MentalEdge

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.

Mass kidnappings of cannon fodder that is not allowed to leave is quite unique to Zelensky’s regime.

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.

I going to stop trying. I can see I’m not going to succeed in changing your mind. You’re holding on tight to some stuff that’s completely immaterial, and I won’t be able to show you what you actively refuse to see.

Just think about what I’ve said. Maybe look some stuff up. Especially when it comes to conditions in russia, and how Putin is bending over backwards to keep the invasion going.

Look into the weapons deals with North Korea, for example.

Russia has mandatory military conscription. If they want to send you to war, they can, and will, paid or unpaid. Is this news to you? The laws are in place, but Putin is avoiding them for fear of national backlash.

Do you think the country would go into uproar if he used those laws on the people who fought back for three years? I’m not sure it would even if he pulled it on his own people. Not for a while at least.

The difference, is population size. Putin is allowing it to be voluntary, because he can still afford to (he actually can’t, and russias economy is eating itself alive to be able to keep paying fighters more and more, as normal jobs have to pay more and more, due to labour shortages as more and more working age adults are lost to the war… It’s a vicious cycle that’s going to culminate in involuntary conscription being the only option left to keep invading).

But Russia can, has, and I am absolutely certain, will, send people to die against their will.

And it is “happening again” right now. Last time, it was Georgia.

Let me put it like this.

You are offended by a leader that sends his people to die in defense. As you should be. Such a thing is horrifying.

What I do not understand, is your preference for a leader guilty of the very same crime, but for the difference that he sends people to die, in offense.

If Ukraine surrenders, this will all happen again the next time Putin would like some more territory.

And then, you and the people you care about, would be subject to the very same danger that current citizens of russia are. If not even moreso.

Why would Putin sacrifice from his pools of supporters, when he can conscript from newly conquered territory, amassing a force to take the next slice of Europe that tickles his fancy?

Maybe you’ll be sent to fight us finns?

It absolutely would, and would be extremely better off than it is now, what are you talking about?

That is a discussion with no resolution. Like I said, I don’t know where the point is, when sacrifice become worse than surrender.

Particularly because both are unknowable quantities.

You seem to consider the matter from a purely personal perspective, which is perfectly valid, but will of course result in different conclusions than someone who cares about what changes it would mean for society, and the state of the world. And you obviously view Russia a lot more favorably than I do. I’m not interested in changing your mind there.

For what it’s worth, I don’t think the western world should tolerate any of this. I think Ukraine should have been admitted into NATO, immediately, and for article 5 to have been retroactively shoved up Putin’s ass before this ever got out of hand.

I think, that in similar fashion to Russia, the western world has the power to end the conflict tomorrow, and is failing to do so.

When under attack, countries rescind the freedom and rights of a subset of its population, in order to maintain them for the rest.

In a democratic country, the laws to do that are created in advance, and the power to wield them assigned through election.

Everyone hopes they will never be necessary, but we can’t be surprised that when under military invasion, they are used.

“Meatgrinder” effectively illustrates the pointlessness of war, but you are using it as if to dismiss the fact that sustaining that same “meatgrinder” is the only reason the country of Ukraine still exists.

I’m Finnish. I am watching everything that happens in Ukraine as something that might happen to my country, and to me personally. In a paralell universe, Ukraine is at peace, and we’re the ones suffering a pointless “special military operation”. If Putin was smart, and looked to the future, going for our lithium reserves would have made a lot more sense than the fossil fuel resources of Ukraine. (Then again, rare earth minerals are present in Ukraine, too)

And you misunderstand me. I do not want you dead. I do not want you fighting for me. I do not “support” war.

But I understand the systems and mechanisms of a nation, which maintain its existense. The standards of a peacetime government can only be so high, because maintaining them does not risk trading in the existence of the nation that is upholding them.

Should there be a trial afterwards, investigating sacrifices that were obviously pointless? Absolutely.

And is there a point where the sacrifice is no longer worth it in comparison to surrender? To this, I have no answer.

I would probably trade in my country, to see my friends and family spared. But I am a lot less certain that would result in a better world afterwards.

There are other similarly developed countries under siege with which we can compare?

Organized wartime defense is a lot more complex than kidnapping a bunch of people and sending them in the general direction of the front. That isn’t how any of this works.

I know of one country that’s behind the agression… And one that probably IS using such tactics, considering their battlefield results. One which could stop at any time under no threat to its own sovereignty.

I honestly cannot comprehend your failure to realize that wartime and peacetime standards of government differ more than a little, or that your understanding of the situation is superficial at best.

That goes for all of us, unless you happen to be an actual commanding officer on either side of the conflict?

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.

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?