I have some sympathy with breaking diplomatic ties, as Russia is such a malign actor. Perhaps ties could be resumed again if the Russian people ever decide they’ve had enough of their leaders and want a proper government. That could be the pretext for relations to normalize.
I don’t see how a break in formal diplomatic ties necessarily means all out full scale war. That would be mutually assured destruction, and nobody wants that.
But we are living in a world where, even with diplomatic relations, Putin and his cronies threaten a nuclear attack quite regularly.
When I first heard a nuclear attack being threatened, early on in their invasion of Ukraine, it was deeply shocking. Now I don’t worry about it at all, not because it won’t ever happen - my best guess is small scale ‘tactical’ nukes are exchanged at some point, and then the world sees sense and pulls back from the brink of MAD - but because it’s out of my hands, and my life is only worse when I think about what malign actors might or might not do. So fu*k them!
It’s funny that you should quote both scenarios because they both follow a ladder of escalation. In reality there is never a complete breaking of diplomatic ties but you may not see any public facing interaction.
And what then happens when China decides to fully annex Hong Kong, or Taiwan, or Maccau? Or if China decides to fully claim the South China Sea and cut off all of the SE Asian countries that rely on the SC Sea for the fishing and shipping needs?
A thoroughly depressing but important overview here of how Russia has prepared herself for what appears to be an imminent counter-offensive. (Free to read.)
What do we think? Would you support conscription in the UK if the threat from Russia became serious? I know one family who are now thinking of going to Australia to avoid their two young sons having to fight at some time in the future. Another lad I know has left the army after serving in a Nato force in Estonia. He is convinced that Nato will have to get involved in combat sooner or later…
Britain used to have conscription, my father and all but one of my uncles were called up and all ended up in wars or war-zones, aside from WWII they were involved in Palestine, Korea and Malay.
At the time, there was a serious shortage of personnel so there had to be compulsion. Since the empire has broken up there isn’t that same requirement and the armed forces generally need skilled professionals who are in for the long term rather than reluctant teenagers who will be taught to fire a rifle and which way to point it.
There is currently talk of reintroducing conscription in Germany. They are having major problems in recruiting young people in to the forces. I think part of the problem is that it isn’t regarded as being a particularly prestigious calling - certainly in the old West of the country.
We currently have a couple of Bundeswehr trainees as work. We do a lot of support work for the Red Cross so the idea is to get professional soldiers trained in case they are needed to offer support in war-zones. (My boss is ex-Luftwaffe so he is quite keen to offer placements to them).
Would I fight? Well, I am too old for that so it is hardly a fair question. Would I be happy for my children to fight? If it was what they wanted to do, I wouldn’t be opposed to it but I don’t think the idea of compulsion is particularly good. Formally, in Germany, there was compulsory national service for men but that wasn’t necessarily military service. It could be community service - working in a care home or driving an ambulance, for example.
Thinking back to my uncles, they all hated their military service. My father seemed to get on better and was in the regular army (tank regiment) after National Service. It’s possible that a small number of youngsters who do get basic military training might like it but I suspect that for most, it probably does more harm than good.
In Switzerland, during the times of the cold war, a functional army of 600k trained men could be raised within three days, all ready to go into guerilla warfare. Crazy when you think about it… if you didn’t want to do your military service at the time (roughly until the mid-nineties), your only alternative was to serve a prison sentence for nine months.
Nowadays, 100k soldiers can be raised if something happens. If you don’t want to do the army as a young man, you can take the option of accomplishing an equivalent time as a civil servant. Most young people take that option, but currently, they are disccussing about hardening conditions again, in order to raise the numbers in the army. The military budget has also been massively inflated since that shit in Ukraine began. It’s quite depressing to be honest.
Would be great to see conscription in the UK (and across Europe). You need to stand up to Putin and the US won’t be a reliable ally if Trump gets back. The EU deserves a strong fighting force as really the best hope for humanity.
Against Russia, YES!
I’d probably be absolutely useless but at least they would waste a few bullets on me.
The problem as I see it is most European countries don’t have enough operational equipement. They need to up not only production, even of simple shells and bullets, but also have a budget that keeps what they have in operational condition. This is why the US is soo important.
I also don’t think if the necessary money, infrastucture and career opportunities where in place military service and/or conscription would not be that necessary young lads would join up if the armed forces ‘wanted’ them the thing is armed forces don’t as the structure is no longer there and/or the political will. It’ll take a long time to get where we should be and we’re not seeing anything to indicate anythings even starting.
The UKs obstination againt any form of European collaboration has put us at an immense disadvantage!
There is a huge amount wasted in maintenance across Europe. There were a couple of proposals for the UK and Germany to collaborate. One was with the respective air forces. The idea there was to have combined maintenance operations because the two fleets were very similar. That was opposed by some red-faced home-counties Colonel Blimps who were under the impression that the RAF still operated Spitfires and battled with the Hun.
The other was with the tank maintenance and training facilities which they do operate in Paderborn although I get the impression that the place was essentially a dumping ground. I have a friend who was was formerly in the army and served out in Iraq who works at Sennelager in a civilian role (essentially because they never trained up anyone else since) and he says that there was no continuity. They are now training people up but relying on Bundeswehr personnel through necessity.
There is much made of the 2% spend in NATO but that is somewhat spurious as huge amounts are spent on white elephants. Just think of the UK with it’s two carriers without carrier fleets and a nuclear weapons system that is practically unusable in any realistic scenario.
Part of the problem is that politicians will spend on what the arms industry wants them to, not what there defence and armed forces actually require. Eisenhower famously warned about it back in the 60s.
There are training programs between European forces. I had the RAF and some other airforces (Germans, Swedes …) staying in ‘my’ hotel during a training exercise. The town has an army de l’air academy now (was Foreign Legion) and the air base 115 is nearby.
Great guys had some fun and they saved me from getting a real good beating.