Full service mentality. Love to get up in the morning, go to school for free, have all the amenities they are used to and certainly someone else really should do something so they can repeat that day tomorrow.
I served, I am on the reserve list, I am one of the ones that will go and do something if necessary. But no, you go ahead and do you, everything is taken care of, no need to take over any responsibility other than paying your club membership. I mean, taxes, sorry.
They should protest in Moscow and Washington, perhaps also Tehran…
I fuñly agree with them that it shouldn’t be necessary
I also understand how the world is and that currently a tiny few oligarchs and dictators are willing to burn the world to rule over the ashes and unfortunately there is really only one way to stop that
:(
Fight for our own oligarchs?
I don’t get the arguments of our youth. On one hand they say „I‘m not going to die in war for ya“ and on the other side they say „Putin will not attack us because we have way more weapons“
One has to fight for its rights, it’s not given as a present. If a neighbor country is aggressive and unpredictable, one has to serve in military service or civil service. Same as all young men in Germany did as well.
There is “no war, but the class war” because wealthy young men never see combat. Decision makers do not send their own children to die. Putin is also sending the poor.
There is “no war, but the class war”
Perfect, so we just lay down and take whatever power desires to rule our place? You really think that Germany right now is a dictatorship and any other government would have no detrimental effect on your actual live whatsoever?
True. It’s like this for the entire humankind.
Still, standard people nowadays have far more rights and autonomy than in any other time. This was fought by our ancestors in last two centuries. Even the pure possibility to elect a leader, who decides about war, is a pretty new phenomen. If you do not fight for those rights at all needed levels, it will taken away by the wealthy.
So look, this article is about young people fighting for their rights.
autonomous weapons aren’t that far away, and are almost certainly cheaper than veterans
Yes, and you will need people to operate them. Such people are called soldiers.
I said autonomous not remote controlled.
Si vis pacem, para bellum.
In Finland we have mandatory conscription. It is a very good way of getting a military, whoch is dofficult to use for expansionist adventures, but very good for defence.
It is not cheap. Putting a million people through the training represents a significant loss of GDP, but imagine trying to attack a country where half the population has even some serious military training.
It is a very good way of getting a military
It is a very effective way of getting a military, allright. But good? No! It’s like “slavery is a very good way to build some pyramids”.
Its not mandatory in the way slavery is, you can choose to do a civilian service instead. I do think there is some good value in having people serve their societies in less voluntary ways, I think the unifying social effects of that alone is really valuable, in this increasingly individualistic age we live in
Cool, I can “chose” to which kind of labor I am forced (but only whether the labor is done with or without a weapon in my hands).
Crazy, I know, but you can train solidarity in a society in other ways than forcing people to work (or train them to kill and be killed).
in other ways than forcing people to work
Great, show me the country that has a working, sustainable implementation of that. The share of people that will take out more from any kind of society than they put in is too large for any group to work without at least some pressure to enforce that equilibrium.
My friend who did the civil service spent a few weeks at a camp learning about first aid, fire safety among other emergency skills. Then the rest of the year they just worked at an art school (because they was allowed to choose where they work at) updating computers and hanging around with youths. Yea, the pay wasn’t amazing but it was experience none the less, and I am really glad to live in a country where regular people have at least some readiness to help and keep the society running during wartime or any other massive crisis. This system isn’t due to authoritarian governmental malevolence, its to prepare us all for a war that is unfortunately a possibility due to our neighbour.
I know a guy for whom it was A-OK, that’s why forced labor for everyone is a good thing
Ok. I was a conscript, I’d say it was Ok for me as well, doesn’t make it right.
Reminds me of the one heir of Germany’s Balsen dynasty. She made some headlines some time ago saying something like “Forced labor during WW2 in our company was not too bad. We paid the workers and, as far as I know, treated them well.”
I mean of course we wouldn’t have this system in a better world, but that is just what living next to russia demands. For me the trade off of 0.5 - 1 year of service in exchange for societal safety is worth the temporary lack of freedom.
I like your example, as the pyramids weren’t built by slaves.
But, Ackchyually, ackchyually, slaves built shit in Ancient Egypt, they even had “conscripts” (funnily enough called explicitly forced labor in the Wiki article). So, all good, we pay our forced laborers some token amount, which they can’t even negotiate, and then it’s fine! Guess who used that argument to whitewash forced labor? You wouldn’t believe it.
Anyways, to concede to your historical accuracy, I’ll rephrase:
It is a very effective way of getting a military, allright. But good? No! It’s like “slavery is a very good way to produce cotton”.
Because my sentiment was about the correctness of the result of forced labor, not about the forced labor itself 🙄.
The conscription military only works when people feel their country is worth defending. There are plenty of people who declined to serve for moral reasons. There are plenty of reasons to criticize the system (gender equality rises to mind).
I think part of the reason the Finnish political system serves the people more than some others is because it needs to. We have our problems of course, a lot of the population is old, so prioritizing young people doesn’t always happen the way it ought to. Still, most people are OK with going, very few support abolishing the system because we know we all are needed to make attacking us fucking suck.
What I never understand about this reasoning…when “most” people feel this way, why is it compulsory and needs fines? If everybody and their grandma is happy defending the country, they could go voluntarily. Who cares about the threefiddy people who don’t go? They would be shitty comrades in the trenches anyway. So, why are people forced, then?
Tragedy of the commons, no individual downside encourages freeriding.
I think there is value in Finland’s system, when Russia clearly is a huge threat to Europe.
Maybe every part of Europe should have a system like that. Perhaps everybody, rich or poor, and perhaps even older as well as younger (not kids or pensioners though) could be trained to contribute in some way to national defence. This could include training for building weapons in factories for example. Look at how important Ukraine’s weapons companies are currently, when it comes to their national defence.
Germany got rid of it 15 years ago
Swede here, I went to muster back in the early 2000s, but my hearing was too bad, and I was failed out.
At the time I was happy, I wasn’t ready for it, but these days I think it would have been a great source of self dicipline for me.
Eh, in either case, from what I have heard/read, mandatory conscription will also boost social cohesion of a population which makes sense.
Germany is no Finland though, Finland also largely have had mandatory conscription due to not being a member of NATO;
Germany would have an easier time maintaining an army alike the way France does, a fully professional large army and riot police basically being intended for maintaining occupied areas (Gendarmerie). Germany can in theory have a 1 million strong force, fully volunteer based. While Finland can have 3 million in the reserves, by forcing everyone and their nan a mandatory conscription service.
Conscription is the cost effective option if you think numbers is everything, but for larger countries you’ll get stronger militaries by keeping soldiers stay in professional lifetime careers
The current regime makes politics for old people, dances around “difficult questions” and acts surprised if they are called out for it; For one, only men get draftet, but this is okay, because of reasons; In the past you could aquire stuff like drivers licences or certificates when you did your mandatory service; Now you get nothing, only wasted time;
Now we just need to have the whole conscription-programme counted as defence expenses, to meet the rising Nato demands and hopefully reduce the need for weapons from problematic countries…
Yes, I do think it should be.
Good. Slavery, forced work and stripping people off bodily autonomy is not a European value, and people who are forcing authoritarianism down our throats are no different than Putin supporters. I will fight for values, not for the flag and a song, and if Europe loses its course, its no longer worth defending.
So, assume the Ukranian people had all followed that principle. What would their daily lives look like now?
People who call military service “slavery” are in the same category as those who say “taxes are theft”.
Yes. Wage slavery is also a term they would use.
You say you are fighting for values, but if you’re not fighting for the nation or the union of nations that represent those values, it’s just empty rhetoric
What values? Genuinely. Which nation or union of nations is upholding good values? Germany? If you protest against genocide there, you will be beaten and jailed by the same government that wants to send you to die in Russia (again).
It’s a conundrum, isn’t it? If one of my values is “people should not be involuntarily drafted into the army”, what to do then?
That’s one way to say, “the nation-state must be part of your identity”. I’m not into fighting wars for the wealthy.
Let’s be honnest with ourself. We are on lemmy. We are commenting from our home confort about something we don’t have to live.
That’s naive. Putin is building an army with 1.5 million soldiers, he’s in panic mode and highly unpredictable. The only thing that will stop Russia is strength.
Putin is barely managing against a solo Ukraine and painstakingly avoiding open conflict with NATO territory. If you think Germany will be solo against Russia and thus requires a draft, you’re the naive one
Putin is barely managing against a solo Ukraine
Because Ukraine is supported by Europe which for now is beyond the reach of Russia. So Ukraine is successfully striking deep inside Russia but Russia can’t touch the supply chain of Ukraine. Putin obviously is not planning to conquer all Europe. He wants to damage infrastructure crucial to supporting Ukraine and divert NATO’s resources away from Ukraine. He will use as little resource as possible to achieve that, not invade Europe with all he has. He will do it if he sees that Europe is too weak to respond and so far Europe is proving that it clearly is.
painstakingly avoiding open conflict with NATO
[citation needed]
Russia regularly sends in drones into NATO airspace and attacks infrastructure. They tried to blow up planes filled with ammunition on an airport in Germany. I wouldn’t call that “painstakingly avoiding open conflict”. They are testing the boundaries and so far NATO showed that they are willing to tolerate clear acts of war while Russia is getting closer and closer to open conflict.
If you think Germany will be solo against Russia
No one says that. What you’re saying makes no sense. You think that Russia can’t fight entire NATO but also think that Germany is somehow preparing to fight them alone. Germany needs the draft to be able to help its allies. Every NATO ally is trying to improve its military now because when shit hits the fan they will all have to work together.
Ukraine has support, not enough, but enough to stand up to him
NATO without the US has already a higher budget, more soldiers, more vehicles and planes and more modern equipment than Russia.
You’re getting fooled by propaganda which has a habit of portraying their enemies as weaker and stronger at the same time.
Europe is starving its social security, education, infrastructure and healthcare to funnel everything into rearmament while the armaments industry has the lowest return of investment with 50 cents per euro invested.
This is not East vs West, this is class war.
If the war happens, this post would age like milk. Russia has FPVs and Shaheds, cheap recon drones like Orlan, mid range vehicle hunters Lancets. True, they are in a very bad shape and will likely lose if they face the while Europe + Ukraine at the same time in full strength, but people heavily underestimate the military tech advancements made in the war.
As it stands, the only undeniable edge EU has over them is in planes. Would it be enough?
Combined arms warfare > drones
Combined arms warfare includes drones.
But just drones don’t include CAW
That’s the idea of “yes we definitely need an army” but personally I’m not willing to contribute 😉
I served but okay, keep blabbing on.
You have no counterargument so you get personal
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The EU, combined with the UK and Turkey have over 2 million soldiers already, more advanced equipment and vastly more capital.
Also no, Putin isn‘t. He‘s been putting mercenaries of over 40 nations and many Russians into the meat grinder for almost 5 years. Russia has no resources to win any war right now.
Russia has no resources to win any war right now
They’ve got the resources to wage a war, though. “Win” is a relative term.
