How are we to reduce global tensions with Putin in charge of Russia, Netanyahu of Israel, the ayatollahs of Iran, Xi of China, plus the looming arrival of Trump?
There's also the thorny issue of discipline - many of the young men who volunteer for the forces struggle with the changes in expectations and some go through preparatory courses prior to enlisting (a friend of mine taught numeracy and literacy on one a few years ago). That's the people who want to be there. How long would it be before a drill sergeant gets set upon and the shit kicked out of him by a bunch of unwilling recruits?
There's also the thorny issue of discipline - many of the young men who volunteer for the forces struggle with the changes in expectations and some go through preparatory courses prior to enlisting (a friend of mine taught numeracy and literacy on one a few years ago). That's the people who want to be there. How long would it be before a drill sergeant gets set upon and the shit kicked out of him by a bunch of unwilling recruits?
I find myself wondering how happy the armed services would be to have conscripts imposed on them.
I agree about volunteers and discipline. Several ex pupils of mine went into the armed services. One was kicked after prison time for a drunken assault and another stabbed someone to death. That one is doing life somewhere.
Between the length of time since the UK has faced a threat that would make volunteering seem like the right thing to do, and the massive disillusionment with politicians since, I struggle to see how any government would be able to reintroduce conscription.
It would also require the infrastructure needed to house and train recruits to be recreated as most of it has been sold off to keep the MOD afloat. Don't forget that National Service ended because we couldn't actually afford it, and because with the contraction of the empire there wasn't enough places to send all the increasingly unwilling conscripts.
I suspect that would be just the start of the issues...
A chap in the Youth Club at The Church of My Youth was rather gung-ho about the armed forces, and joined the RAF upon leaving school. This would be around 1970, I think.
He left after about three weeks (I suspect his father may have had to pay £££ to get him released), and, to his great credit IMHO, freely admitted that he had had no idea of how arduous (and generally ghastly) the training etc. would be.
Apropos going to war with Russia - if it turns nuclear, there will be NO winners. Anywhere. And probably no world worth living in, for that matter.
Are people seriously suggesting that Russia will invade western Europe, or the UK?
Well, Russia could still invade Finland, the Baltic States and/or Moldova - Putin is probably insane enough to give it a try - and some sort of NATO/EU response would doubtless follow (perhaps not from the US, if Trump Mk2 is in charge).
In relation to conscription, there's a ready pool of well trained people already. All those hours playing video games will be great for operating drones - and the next war will be fought with remote arms rather than boots on the ground (I don't expect the MoD or Conservative ministers have realised that we're not going to be fighting a mid 20th century war).
All that is true, but does not address the tensions caused by paranoid or megalomaniac dictators. Whatever the right=wing press might say, this country is now, at best, a bit player on the global stage.
Should the MOD attempt to recruit homeless ex soldiers ?
This is a much beloved trope in right wing circles, but all the evidence is that a small percentage of the homeless are veterans (not more than around 6%).
The armed forces covenant already prioritises veterans for social housing, and many of those left homeless are suffering from other problems (usually with mental health or brushes with the law). [To that extent they are a symptom of the running down of the public realm under successive Conservative governments.] So they aren't likely to make good recruits.
Up or out style policies are responsible for the majority of soldiers who leave the army early, if they were really in a fix they could change these, but this is one of those cases where aspirations to run a professional force collide with running a mass/conscript force.
May I say thanks to @Spike and others who put right my misinterpretation of "pre-war generation" on the last page? I clearly didn't have my brain in gear before engaging my keyboard fingers!
Putin may have his eye on Eastern Europe. But, experience suggests the Russian military would be incapable of getting a significant distance into Poland or the Baltic States in an all out invasion - their failure to secure Ukraine, with just the Ukrainian military to oppose them, is not a good sign. To do better with forces already weakened by Ukraine and impact of sanctions against the whole of NATO is infeasible. Unless he uses nukes to destroy rather than occupy. Either way, a rapid destruction of invading Russian forces or nuclear holocaust, the war will be largely over before the UK government gets round to organising a draft, much less having any conscripts trained.
There may be options for him to make small territorial gains less directly, something similar to the 2014 annexation of Crimea and part of Donbas, but that would be in eastern former Soviet states - Georgia, Azerbaijan etc - and even then I'm not sure there's a big enough Russian community in those nations to provide some means to do that. I doubt such actions would lead to wider war, though might encourage further sanctions against Russia and Russian interests.
This rash of articles is not actually being driven by current geopolitics (though as the second tier of articles kick off, columnists will no doubt introduce it along with their current hobby horse), but a pitch by the British Army for more funding.
Unlike the US, austerity in the UK involved cuts to both the police and the armed forces, and after 14 years things are looking a bit ragged.
So what better way to motivate the incoming government than sticking a torch under ones chin and telling scary stories (not that they are likely to need much motivation - I honestly think Starmer is more likely to get involved in a war than Sunak is).
Sunak is already involved in a war, if the definition of war includes 'shooting missiles at people'. Two wars, if the ongoing support in training and armaments for Ukraine counts. Three, if his delusions of influence over what's happening to Gaza have any basis in reality.
Getting into a war with a bigger country like Russia is a different ball game, of course.
It seems that a lot of the concern being shown by military people in various countries is due to the fear, not only of the apparently endless wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, but also to the possibility of Trump Mk2, and what that vindictive despot's presidency might mean for the world in general (it'll be bad enough for the USA).
I'm not so sure; it seems to me that Blair lost a lot of support because of his handling of Iraq, and if Starmer has any sense (and I presume he has at least some) he wouldn't want to go down that road.
If Russian tanks and troops cross the border into a Baltic state and start shooting, NATO forces will immediately respond. First, of course, NATO troops already in the Baltic states - including the military forces of those nations - and aircraft based elsewhere in Europe. Military command structures are designed to respond instantly to an attack - if they needed to wait for civilian politicians to be woken up and briefed, and especially for them to call an emergency meeting of government (in the UK, the Cabinet and possibly senior Opposition politicians - other nations will have their own equivalent) then they could face subsequently needing to respond having lost much of their capability to do so (airfields destroyed or captured etc).
Of course, there'll be time for politicians to debate while ground and naval forces are moved into the area. But, by then the Russian forces would have been on the receiving end of the airforces of all NATO nations.
Do you believe that in those circumstances any nation would choose to withdraw from NATO while their forces are already engaged in countering an attack on them? An attack on one NATO state is an attack on all, that's one of the founding articles of NATO - article 5, though the precise conditions include Article 6 which means that only covers Europe and North America, hence the Argentine invasion of the Falklands didn't bring the whole of NATO into the conflict.
If Russian tanks and troops cross the border into a Baltic state and start shooting, NATO forces will immediately respond. First, of course, NATO troops already in the Baltic states - including the military forces of those nations - and aircraft based elsewhere in Europe. Military command structures are designed to respond instantly to an attack - if they needed to wait for civilian politicians to be woken up and briefed, and especially for them to call an emergency meeting of government (in the UK, the Cabinet and possibly senior Opposition politicians - other nations will have their own equivalent) then they could face subsequently needing to respond having lost much of their capability to do so (airfields destroyed or captured etc).
Of course, there'll be time for politicians to debate while ground and naval forces are moved into the area. But, by then the Russian forces would have been on the receiving end of the airforces of all NATO nations.
Do you believe that in those circumstances any nation would choose to withdraw from NATO while their forces are already engaged in countering an attack on them? An attack on one NATO state is an attack on all, that's one of the founding articles of NATO - article 5, though the precise conditions include Article 6 which means that only covers Europe and North America, hence the Argentine invasion of the Falklands didn't bring the whole of NATO into the conflict.
I understand the rules but I don't trust everyone to follow them
If Putin were to invade a NATO country, the UK would be part of the NATO force. That could lead to us being at war.
That would be a very heavy move by Putin. He has some strategic sense, and to end up fighting NATO would be top of the range daft.
Would the whole of NATO really go to war with Russia for the Baltic states ?
I think Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty is powered by the same logic as MAD: it works so long as your enemies believe you will commit fully and hence are deterred from taking the triggering action. It also has much the same flaw: that, if your bluff is called, following through is not likely to be in your immediate best interests (though, as history shows us, acquiescence to a small land grab only means having to fight a larger one later).
Yes - I think the logic is that while following through on the threat is not in your immediate best interests, not following through is not in your long-term best interests.
Yes - I think the logic is that while following through on the threat is not in your immediate best interests, not following through is not in your long-term best interests.
Slightly more believable in this context than in MAD where following through ensures you have no long term interests...
If Russian tanks and troops cross the border into a Baltic state and start shooting, NATO forces will immediately respond. First, of course, NATO troops already in the Baltic states - including the military forces of those nations - and aircraft based elsewhere in Europe. Military command structures are designed to respond instantly to an attack - if they needed to wait for civilian politicians to be woken up and briefed, and especially for them to call an emergency meeting of government (in the UK, the Cabinet and possibly senior Opposition politicians - other nations will have their own equivalent) then they could face subsequently needing to respond having lost much of their capability to do so (airfields destroyed or captured etc).
Of course, there'll be time for politicians to debate while ground and naval forces are moved into the area. But, by then the Russian forces would have been on the receiving end of the airforces of all NATO nations.
Do you believe that in those circumstances any nation would choose to withdraw from NATO while their forces are already engaged in countering an attack on them? An attack on one NATO state is an attack on all, that's one of the founding articles of NATO - article 5, though the precise conditions include Article 6 which means that only covers Europe and North America, hence the Argentine invasion of the Falklands didn't bring the whole of NATO into the conflict.
I understand the rules but I don't trust everyone to follow them
If Putin attacks the Baltic States, that's three NATO members straight in, and I can't imagine Finland holding back given its history. Add in that I bet the Poles would love to give Putin a bloody nose, and that's 5 NATO members involved in in the first hour. It'll be hard for anyone else to say no by then.
If Russian tanks and troops cross the border into a Baltic state and start shooting, NATO forces will immediately respond. First, of course, NATO troops already in the Baltic states - including the military forces of those nations - and aircraft based elsewhere in Europe. Military command structures are designed to respond instantly to an attack - if they needed to wait for civilian politicians to be woken up and briefed, and especially for them to call an emergency meeting of government (in the UK, the Cabinet and possibly senior Opposition politicians - other nations will have their own equivalent) then they could face subsequently needing to respond having lost much of their capability to do so (airfields destroyed or captured etc).
Of course, there'll be time for politicians to debate while ground and naval forces are moved into the area. But, by then the Russian forces would have been on the receiving end of the airforces of all NATO nations.
Do you believe that in those circumstances any nation would choose to withdraw from NATO while their forces are already engaged in countering an attack on them? An attack on one NATO state is an attack on all, that's one of the founding articles of NATO - article 5, though the precise conditions include Article 6 which means that only covers Europe and North America, hence the Argentine invasion of the Falklands didn't bring the whole of NATO into the conflict.
I understand the rules but I don't trust everyone to follow them
Fair enough, but which country (or countries) to do you think might not follow the rules?
The UK armed forces are now extremely small by historical comparisons, and we have a bad habit of trying to be a world policeman as part of our delusion that we are a Great Power. So I guess there is a case for more hands on deck, as opposed to all hands on deck.
Against that, I'm not sure that half-trained conscripts are of much value in the modern military. Unless, that is you recruit them in millions and use them as cannon fodder, after the doctrine of U.S. Grant - or in more recent years, Russia and China. In a war of attrition, numbers count, irrespective of quality.
If Russian tanks and troops cross the border into a Baltic state and start shooting, NATO forces will immediately respond. First, of course, NATO troops already in the Baltic states - including the military forces of those nations - and aircraft based elsewhere in Europe. Military command structures are designed to respond instantly to an attack - if they needed to wait for civilian politicians to be woken up and briefed, and especially for them to call an emergency meeting of government (in the UK, the Cabinet and possibly senior Opposition politicians - other nations will have their own equivalent) then they could face subsequently needing to respond having lost much of their capability to do so (airfields destroyed or captured etc).
Of course, there'll be time for politicians to debate while ground and naval forces are moved into the area. But, by then the Russian forces would have been on the receiving end of the airforces of all NATO nations.
Do you believe that in those circumstances any nation would choose to withdraw from NATO while their forces are already engaged in countering an attack on them? An attack on one NATO state is an attack on all, that's one of the founding articles of NATO - article 5, though the precise conditions include Article 6 which means that only covers Europe and North America, hence the Argentine invasion of the Falklands didn't bring the whole of NATO into the conflict.
I understand the rules but I don't trust everyone to follow them
Fair enough, but which country (or countries) to do you think might not follow the rules?
Very few of them follow the rules in respect of dedicating at least 2% for defence
If Russian tanks and troops cross the border into a Baltic state and start shooting, NATO forces will immediately respond. First, of course, NATO troops already in the Baltic states - including the military forces of those nations - and aircraft based elsewhere in Europe. Military command structures are designed to respond instantly to an attack - if they needed to wait for civilian politicians to be woken up and briefed, and especially for them to call an emergency meeting of government (in the UK, the Cabinet and possibly senior Opposition politicians - other nations will have their own equivalent) then they could face subsequently needing to respond having lost much of their capability to do so (airfields destroyed or captured etc).
Of course, there'll be time for politicians to debate while ground and naval forces are moved into the area. But, by then the Russian forces would have been on the receiving end of the airforces of all NATO nations.
Do you believe that in those circumstances any nation would choose to withdraw from NATO while their forces are already engaged in countering an attack on them? An attack on one NATO state is an attack on all, that's one of the founding articles of NATO - article 5, though the precise conditions include Article 6 which means that only covers Europe and North America, hence the Argentine invasion of the Falklands didn't bring the whole of NATO into the conflict.
I understand the rules but I don't trust everyone to follow them
Fair enough, but which country (or countries) to do you think might not follow the rules?
Very few of them follow the rules in respect of dedicating at least 2% for defence
That commitment does not form part of the North Atlantic Treaty.
According to the BBC, Sunak is now seeking the support of us senior citizens . The so called, 'Saga vote'. Hmmm ... Mrs RR's comment was pithy and witty, "Saga vote? With all the mess they've made they'd be better going for those with very short term memories ... the 'gaga' vote."
According to the BBC, Sunak is now seeking the support of us senior citizens . The so called, 'Saga vote'. Hmmm ... Mrs RR's comment was pithy and witty, "Saga vote? With all the mess they've made they'd be better going for those with very short term memories ... the 'gaga' vote."
Nice one, Mrs RR...
Those of us who aren't gaga remember that it was only a short while ago when Sun*k's predecessor, the odious BoJo, wanted the bodies of useless old/sick people to *pile high* so that the country he could get on with partying...
According to the BBC, Sunak is now seeking the support of us senior citizens . The so called, 'Saga vote'. Hmmm ... Mrs RR's comment was pithy and witty, "Saga vote? With all the mess they've made they'd be better going for those with very short term memories ... the 'gaga' vote."
Why are they called "the Saga vote"? Do they live primarily in historically Nordic-influenced parts of the UK? Or is it the Brit equivalent of "Greatest Generation", ie. their lives have been like heroic sagas?
According to the BBC, Sunak is now seeking the support of us senior citizens . The so called, 'Saga vote'. Hmmm ... Mrs RR's comment was pithy and witty, "Saga vote? With all the mess they've made they'd be better going for those with very short term memories ... the 'gaga' vote."
Why are they called "the Saga vote"? Do they live primarily in historically Nordic-influenced parts of the UK? Or is it the Brit equivalent of "Greatest Generation", ie. their lives have been like heroic sagas?
Or "seniors and geriatric assholes"?
Saga is a company with services (insurance, travel etc) tailored to the over 50s.
According to the BBC, Sunak is now seeking the support of us senior citizens . The so called, 'Saga vote'. Hmmm ... Mrs RR's comment was pithy and witty, "Saga vote? With all the mess they've made they'd be better going for those with very short term memories ... the 'gaga' vote."
Why are they called "the Saga vote"? Do they live primarily in historically Nordic-influenced parts of the UK? Or is it the Brit equivalent of "Greatest Generation", ie. their lives have been like heroic sagas?
Or "seniors and geriatric assholes"?
Saga is a company with services (insurance, travel etc) tailored to the over 50s.
According to the BBC, Sunak is now seeking the support of us senior citizens . The so called, 'Saga vote'. Hmmm ... Mrs RR's comment was pithy and witty, "Saga vote? With all the mess they've made they'd be better going for those with very short term memories ... the 'gaga' vote."
Why are they called "the Saga vote"? Do they live primarily in historically Nordic-influenced parts of the UK? Or is it the Brit equivalent of "Greatest Generation", ie. their lives have been like heroic sagas?
Or "seniors and geriatric assholes"?
Saga is a company with services (insurance, travel etc) tailored to the over 50s.
Ah, thanks.
Mind you, seniors and geriatric assholes is how Mad King BoJo regarded us. He will not easily or quickly be forgiven for his evil callousness, and one day (soon) he himself may be a geriatric asshole, rather than the middle-aged asshole he is at present.
According to the BBC, Sunak is now seeking the support of us senior citizens . The so called, 'Saga vote'. Hmmm ... Mrs RR's comment was pithy and witty, "Saga vote? With all the mess they've made they'd be better going for those with very short term memories ... the 'gaga' vote."
Why are they called "the Saga vote"? Do they live primarily in historically Nordic-influenced parts of the UK? Or is it the Brit equivalent of "Greatest Generation", ie. their lives have been like heroic sagas?
Or "seniors and geriatric assholes"?
Saga is a company with services (insurance, travel etc) tailored to the over 50s.
Ah, thanks.
Mind you, seniors and geriatric assholes is how Mad King BoJo regarded us. He will not easily or quickly be forgiven for his evil callousness, and one day (soon) he himself may be a geriatric asshole, rather than the middle-aged asshole he is at present.
According to the BBC, Sunak is now seeking the support of us senior citizens . The so called, 'Saga vote'. Hmmm ... Mrs RR's comment was pithy and witty, "Saga vote? With all the mess they've made they'd be better going for those with very short term memories ... the 'gaga' vote."
Why are they called "the Saga vote"? Do they live primarily in historically Nordic-influenced parts of the UK? Or is it the Brit equivalent of "Greatest Generation", ie. their lives have been like heroic sagas?
Or "seniors and geriatric assholes"?
Saga is a company with services (insurance, travel etc) tailored to the over 50s.
Ah, thanks.
Mind you, seniors and geriatric assholes is how Mad King BoJo regarded us. He will not easily or quickly be forgiven for his evil callousness, and one day (soon) he himself may be a geriatric asshole, rather than the middle-aged asshole he is at present.
Comments
Head between legs and kiss your arse goodbye.
I never said a nuclear bomb on London would win the war - I meant that it would end it...and remove the need for conscripts...
I expect you're right about not having enough personnel to train people in the first place, though.
I find myself wondering how happy the armed services would be to have conscripts imposed on them.
I agree about volunteers and discipline. Several ex pupils of mine went into the armed services. One was kicked after prison time for a drunken assault and another stabbed someone to death. That one is doing life somewhere.
It would also require the infrastructure needed to house and train recruits to be recreated as most of it has been sold off to keep the MOD afloat. Don't forget that National Service ended because we couldn't actually afford it, and because with the contraction of the empire there wasn't enough places to send all the increasingly unwilling conscripts.
I suspect that would be just the start of the issues...
Lack of housing, lack of suitable NCOs to train people, lack of weapons, lack of uniforms for 100Ks of people ..
.. not to mention arming and training a generation that has generally been ignored politically and repeatedly told to STFU when it protests.
He left after about three weeks (I suspect his father may have had to pay £££ to get him released), and, to his great credit IMHO, freely admitted that he had had no idea of how arduous (and generally ghastly) the training etc. would be.
Apropos going to war with Russia - if it turns nuclear, there will be NO winners. Anywhere. And probably no world worth living in, for that matter.
Cockroaches. Other seemingly indestructible invertebrates (Farage? There's a horrifying thought).
Not so horrifying, given that he'll only be King of the Cockroaches...or the Bed-Bugs...
🐛
Well, Russia could still invade Finland, the Baltic States and/or Moldova - Putin is probably insane enough to give it a try - and some sort of NATO/EU response would doubtless follow (perhaps not from the US, if Trump Mk2 is in charge).
This is a much beloved trope in right wing circles, but all the evidence is that a small percentage of the homeless are veterans (not more than around 6%).
The armed forces covenant already prioritises veterans for social housing, and many of those left homeless are suffering from other problems (usually with mental health or brushes with the law). [To that extent they are a symptom of the running down of the public realm under successive Conservative governments.] So they aren't likely to make good recruits.
Up or out style policies are responsible for the majority of soldiers who leave the army early, if they were really in a fix they could change these, but this is one of those cases where aspirations to run a professional force collide with running a mass/conscript force.
He has most definitely got his eye on at least Eastern Europe. I doubt he would stop there.
He would threaten the UK - I gather he has already done so, but if he was pointing his forced westward, that would be more significant.
There may be options for him to make small territorial gains less directly, something similar to the 2014 annexation of Crimea and part of Donbas, but that would be in eastern former Soviet states - Georgia, Azerbaijan etc - and even then I'm not sure there's a big enough Russian community in those nations to provide some means to do that. I doubt such actions would lead to wider war, though might encourage further sanctions against Russia and Russian interests.
Unlike the US, austerity in the UK involved cuts to both the police and the armed forces, and after 14 years things are looking a bit ragged.
So what better way to motivate the incoming government than sticking a torch under ones chin and telling scary stories (not that they are likely to need much motivation - I honestly think Starmer is more likely to get involved in a war than Sunak is).
Getting into a war with a bigger country like Russia is a different ball game, of course.
Agreed, there's a musketeersesque clause in the NATO constitution, I forget how it is usually referred to.
That would be a very heavy move by Putin. He has some strategic sense, and to end up fighting NATO would be top of the range daft.
Would the whole of NATO really go to war with Russia for the Baltic states ?
Of course, there'll be time for politicians to debate while ground and naval forces are moved into the area. But, by then the Russian forces would have been on the receiving end of the airforces of all NATO nations.
Do you believe that in those circumstances any nation would choose to withdraw from NATO while their forces are already engaged in countering an attack on them? An attack on one NATO state is an attack on all, that's one of the founding articles of NATO - article 5, though the precise conditions include Article 6 which means that only covers Europe and North America, hence the Argentine invasion of the Falklands didn't bring the whole of NATO into the conflict.
I think Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty is powered by the same logic as MAD: it works so long as your enemies believe you will commit fully and hence are deterred from taking the triggering action. It also has much the same flaw: that, if your bluff is called, following through is not likely to be in your immediate best interests (though, as history shows us, acquiescence to a small land grab only means having to fight a larger one later).
Slightly more believable in this context than in MAD where following through ensures you have no long term interests...
If Putin attacks the Baltic States, that's three NATO members straight in, and I can't imagine Finland holding back given its history. Add in that I bet the Poles would love to give Putin a bloody nose, and that's 5 NATO members involved in in the first hour. It'll be hard for anyone else to say no by then.
Fair enough, but which country (or countries) to do you think might not follow the rules?
Against that, I'm not sure that half-trained conscripts are of much value in the modern military. Unless, that is you recruit them in millions and use them as cannon fodder, after the doctrine of U.S. Grant - or in more recent years, Russia and China. In a war of attrition, numbers count, irrespective of quality.
Very few of them follow the rules in respect of dedicating at least 2% for defence
That commitment does not form part of the North Atlantic Treaty.
Nice one, Mrs RR...
Those of us who aren't gaga remember that it was only a short while ago when Sun*k's predecessor, the odious BoJo, wanted the bodies of useless old/sick people to *pile high* so that the country he could get on with partying...
Why are they called "the Saga vote"? Do they live primarily in historically Nordic-influenced parts of the UK? Or is it the Brit equivalent of "Greatest Generation", ie. their lives have been like heroic sagas?
Or "seniors and geriatric assholes"?
Saga is a company with services (insurance, travel etc) tailored to the over 50s.
Ah, thanks.
Mind you, seniors and geriatric assholes is how Mad King BoJo regarded us. He will not easily or quickly be forgiven for his evil callousness, and one day (soon) he himself may be a geriatric asshole, rather than the middle-aged asshole he is at present.
Good riff. Thanks.
Or, as some of my fellow students who worked for them at the halls of residence in the summer holidays put it, Sex And Games for the Agèd.
But he's not even a MP these days ???