Conscription

They wouldn’t fancy it though with all that sewerage
Doesn’t seem to have deterred some!

Whitewavemark2

AGAA4

I doubt Russia will physically invade the UK. If they want to get rid of us a nuke would kill 90% of us.
Having Russians haring up our beaches is unlikely.

They wouldn’t fancy it though with all that sewerage.

🤣🤣🤣

"How can we put them off, Pike?"

Juliet27

If it came to war, it might unite some of our youth gangs against a common enemy rather than fighting each other.

I don't really think that a war is the best way to stop gang fights, do you?

I have always taken some rather twisted comfort from the thought that the great Tom Lehrer was right, and that if the third world war should break out "We will all go together when we go" as it would be nuclear and over in minutes.

Better red than dead, as we used to say, than to have my dear GC wasted like the WW1 generation.

AGAA4

I doubt Russia will physically invade the UK. If they want to get rid of us a nuke would kill 90% of us.
Having Russians haring up our beaches is unlikely.

They wouldn’t fancy it though with all that sewerage.

I think by age 70 many if us will have fulfilled out obligations to society by the work we have done and the families we have raised to carry on those obligations through their work.

If it came to war, it might unite some of our youth gangs against a common enemy rather than fighting each other.

I agree Doodledog in the idea of mandatory community service, perhaps on leaving school and at age 70, ages when many of us need a reminder of our obligations to society

What did you have in mind Winterwhite for age 70?

I doubt Russia will physically invade the UK. If they want to get rid of us a nuke would kill 90% of us.
Having Russians haring up our beaches is unlikely.

I agree Doodledog in the idea of mandatory community service, perhaps on leaving school and at age 70, ages when many of us need a reminder of our obligations to society. But that is quite different to what General Sanders is proposing.

I thought it was generally assumed that the need for a large land army to defend these shores was a thing of the past. That future attacks on the UK would either affect power or food supplies (in which case the current army would assume civic organisation roles), or be nuclear.

I think there is a difference between asking people (and not just young people) to go abroad to 'fight in foreign wars' and asking them to contribute to their country at home.

I wouldn't support the old-style national service, which enlisted young men into the forces and sent them to fight, but I am tentatively coming round to the idea of expecting everyone to 'do something' for the collective good. I haven't quite pinned down what the 'something' could be, but I think it could be very broad. I saw a (lovely) film called A Yak In The Classroom, set in Bhutan, where national service was tailored to the individual - in the story a young man was sent to teach in a primary school in a remote village. Not necessarily something that would work here, but there could be all sorts of options. In some cases the results might be remedial for the people doing the service, and in others it could benefit an increasingly divided society - in many cases it could probably do both at the same time.

Maybe everyone should have to 'do something' for a certain number of weeks a year and complete them within a five year period? The finer points would need to be decided by people cleverer than me, but something like that would allow for life events to be accommodated and for people to plan. Nobody need be forced to move away from home, but those who wanted to could be given a chance to live somewhere different for a while, and people could learn new skills, whether they are practical or 'people skills'. I don't know who would supervise any of this - that would be a potential obstacle - or what would happen if people refused to co-operate. Again, that would need to be decided. Maybe a reward system would work better than a punitive one, but something would have to ensure that those who could afford it couldn't buy their way out, as that puts the kibosh on many well-intentioned schemes. It has to be fair, but fairness can be very subjective.

As regards actual military action, I think that this should be addressed by a combination of prioritising diplomacy and ensuring that the armed forces are capable of a defensive response if we are attacked. A combination of Brexit (thought by some to have been engineered by Putin), an increasingly isolationist US, a powerful China (and India) and unrest in the Middle East has exposed our vulnerability in the face of a military attack, and much as I (like the vast majority of people, I'm sure) would much prefer to live in peace, freedom is never free - it often comes at a very high price.

Whitewavemark2

GrannyGravy13

We have several family and extended family members who are currently serving in our armed forces, I couldn’t be more proud of them.

It has always been scary when they have been deployed to a war zone, even scarier when they are on so called peace keeping duties.

That is their chosen career, far far different to a conscript army.

I have faith in our young folk, and like to think that if the U.K. were to be in a situation where we had to defend our shores that there would be queues outside the offices to sign up voluntarily.

Conscription should only ever be used as a last resort.

GrannyGravy13

We have several family and extended family members who are currently serving in our armed forces, I couldn’t be more proud of them.

It has always been scary when they have been deployed to a war zone, even scarier when they are on so called peace keeping duties.

That is their chosen career, far far different to a conscript army.

nexus63 💐 our son was also in Iraq, very difficult time for service families.

my son was in the TA in the early 2000, one of the army big wigs came to give a talk about how bad things were in iraq and they are looking for volunteers, my son came home that night and said, i am going to iraq, he was given 12 weeks training then off to the front line, it was the most awful 6 months of my life, i asked him how it was when he came back, the only thing he said was some of my friends were killed and i never want to talk about it again.

We have several family and extended family members who are currently serving in our armed forces, I couldn’t be more proud of them.

It has always been scary when they have been deployed to a war zone, even scarier when they are on so called peace keeping duties.

War

Or Defence?

*“We starve you, freeze you, exploit you, repeatedly infect you, steal your pensions, remove your opportunities, saddle you with debt, deny you housing, gaslight you, demonise you ....

Oh, and by the way, will you lay down your life for us”

First you need to treat your citizens with respect before asking them to lay down their lives for a country where only the rich seem to benefit.*

This 💯%! I have two teenage GC who, I know, would not sign up and I would totally support them. I and my family will not be signing up for anything to do with war.

MaizieD

See, I ate some of my words while you were posting, Callistemon

I do hate the whole concept, though.

I did type yes but yea will do just as well 😁

luluaugust

Remember the 1933 debate when the Oxford Union passed the motion that they wouldn’t fight. They did along with thousands of others who had no desire for war.

Very few desire war.

However, sometimes it is necessary to defend people's rights including the right to peace and freedom.

If brave people had not fought for liberty in WW2 how many more people would Hitler have exterminated?

See, I ate some of my words while you were posting, Callistemon

I do hate the whole concept, though.

luluaugust

Remember the 1933 debate when the Oxford Union passed the motion that they wouldn’t fight. They did along with thousands of others who had no desire for war.

Despite my huge distaste for the utter futility of war I can appreciate that there's not much you can do if someone is about to invade your country... fight or go under...

Apart from that I have to ask "What is the [expletive deleted] point of war?" It's all willie waving and alpha males, isn't it...
😁 yea!

Defence is not aggression.

Whitewavemark2

Callistemon21

Whitewavemark2

The wrong time to introduce the idea of conscription it seems from social media

People struggling, think that the government has little time for them and their struggles so the reply can be summed up like this

“We starve you, freeze you, exploit you, repeatedly infect you, steal your pensions, remove your opportunities, saddle you with debt, deny you housing, gaslight you, demonise you ....

Oh, and by the way, will you lay down your life for us”

First you need to treat your citizens with respect before asking them to lay down their lives for a country where only the rich seem to benefit.

^Asked about Gen Sanders’ remarks, Rishi Sunak’s official spokesperson said “hypothetical scenarios” about potential future conflicts were “not helpful”. When asked if he agreed with the general, the spokesperson replied simply “no”.^

The generals should never ever play a part in politics. They did so before the WW1 with disastrous results and a needless war, which in turned spawned the fascist dictator and the horror of WW2 - really a continuation of WW1.

I agree!!

Remember the 1933 debate when the Oxford Union passed the motion that they wouldn’t fight. They did along with thousands of others who had no desire for war.