POLL: Conscription

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The community requires food as well. Am I also indebted to have a farm in my backyard and grow potatoes to give to the community for free?

 

If your country has a shortage of food then maybe but otherwise I don't see the point.

 

That is unproven and we know very well who created that report. Tip: the same one which strongly supports conscription.

It is just a matter of how the training is done. It is possible that there aren't enough trainers at first, but their number will increase exponentially after each training-course completed: trainees can become trainers themselves. In this fashion, it isn't hard to imagine that a year or two would be enough to prepare and that is well enough.

After all, risk-analysis should take into account the short- and long-term risks. It would be a simple matter of setting the warning time to two years or more.

 

I'm sorry but there is not a more reliable source or one capable of defining the defensive doctrine than the ministery of defence. I'm going to trust their words over yours (which have no basis in any research) on this one.

 

So whatever your country has a shortage of, people should be conscripted into providing? If there is a shortage of accountants, we should conscript people into being accountants? If there is a shortage of teachers, we should conscript people into schools? Is that the underlying principle that you are applying to Finland's military resources?

 

No unless it threatens the very existance of your country or there are more sensible, cheaper and more efficent methods of doing it. Such as rising the teahcers salary and making it more efficent. Your examples are not very similar since they can all be dealt with more efficently with other means whereas with the military it is difficult to even manage with other means. Conscripton is really the only way to go for a small country such as this for now. If there's ever a common defense within EU then things might change but wartime conscription will probably allways stay and I'd be very surprised if New Zealand did not have laws for wartime conscription, nearly all countries in the world do.

 

Well according in Wikipedia (which may not be completely authoritative, but seems consistent with my experience), all forms of conscription were abolished in New Zealand from 1972.

 

Oh, I'm sure it does. There's also an outdated law about hanging anyone convicted for treason. I doubt very much if any government would survive past supporting the use of either law.

Do you really feel your country is threatened? Do you have the feeling that if your countries defences slipped for a moment, you'd have armed foriegn troops marching through your door? You claim that the 'oh, we can't win, what's the point in fighting' is an unhealthy attitude. I would honestly look at it the other way and say this blood thirsty, battle orientated view is much more unhealthy.

 

Yes, I agree that it seems much more sensible to focus a nation's resources on more important things like making food, having a good health system, teaching kids stuff, having a good electricity system, producing good export goods. But then again, I have never lived in a country that feels "threatened" by its neighbours so I might have a different view if I lived somewhere else.

 

No, no and no. I'm not sitting in my room with a gun in my hand being paranoid about an enemy which do not exist. As I've said multiple times the future though is uncertain and it's good to be prepared for the worst. This is not a bloodthirsty or battle oriented view and I take some offense in that claim. Self defence is not battleoriented nor is it bloodthirsty, it's just something which is necessary for individual survival and surivival as a nation. If survival is not important to you then fine lie down and die but I'll fight for my life if it's threatend.

I agree, but we don't really focus the nation's resources on the military. A very low percentage of our gross nationa production goes to the military. However defense is something that I feel is necessary, our geopolitical situation (which even Wirhe who opposes the current form of conscription agreed upon!) does not really allow us to put down the entire army. I mean do you feel it would be reasonable for say Israel or South Korea to stop conscription? Both being nations surrounded by enemies seeking to destroy them. The only thing that keeps them safe is a proper defense. Otherwise they would have been overrun allready. Finland is not in quite so dire situation but do any of you really think that Russia is stable enough to be trusted never again to turn aggressive? I certianly don't think so.

 

NO i havent recieved anything free, health system, school etc, is paid through taxes, which is why i also have to pay taxes.

secondly you ignored the second part, why is it only a procentage of healthy males that has to pay this debt.
you still havent got any forfilling answer to this.

i dont benifit from the conscripts, if anything, its waste of my tax-money. every time we have a crisis that needs military assistance, its the profesionels and voulenteers that sort it, not conscripted. in fact, we havent used conscripts for anything the last 100years (we where neutral in world war 1 and occiepied in world war 2) its a complete waste for society.

 

If you think it's a waste then fine, vote for a candidate who agrees with you. In Finland the support for conscription is nearly 80% so it has the popular support so the people of Finland clearly do not see it as a waste of society and neither do I. It's a long term investment in security against outside threats. Conscirption may have very well been one of the major factors that kept a soviet backed coup from breaking out in this country in the 50'ies. Not to mention that Finland would not have survived WWII without it. This is of course the past but it's good for a country and its population to be prepared for the worst.

That is true, but as I said earlier there are many sorts of protection and one of it is against outside threats and for that protection to be effective it needs enough manpower only available through conscription.

You haven't got an answer to this because I really do not know what you're aiming for. 100% of healthy males have to go through this with the exception of the religious group I mentioned earlier. They are a very small percentage of the population but still I feel that their ethics are not above anybody elses so they should serve just like anyone else. Does that answer the question?

 

Of course you do. Both military and you support conscription, so it's natural you want to believe their word instead of all the people here, on SP.

Source? And if so, you have to wonder why it is so extreme. Would it still be so high if military-service was made voluntary and military had only the regular ways, such as TV-advertising, to influence the young men? Besides, if 80% support conscription, then they are, quite likely, willing to serve in military voluntarily. No need to start pushing the remaining 20% to the same place with a gun-barrel against their skull.

 

I really do not take kind to that patronizing tone you got there. Others than me here support full conscription and you are really the only one who brought up emergency conscription so you really can't call upon them for backup in this case. Emergency conscription would either mean a professional army large enough to take care of conscription (according to the ministery of defence a more expensive option) or partial conscription in which you conscript only about a half of the healthy males (which is what Sweden does). However I do not think that it's very fair to have any sort of "lottery" about who gets conscripted and who does not. The current form of conscription is much better since atleast everyone knows ahead what awaits them.

The source is YLE news for a few months ago, I don't have a link since I saw it in TV. The problem of course being that the 80% probably would not be willing to put their lives at risk for the 20% who simply do not want to do so. I would not be willing to risk my life for you simply because you were too lazy to do military service or so uncaring for the community that you did not see defending it worth the while. Also the 80% probably would not enlist themselves to a voulenteer army since as I said earlier most people would not bother with the military just because the adjustments it would require.

EDIT: http://www.defmin.fi/index.phtml?s=289&1952_m=1986

There's a speech of Minister of Defence Seppo Kääriäinen where he refers to this polling as well.

 

Wordplay: Please tell us what experience you have in training recruits and preparing them for conflict. I happen to have several years experience in this. And you are wrong -- sending someone to battle with minimal training is not adequate. You can look to history on that (Soviet Union defending Russia from the Germans -- over 20 million killed in that defense). An emergency force can do a lot of damage, but will take huge losses in the fight.

An army fighting on their home turf should inflict 3 or 4 to one casualties. The German army was inflicting 10:1 casualties in many phases of the campaign -- and the Germans had poor logistics for the invasion of Russia. I can't see ever wanting that kind of massacre in my own country.

Sure you can take any country bumpkin and teach them to shoot in an afternoon. But how to survive a war, how to execute an affective assault, and how to trust the people around you is something that takes a while. It is that trust and the training to execute precisely that makes a fighting force affective. And that takes months (if you wish to argue the timeframe, please tell us what experience/resource you are using for your timeframe).

Wordplay, you keep stubbornly defending a opinion whose roots are flawed. As the technology becomes more and more advanced in warfare, the time necessary to train individuals becomes greater and greater. Finland is somewhat close to the same size as Iraq -- how long did it take for the US to arrive in Bhagdad? Do you think an emergency force would be ready in that amount of time? Do you think the UN or NATO would be able to respond quickly enough to prevent it?

 

It's a step to the right direction and we could begin from 75%. And the military would not lose anything, which it seems to hate, if everyone (including women) became responsible. This way the military would actually get twice as many recruits while the conscription could be partially removed. A good compromise, for starters.

I was referring to the timeframe of 6 months, which is the shortest conscription time in Finland. In comparison, civil-service lasts more than twice as long.

So you are saying that those who do not take their military-service are "unpatriotic" traitors not willing, or unable, to help their comrades in need? I.e: cannonfodder?

Adjustments such as...?

And is the war still going on or not? It has been three or four years, plus the time US spend pointing finger towards Saddam. If nothing, the Iraqian resistance will get even more organized and hence the losses of the invader will increase.

Don't know. Wouldn't trust either of them, so that's why EU's own defence-forces would be good to have, like I have said previously. I would prefer to have partial conscription in each EU country (say: 20%), which would be little from everyone, but a whole lot when it all sums up. Enough to buy time and adapt if some odd, totally unexpected war suddenly leaped to attack EU.

[ December 22, 2006, 22:42: Message edited by: Wordplay ]

 

Getting used to limited freedom, military discipline, spending nights in the wood, crappy food, physically tougher life, not getting enough sleep, financial adjustments, social adjustments and so on. I could probably go on but these were the ones I quickly came up with and are enough for most.

This is what we're headed towards. They recruit less and less those who are in medical class B and give them C or D papers instead. Soon they will probably stop recruiting B men entirely. Which I think is quite a good solution since I found them quite frankly useless during my time in the army. Most of them had duties which really had no sort of educational purpose, such as warehouse duties.

No. What I'm simply saying (and which is completely true) that they apparently lack the will to defend their country so they should not expect anyone to defend them either when times of toruble come. I do not support usage of cannon fodder in any cases since it's simply demoralizing and useless. As for what the position of these people should be in war, I guess they should be trained as well as possible when the conflict arrives. They could also be assigned for weaponfree duties such as medics or somesuch if they have trouble with guns and killing.

 

And most people lack the will to grow their own food, farm their own meat and make their own clothes. Should we expect them to and farmers refuse to do so? From where I am standing, this is exactly the same.

In this case, the collective defence should be enough without need for conscription - which is exactly the way people should be thinking. You get the professional section of the army from even half the EU countries and, if they are trained together, I am sure you will have a very able force which could hold out these invaders that seem to threaten you.

 

It would be so if farmers were conscripted to farming but they're not, it's a profession. Whereas military service in this country is not. I'm sorry but your comparison is horribly flawed and not in anyway similar.

 

It's good to see that you admit how much military demands from conscripts. Otherwise you might have tried to deny the effect it has on the people's lifes (although I wouldn't say the food is crappy). But doesn't it seem unjustified, with the previous in mind, to demand every male to participate when there is no immediate danger in near- or long-scope? With whole age-groups forced to serve in military, it has to hurt the economy, competitiveness, and personal careers quite a lot.

By the way, Morgoroth, I can read from between the lines that you agree about civil-servants and others being cannonfodder and trash. If most soldiers think this way, I wouldn't be surprised if the protection they give during war-time would be rather "selective." I.e: protect only those seen valuable and let the rest die. It's a very dangerous attitude.

Anyway, I believe the possible solutions to the problem have already come up: collective defence, partial conscription, and equality between civil- and military-service. Hopefully Finland begins to take steps towards these in the near future, even though I'm sure the conservative forces will be strongly against all iniatives that would threaten their power in the matter. It's like popping open a well shaken can of soda when they start talking...

[ December 23, 2006, 17:14: Message edited by: Wordplay ]