Comment on Conservatives plan to bring back mandatory National Service

• ceasarlegsvin@kbin.social ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  this is a tread about the UK government trying to sell a crap idea.

  Largely, but I was responding to the specific sentence I highlighted.

  The UK back in the 1960s ended conscription. And decided instead to invest in technology. And personal with the training to operate that technology.

  The UK has favored a doctrine of a small, well trained, professional army since before WW1. It's also tended to be more expeditionary. Both of these conflict with the benefits of conscription.

  That doesn't mean it's an outright superior system. It has its own drawbacks and benefits compared with alternative systems. Sometimes you send that force into a meatgrinder because the fighting calls for more manpower than it can supply, regardless of technology. It depends on the war you're fighting.

  Rather then using ill motivated short time troops as little more then cannon fodder.

  Weirdly enough, fighting a defensive, existential war tends to solve the motivation problem pretty quicky.

  Also, if you're calling up previously conscripted troops when shit hits the fan, they will have been trained for far, far longer than if you try to enlarge the size of your fighting force from scratch.

  I feel like your knowledge of conscription comes entirely from the Red Alert 2 unit of the same name. Don't confuse peace time conscription with war time conscription. They're incredibly different things.

  For a nation lacking funding.

  You're really just running down the bingo board of one-liners that betray a complete unfamiliarity with what you're trying to talk about.

  No military budget is infinite. You decide the type of military you want to build, and you build it in the most effective way possible. Sometimes conscription fits in with that. Sometimes it doesn't.

  once you have gotten to that stage

  Tick another one off the bingo board.

  We're talking about conscription in peace time.

  Conscription is by its very nature using citizens of your own nation to absorb attacks.

  That's literally what a military is.

  in no situation can conscripts show the professional training of people who choose to invest in a military career.

  Conscripts receive the same training as career professionals.

  Russia knows full well attacking a NATO member nation will not result in a ground war

  Why wouldn't it result in a ground war? NATO isn't going to want to escalate into full apocalypse unless they absolutely have to.

  There's a reason the UK didn't nuke Argentina when it took the Falklands.

  They know full well natos are well maintained

  The UK's two most recent trident tests both failed.

  source