this post was submitted on 18 Mar 2025
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Then you must know of a country that doesn't make ideological sacrifices while under attack and in a state of war, and has survived such hardship?
The US, since they make decisions on ideological sacrifices for other countries.
The US has not endured a war on anything but their own terms since the british tried to turn them back into a colony.
They let others do the fighting for them indeed
Yes.
Except when they don't, and pointlessly send their own people to die for basically no reason (Vietnam).
I don't know a single other modern "country" (that is considered "good" and "democratic" by westerners) that people don't want to defend so much that the regime needs to resort to forbidding people from leaving (and then put a huge effort into patrolling the borders because people want to escape this hell anyway) and literally kidnapping people off the streets and putting them into vans by masked ""people"" on daily basis just to sustain the meatgrinder.
The only thing that comes close are British press gangs - but that was 2 centuries ago.
And if there are some recent examples like this - I would absolutely support hanging the tyrants who do this, just like I hope Zelensky would be hanged one day.
You really haven't looked at the legal systems around defensive service of most countries, have you?
Please. I am genuinely asking. Show me a country that doesn't have legal systems in place to press its population into defensive service, and/or suspend elections during wartime.
I live in Finland, we have one the MOST WILLING populations IN THE WORLD when it comes to self-defense.
And you know what? The military police still regularly arrests deserters who fail to show up for their conscription. And we're not even at war.
The alternative, is to not be prepared against threats like Putin, who will WIPE YOU OFF THE MAP given the chance.
Democracy is a peacetime luxury.
Not sacrificing thousands to save millions, is a privilege of the leaders who live in a parallel universe that doesn't have Putin in it.
Ah yes, the Fins are sure eager to repeat their WW2 'fight for democracy' against the Russians.
What?
Literally no-one here wants war. That's why Finland maintains such efforts to be ready for it, should it happen against our best efforts to prevent it.
What?
There are no wars for democracy. Like I said, democracy is a peacetime luxury. Finland fought for independence, and hence the ability to choose to be democratic.
A brief scroll of Wikipedia (the sources seemed legit) shows that, for example, Cuba (which I'm assuming you admire?) has mandatory military service, no known policy of alternatives for conscientious objectors, and harsh punishments for evading it even in peacetime, to the point that people have attempted to injure themselves to get out of it. They haven't been tried in modern war, but can't see them suddenly relaxing the rules when actually tested. Border countries tend to take defence very seriously.
For countries and cultures bordering Russia, this really is an existential question. The forced population transfer/ethnic cleansing of Tatars, Ingrians, Chechens and Ingush, Balkars, etc. show what tends to happen. And before you say "well that was Stalin", I'll point to the Russification efforts of Alexander III and Nicholas II, and to... well, just about all speakers of Uralic languages still existing in Russia, facing steadily or rapidly declining numbers. Also the number of people identifying as ethnic Russians in the Baltics and Crimea, directly attributable to said forced population transfers; Transnistria, where the change happened more organically but was nonetheless used as an excuse for invasion; and to some degree in eastern Ukraine, that saw significant russification attempts and Russians moving in to man the industrial centers during SU, inflating the numbers of ethnic Russians and prevalence of the Russian language at cost of the native population.
I honestly don't know that much about Cuba, seems like country much like any other that has trouble because of a difficult neighbor and making the best of it? But if we're talking about whether mandatory military service is sometimes justified, not whether mass media is biased (duhhhhh), perceptions held by the majority are inconsequential.
Conscription is done in preparation for "mass kidnappings of cannon fodder", as you put it.
Edit: Also kudos for not trying to defend ethnic Russians' history of ethnic cleansing.
No?..
Russia has conscription but not kidnapping part and forbidding to leave the country part. So do many other countries.
...yes? Or do you think the countries with peacetime conscription do it for shits and giggles, and the massive economic benefit of half the population losing about a year of working life?
Okay, then surely you can show me a shittone of examples of such a massive campaign of kidnappings happening to people forbidden from leaving the country because they are needed as cannon fodder that happened in modern history (let's say last two centuries)?
I'll just give you a partial list of European countries that 1) had wartime conscription, and 2) executed deserters, in WW1 or 2, which would indicate an equally/more drastic "kill or be killed" choice, and is way easier to find. Or do you know better how conscription worked in the WWs off the top of your head?
Neither of that is what I asked you for (come on, you even quoted my reply in you reply - "massive campaign of kidnappings happening to people forbidden from leaving the country", and then you proceeded to give an example of a completely different thing (also awful, but completely different)).
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https://files.catbox.moe/22e2r2.MP4
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I don't. But surely you do, as you're trying to portray what happens in Ukraine as normal, so I am asking you to tell me about it.
Russia has a larger population than Ukraine, and thus the luxury to not need everyone, and still they have called in reservists in "partial mobilization", exact number unknown. As Russia has conscription, every adult man who has performed their service is in reserve. As of 2023, reservists called into service are not allowed to leave and are subject to restrictions until they report to duty, which seems like high-tech enforcement/"kidnapping" to me. The conscriptions have also hit poorer regions, often with large ethnic minorities, more harshly, but I'm sure that's just coincidence.
There are reports of some military districts closing borders, of mobilized men being ill-equipped and used as cannon fodder, being killed in large numbers, you name it. As with all war reporting, hard to get well-verified factsfacts, especially from a country hostile to neutral reporters. We do know that protests are broken (and male protestors sometimes drafted).
But yeah, probably not needing troop replacements to the same extent as Ukraine. Who, I'm saying again, are fighting for the survival of their country and culture.
That's literally what conscription means in legal terms, though I imagine most military organisations would object to the term "cannon fodder" as they do try to use personnel to get something done, not just send them running into enemy lines of fire for no reason.
No. Conscription is you get summons and have to do military service (which is also totally wrong but a different thing). If you refuse you get sent to jail. You can simply leave the country if you don't like that.
What happens in Ukraine is kidnapping random people off the streets (who are forbidden from leaving the country), putting them into vans and sensing them to die.
You're presenting a distinction without a difference.
Both are effectively the same thing, a citizen pressed into service, against their will.
Jail-time is the best case scenario, and in no way intrinsic to the concept.
So "you cannot leave the country and will be kidnapped and forced to die a horrible death on the front lines" is the same as "you can freely leave the country but if you don't you will have to do forced labour in military uniform for a year".
Got it.
Now you're just being deliberately obtuse. That's not what the word "conscription" means, and I'm pretty sure you know that.
You're just being an ass because a year of mandatory service is what the law uses conscription for in Finland, DURING PEACETIME.
In wartime, being unable to leave the country, forced to fight on the front lines, is also conscription.
"you cannot leave the country and will be kidnapped and forced to die a horrible death on the front lines"
When done by a state, that is literally still within the definition.