POLL: Conscription

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Well in that case you are misreading what I say badly. I do not support the usage of cannonfodder in any circumstances. I do think we should strive putting those who do not like weapons to duties that do not require weapons, however I do have a problem who even in dire situations of national crisis are unwilling to contribute to the common cause. What should be done with these, I really do not know. Killing them is not really an option since I'm against the death penalty, I guess I'd have to vote for imprisonment since I simply do not know better options.

Yes but soldiers did not think that way in the past wars, so why would anything change? Elderly people need to be provided for, as well as children and disabled. But those capable of contributing to the common effort should quite frankly be forced to do so.

 

Well, what is the common cause? I think most rational persons really have no interest in risking their lives for some vague political purpose or even the lives of people you dont know. I know I would pick up my stuff and run as fast as I could the other way if Sweden was ever under attack. I care just as little (or as much) about an unknown Swede as I do about an unknown Sudanese or Brazilian and I am not for any reason about to risk my life for perfect strangers even if they happen to share my language and much of my culture.

That said I think conscription is a generally good thing for democratic nations. It seems to keep the military placid as there is little oppurtunity for various generals to build up any significant loyalty and support among the troops as they get exchanged every six-sixteen months. It also integrates the military with the general populace, with a professional army the military is something outside civilian society, something different which can lead to troubling situations.

 

If Sweden was under attack do you think the government would provide you with escape routes? Escape would be difficult. It's nice when you hear people saying that when there's war they'll just flee to the Bahamas. Unfortunaetly only a small percetange of the population even gets a chance to escape. The chances are that all borders are clogged or closed so getting away would difficult and risky to say the least.

 

Who's going to bother to attack Sweden though, seriously? No offence to Sweden, but what would be the point? The Swedes like living there, but there wouldn't be much reason for anyone else to trek up there to gain access to their massive resources of snow?

Some countries are prime targets, but I'm not sure that Sweden is one of them.

 

Well, HB that is a whole other point. We are speaking THEORITICALLY! Du'h! Also, you can never be certain, what if Kiwi birds all of a sudden turns into this huge delicacy in China and five million Chinese soldiers decide to invade to steal your birds? Huh? It could happen!

 

I used to think the same way, but after studying the history a bit more I had to correct that view. War is not war for it's own sake, but because hostile men are raping, killing, and torturing everyone they can find. Then they will bring oppression, during which they make you either a slave or a second-class citizen. They will treat you like trash and if you put up resistance alone, they will kill you. Or just take you to the backroom and beat you up soundly. Worse, they take your family, rape them one-by-one, and then beat you up. And there is nothing you can do about it while it is 10,000 vs. 1.

Hence there must be organized resistance and that's what the military is about. However, the question was not about the necessity of military, but how and why it is supported, which is expensive, when there are no enemies or hostilities. Yes, the military is eager to advertise that theoretical aspect and the "repellant" effect of solid military-force, but that is comes at the price of social well-being.

[ December 23, 2006, 21:43: Message edited by: Wordplay ]

 

Umm... I think that was my point. People who are against conscription, you claim, lack the will to defend their country so should not expect others to do it. I am pointing out that, following the same logic, those who lack the will to grow their own food should not expect others to do so. If my country were ever threatened, I would expect the professional army to defend me, just as you expect people to grow your food. Sure, you might have a small vegie garden or a fruit tree or three, just as I might put up as best defence as I could if my country was invaded, but in the end it falls down to the professionals. No slave labour is called for.

 

You are correct, those who do not grow food should not expect others to do it for them FREE. Is food free though? No.

Also conscription is no slave labour it's standing up for what you own, what you believe in, your personal freedom and your family. Military service prepares you for this crisis. No one is profitting from military service, it's education not slave labour. Professional armies for a small country such as this are insufficent and next to useless. If Israel and South Korea trusted upon professional armies they would have been walked over a long time ago. Fortunaetly for them the people there are intelligent enough to realize this and go for conscription which has been a major part in ensuring their survival in a hostile enviorment. So in short trusting professional armies is like trusting never to be invaded. This might be true for the people of New Zealand but it's not so very clear for all of us.

 

Just like our taxes pay for the army - it is not free. Nor have I ever mentioned that we should be defended for free.

 

Yes well the easiest way for us to bankrupt ourselves would be to have a professional army large enough to defend our country. Lucky for us we are not that stupid as to have one and instead go on with conscription which is really the only possible choice.

 

Which once again, is not the point. To claim that those who do not wish to join the army via conscription should not expect others to protect them is exactly the same reasoning I could apply to the farmer situation. It's simply not valid.

[edit] No, I speak a lie. It's perfectly valid, but the same reasoning can be applied not only the defence (ie. those who don't defend themselves shouldn't expect others to do it for them), but to many situations where most of us would roll our eyes at the mere suggestion (ie. those who don't grow their own food, knit their own clothes, etc, shouldn't expect others to do it for them). There is no reason that I can see that military is any different from these other situations, that you have turned down as foolish.

But of course, your statement brings me back to the other point. Is a defence really needed? Any no, this 'theoritical', possible enemy doesn't cut it in my books. I want a real reason for defence - a real threat.

 

I've mentioned Russia atleast a dozen times in this thread, it ceased to be an active threat for under twenty years ago and the current state of that country is still not such that I think it can be trusted to stay passive forever. We'd be stupid and naive to put down the conscription everytime we entered a more peaceful era. Our military planning and allocation are all done to prevent and defend against a possible attack from Russia.

Well I suppose we could put a price on a single man's effort in war and instead have him pay that off in taxes. However I do not find it very justified if rich are able to pay themselves off the hook while poor have to go to the army. Russia has practically this kind of a system and their army is in a sorry demoralized state right now. So simply put, manpower is not something which can be converted to dollars or euros and I don't think it should be either.

Also war in itself is such an extreme state of emergency that the entire country from economy and industry to population must be recalibrated and allocated to support the wareffort in order to successfully defend the country. You are now comparing war to the peacetime economy and the two are very different.

 

No, I'm not. You say yourself that there is no war, nor has there been any threat for over twenty years. Although I do not agree with it, I can accept the need some people place in conscription during trouble periods, when the country is threatened. What you are arguing is for consciption during peace time, so I am comparing peacetime economy to peacetime economy, which are exactly the same.

I guess in the end it comes down to different values. I see it pointless living in constant fear of a possible threat - wasting six months (or how ever long it is) of your life just incase someone does try and invade. I think there are many better ways (better for oneself, better for the community and better for the country) to focus that time instead of military training, for a possible situation that may arise at sometime in the future.

 

You do understand that twenty years is a VERY short period in history? If a threat ceases to exist for twenty years or so it's only reasonable to believe that it might re-emerge twenty years from now, no?

While conscription may have some benefits for peacetime economy I'm not going to argue on those grounds (while I do think that Ragusa and T2Bruno made some good points about it earlier in the thread) because the original purpose of conscription is to prepare for war. As T2Bruno insisted emergency conscription won't work unless you have a decent reserve allready, so we would have to settle with partial peacetime conscription at the very least.

It's not about fear it's about being prepared for the worst, which is allways a very good thing. Too many times we have seen what happens when citizen are not prepared for the worst. Take the hurricane Katrina and what it did for New Orleans for example.

 

There comes a time when been prepared for the worst comes at too great a cost when weighed up against the potential risk. I am not going to spend six months of my life preparing for survival after a nuclear war or a metor strike, for example, as it is very unlikely to happen in my life time nor is there much I can do. If we were to prepare for every possible threat that may hit, we would never get anything done with our lives. Tell me, what did you do to prepare for the possiblity of SARS or the bird flu hitting?

My views are the same with war - it's pointless spending time worrying about something so unlikely to happen. Something which should NOT happen in western society today. But then, I have not travelled in Europe since I was less than one, so cannot gauge how big a threat there is.

 

Actually while in the army we did recieve guidelines about the bird flu. How to react if we found dead birds and something like that. There was also some discussion about how conscripts would be used if the flu struck and if we would be going down the coastline to collect dead swans. The government made it obvious though that it would be illegal to use conscripts in something so dangerous for their health.

In any case, war is quite unlikely right now but knowing the human being and our history it's not very likely to stay that way. If you want to believe in peace and harmony forever then fine, but I don't. So it's best to keep the country prepared, and six months is really very little time of a human beings life and the statement of it being wasted time is also quite questionable.

 

Conscription cost more then a profesionel army... with conscription you pay the extra cost of training new people each year, while a profesionel army dont need nearly as much training, they only need to be kept in shape.

a Konstable (profesionel soldier in Denmark) gets the same pay each month as a Conscript, konstables of first and second degree gets slightly more, but with the conscript there is the extra expense in basic training, and expense that never goes away.

currently, next to zero. we have a union, not a strong one but at least one that keeps the countries focused on some common goals, the Soviet union is long gone and we have a decent relationship with russia, even though Putin might not be the most democratic leader in the world, he has done nothing to threaten any european country. the balkans are quiet currently, so the nearest wars seem to be afghanistan, tetjenia and iraq, which dosnt threaten any european contry.

 

So you think that Finland can afford about two million professional soldiers because that's about what we have in reserve? If we have a professional army of say 100 000 (which is probably a lot more than we can afford) we'd be completely unable to use that as a defense, if we would go that way the army would be fine for international peacekeeping but completely unusable as a defense force which is why we have an army in the first place.

 

so you think everyone who actually done military service, can just jump in again and be ready to fight? because your number is way fo the charge, you live in finland, a country with 5million people, half of them roughly is children. leaving 2,5million addults, where half is women who isnt't conscripted, leaving 1.25million men roughly, of these 10-20% has to be taken away do to handicaps, being old and other stuff. that leave you at max with 1.1million reserve and that asumes that you have 100% conscription.

secondly, probably 3/4 of these men would have served over 10 years ago, some even more, does people would be out of shape and would need completely retraining. both physically, mentally and in terms of equipment. since i asumme your army, like ours have changed tactics and equipment over the last 10 years

 

Obviously people aren't ready to fight, that's why there would be repetition excercises once the situation gets tight. The basics however will stay or come again quickly once learned. In any case a professional army won't get a nearly as big reserve in any case. Otherwise it would be a major burden to our economy in general. The current form of conscription takes about two percent of our GDP which is a lot less than Britain or France of which neither has active conscription. So claiming that conscription in general is expensive is just wrong.

As I said we'd have repetition excercises for that. Complete retraining won't be needed unless they serve of dementia in which case they are not fit for warfare anyhow. The military doctrine is pretty much the same as it has been fo years, I would not know about tactics since it's quite obvious that any plans we have against Russia are not made public for diplomatic reasons. Our doctrine does not support the heavy usage of high tech equipment because much of it would be wasted in the guriella type doctrine that our country has. We do replace equipment though, but usually in such a rate and only with stuff easy enough to learn that teaching it in repetition excercises should not be too difficult.

EDIT: We have repetition excercises for the reserver anyway. They said that we would probably be called for excercises in 2008. These usually take a week or so, and are meant exactly for keeping the military skills adequate.