Conscription -should UK initiate?

No conscription in peacetime, but what do we do if Putin starts marching across Poland or some other NATO country.
Dont expect the US to put boots on the ground while we shelter at home.

The idea of short, compulsory military service for everyone in a certain age group, unless medically exempt, seems a bit like compulsory, wild water swimming for all of a certain age unless medically exempt; some will be stretched enormously and benefit from their widened experience but some will not cope or even learn from their experience. Deaths, for whatever reason, will occur in either group. What is your assessment of the current generation if push comes to shove? A thoughtful assessment please.

This is a chat forum, we're not at school or college!

Go outside the door and don't come back in until I call you!

Katie59

No conscription in peacetime, but what do we do if Putin starts marching across Poland or some other NATO country.
Dont expect the US to put boots on the ground while we shelter at home.

We do have Armed Forces and we are part of NATO.

www.army.mod.uk/deployments/steadfast-defender-24/

MissAdventure

Go outside the door and don't come back in until I call you!

I'm off out to play on the swings and slides.

Should we be involved in another war, technology is going to be as important as, if not more important than, boots on the ground. We have seen the destruction which can be achieved at very long range, and how accurately it can be targeted based on intelligence.

Crap Capita in charge of recruitment for the,armed forces will ensure conscription is a failure.

JaneJudge

Has there been any evidence based research into why 16-25 might be unemployed? I wonder how many of these people are neuro diverse or have health issues?

I know this isn’t what has been asked

maybe because the pension age keeps rising and there are fewer vacancies available for this age group?
I am sure second and third generation unemployed also adds to the work ethic of some.

With people’s insistence on their ‘human rights’ and the inevitable claims about mental health, it’s a non-starter. As I said above, there’s no point in having people in the armed forces who are not committed and willing to take orders.

Germanshepherdsmum

With people’s insistence on their ‘human rights’ and the inevitable claims about mental health, it’s a non-starter. As I said above, there’s no point in having people in the armed forces who are not committed and willing to take orders.

I wonder if the young people in Eastern Europe and Germany are so uncommitted to defending their country.

The Home Guard in Sweden has recently received many more applicants than they normally do. Listening to some young Swedes, male and female, it was encouraging to hear they felt it was their duty to play a part. Perhaps young Brits are different.

I think they came from a different mould Katie.

Perhaps young people are being raised by people who are ashamed to be British?

Its said fairly regularly on here.

Heads of the services say they don’t want a load of reluctant conscripts.

It’s probably not a good idea.

Over my dead cold body

Yes to National Service. No to it involving learning how to kill people. Something that teaches the discipline of hard work; helping your fellow man and leaving the world a better place than you found it. Taking pride in contributing to the wellbeing of your fellow man and not relying on handouts. Pride in being free thinking for yourself, and making the world a better place.

GrauntyHelen

Over my dead cold body

That might well be the case if we don't have any Armed Services.

I don’t think conscription is acceptable I’ve seen what it does to people my cousin was a conscript in the American army during Vietnam war, he arrived in the uk on the way there. He brought a group of his mates to visit our Gran, one of them came from a dirt poor family who never had a new pair of boots until he joined the army, he lasted four weeks before he died. I don’t want that for any of my sons or nephews

Well, the American (and Australian) involvement in Vietnam is a whole other debate.
Of course, who were there first? The French.

Cateq

I don’t think conscription is acceptable I’ve seen what it does to people my cousin was a conscript in the American army during Vietnam war, he arrived in the uk on the way there. He brought a group of his mates to visit our Gran, one of them came from a dirt poor family who never had a new pair of boots until he joined the army, he lasted four weeks before he died. I don’t want that for any of my sons or nephews

Defence of one's own country is one thing, interfering in the politics of other countries is quite different.

Well I get this could be a way of training youngsters into a career, setting them on the right path. But, no one should be made to ‘join up’ and then have to go to war. If you join the forces voluntarily then you know that there could be a possibility of fighting in a war. If youre doing national service then this is not by choice, no war service should be expected.

Message deleted by Gransnet. Here's a link to our Talk guidelines.

I have reported your racist (and appallingly written) post.

MissInterpreted

MissAdventure

Of course you're proud.
Anybody would be.

I wasn't referring to your son, specifically.

It's a broad and well used term.

It may be well used, but in my view, it's a term which says more about the person using it than those to whom it is supposed to refer.

In defence of Miss Adventure... it's a term used by those who think or feel that the hierarchy regard them as cannon-fodder. Those who sit behind desks and talk about young men and women in terms of numbers to be moved from A to B on the battlefield.

It is through contempt for those that appear to have little compassion or concern for human life, that the term evolved.

I believe it's based on a French author's condemnation of Napoleon's wasting of conscripts' lives. They became cannon-fodder.

So I don't think those that use the terminology are in any way disdainful or disrespectful of those that serve. Quite the contrary.