May 12:04
2xChevrons said:
...
I don't think anyone would deny that the Western Military-Industrial Complex is doing very well out of the war in Ukraine - both financially and in having a long-sort-for test/display ground for its products.
But does that change the calculus for choosing whether to run or fight when the T-90s start crossing the border, the minelayers start blocking your ports and the bombs start dropping on your cities?
Yes. When the whole thing was started on purpose and your puppet regime is not allowed to sue for peace. Yes, leave them to it.I don't think anyone would deny that the Western Military-Industrial Complex is doing very well out of the war in Ukraine - both financially and in having a long-sort-for test/display ground for its products.
But does that change the calculus for choosing whether to run or fight when the T-90s start crossing the border, the minelayers start blocking your ports and the bombs start dropping on your cities?
LF5335 said:
A complete lack of understanding there. There really are some Walts on here who think that life is a Hollywood movie.
I asked a simple question. I’ll wait to see if that poster replies in the next few hours, days maybe even weeks or whether he’s run away.
I have already stated, that obviously war is horrendous, it is for everyone. Your substantive point that 'ordinary, tubby, IT workers ' shouldn't have to fight is what I called out as being self serving. I asked a simple question. I’ll wait to see if that poster replies in the next few hours, days maybe even weeks or whether he’s run away.
Edited by LF5335 on Monday 6th May 11:39
grumbledoak said:
Yes. When the whole thing was started on purpose and your puppet regime is not allowed to sue for peace.
Ukriane can surrender any time they want. How would anyone stop them?Putin isn't cooperative enough to start a massive war destroying his own country for the benefit of a few western military firms.
What you're saying is self evidently nonsense.
2xChevrons said:
I find the proportion of replies saying "No, because the politicians are all bds and the country's a sthole" very surprising. The idea that the choice to fight against a force (especially one of the ilk of present-day Russia) invading your country has anything to do with agreeing with the politicians just doesn't occur to me.
Perhaps more not agreeing with the governing class and very much a "France 1940" style scenario. ds and the country's a sthole" very surprising. The idea that the choice to fight against a force (especially one of the ilk of present-day Russia) invading your country has anything to do with agreeing with the politicians just doesn't occur to me. Been some polling on why people feel that way.
https://ygo-assets-websites-editorial-emea.yougov....
There is a dichotomy between an establishment that may suddenly decide they want people to fight for them once again and the changes that have occurred in society over the past few decades. You can see this in military recruitment where targets for recruitment have been missed every year since 2010.
If they ever had need to call on ordinary people once again I doubt they will respond. The country can stagger along in times of peace but any major crisis would reveal the rotten structure.
You say as well that once the enemy arrives on the beaches then we would fight, but we would almost certainly be fighting far from home, likely in Eastern or South Eastern Europe, unless the French get very annoyed about fishing quotas.
JagLover said:
You can see this in military recruitment where targets for recruitment have been missed every year since 2010.
Give better conditions and don't insult them with the pay. And then there's the multiple month wait to hear back which means plenty of people wander off and find something better to do. Recruiting and retaining career military would be fine if handled competently.
Slowboathome said:
I think some posters are interpreting the question as 'would you put your life on the line to save Rishi Sunak?'
Whereas I read it as 'would you put your life on the line to save your family, friends, grandkids, nephews and nieces from being raped, tortured and killed?'
And unless you can run completely out of the country you're also gonna be killed. You're not just fighting against a Whereas I read it as 'would you put your life on the line to save your family, friends, grandkids, nephews and nieces from being raped, tortured and killed?'
ul invasion, you're fighting so you can't be forced to join it at be killed that way.At the very least if there was a Nazi Tank at the end of my road I'd like to think I'd put some sugar in it's fuel tank when they weren't looking.
There are a couple of factors that surely must give Ukranians extra incentive to fight Russia.
The past - Stalin murdered huge numbers of Ukranians when he had the chance.
And the possible future - Putin is very fond of describing Ukranians as Nazis. If I were Ukranian I would be very worried about where that view might lead in the event of Russian occupation. More pogroms?
So, although I voted 'don't know', I am coming to the view that if Ukranian, I would fight. Because the consequences of a Putin victory could be horrific.
The past - Stalin murdered huge numbers of Ukranians when he had the chance.
And the possible future - Putin is very fond of describing Ukranians as Nazis. If I were Ukranian I would be very worried about where that view might lead in the event of Russian occupation. More pogroms?
So, although I voted 'don't know', I am coming to the view that if Ukranian, I would fight. Because the consequences of a Putin victory could be horrific.
grumbledoak said:
Skeptisk said:
Mea cullpa with the wording but should be clear from context that yes means fight
Then, Hell No.Dying in an unwinnable "war" so people like Biden and Cameron can launder tax payers money to their mates while selling Europe's bread basket to Blackrock. You would have to be stupid.
JagLover said:
Perhaps more not agreeing with the governing class and very much a "France 1940" style scenario.
Been some polling on why people feel that way.
https://ygo-assets-websites-editorial-emea.yougov....
There is a dichotomy between an establishment that may suddenly decide they want people to fight for them once again and the changes that have occurred in society over the past few decades. You can see this in military recruitment where targets for recruitment have been missed every year since 2010.
I will agree on this, and France (1940) is an interesting potential parallel (although in that case you also have to throw in the looming spectre of WW1 and the generational trauma it inflicted on the French people, military, government and state). It's part of the general stripping away of the social contract in the neoliberal individualist age we've been in since 1979. Been some polling on why people feel that way.
https://ygo-assets-websites-editorial-emea.yougov....
There is a dichotomy between an establishment that may suddenly decide they want people to fight for them once again and the changes that have occurred in society over the past few decades. You can see this in military recruitment where targets for recruitment have been missed every year since 2010.
But Britain had always been worse at the 'noblesse oblige' part of the deal even in the 19th/20th century. Partly because we never had peacetime conscription or a large standing army, so we never had to implement a transactional relationship between state and citizenry to justify the military service. As covered in the thread, WW1 and WW2 did lead to a big surge in such feeling in the UK, which was largely unanswered after WW1 and very strongly insisted on after WW2 before Cold War politics and social shifts started it ebbing away.
I'm afraid I'm not in a position to look at your link right now, so apologies if this is covered in it or isn't directly relevant. But, speaking for my own corner of HM Armed Forces, while our recruitment numbers in terms of people walking into (and out) of Phase 1 training are below targets/requirements, the number of people expressing interest is extremely high - far higher than the Service could actually make use of if they all joined up. Obviously there will be a lot of attrition and there's a big difference between an EoI and even going to the next stage of the recruitment process. But only 10% of those EoIs actually enter Phase 1 training, and it's not because 90% of them weren't actually that interested. If we could retain just the ones who drop out of the process because it takes too long and they're done with sitting around for months/years while endless checks and papers and sifts and interviews are done (and then re-done when the previous set get lost) then we'd have full classrooms in Phase 1. And that's without getting into the thorny issue of medical standards, which also loses a lot of people.
From where I'm sitting there isn't actually a lack of willingness to join up in the current population - the problem is getting those people trained up and into service and then retaining them once they're there. Which is the real problem, because Phase 1 doesn't turn out NCOs and it takes years to turn them into good NCOs. And good NCOs are the ones who make the military work. And they're the ones leaving in droves, not the OR-2s and OR-3s.
The concept of National Service requires a two-way street, and our European peers that have conscription generally retain a much stronger and more comprehensive system of give/take. Even the Americans, the spiritual home of rugged Anglo-Saxon individualism, have a very strong 'offer' in return for military service, although that's mostly to make up for the absence of a functional civilian welfare and social state in other respects.
JagLover said:
You say as well that once the enemy arrives on the beaches then we would fight, but we would almost certainly be fighting far from home, likely in Eastern or South Eastern Europe, unless the French get very annoyed about fishing quotas.
Yes, but that's not the hypothetical. The question being asked in the thread title is If you were Ukraunian and in Ukraine, what would you do? which has morphed into a related hypothetical of 'What if Britain was under direct threat [as Ukraine is from Russia] - would you fight or run?'The question about joining up or being conscripted to protect 'broader interests' when you and yours are under no direct threat is quite different and I would expect very different responses.
Slowboathome said:
I think some posters are interpreting the question as 'would you put your life on the line to save Rishi Sunak?'
Whereas I read it as 'would you put your life on the line to save your family, friends, grandkids, nephews and nieces from being raped, tortured and killed?'
This. I wouldn't put my life on the line for a politician. I would if facing an existential threat.Whereas I read it as 'would you put your life on the line to save your family, friends, grandkids, nephews and nieces from being raped, tortured and killed?'
People will fight for their and others survival in ever increasing concentric circles. They are at the centre, then their immediate family in the next circle, then maybe close friends and extended family in the next etc.
Almost everyone would fight for their personal survival, so its just where you draw the line of where you wouldn't fight. For me I would fight for the survival of my country. I wouldn't fight in the Russia Ukrainian war unless it was likely to spread across Europe and become and existential threat to the UK.
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