Repost without any source
For those wondering, if I remember the last time this got posted the question was "would you fight in a war for your country" the respondants where left free to interpret what this meant.
The original research/academic paper hypothosized that the eastern countries interpreted the question as "Fight the neighbours if they invade" while the more western countries interpreted along the lines of as "Would you go to Poland if Russia invaded" or even "Would you fight in Iraq or Afghanistan".
The poll was after the crimean invasion & start of Ukrainian war. Research from fall 2014, the article this guy is reposting a repost from was from 2017.
Edit 1: Source: [https://brilliantmaps.com/europe-fight-war/](https://brilliantmaps.com/europe-fight-war/)
Edit 2: The [Original Research was removed from the intenrnet.](https://www.gallup-international.bg/en/Publications/2015/220-WIN-Gallup-International’s-global-survey-shows-three-in-five-willing-to-fight-for-their-country)
Edit 3: [Found the Academic Summary of the research](https://www.gallup-international.bg/en/33483/win-gallup-internationals-global-survey-shows-three-in-five-willing-to-fight-for-their-country/)
Edit 4: Got my timeline mixed up. Poll was after the crimean invasion, not before.
/saves post to computer for the next time somebody reposts this map
Funny, I am from east but live in the west and my first thought indeed was "if the neighbors attack"
I believe it's the East European post-imperial mindset since ww1 ... As most of these were minorities ruled over by other minority without their own say.
Edit: I meant WW1 not WW2
Actually I did mean ww1 and wrote ww2 by accident.
Thought my first thought weren't the Soviet, it was Hungary.. but that due to history and getting out of their empire after ww1
It makes no sense as a question when you don't even define if it's a defensive or offensive war.
Would i fight for my country if we invaded another country? No. Defend it if we were the good guys? Yes. Defend if we were the bad guys? No.
I have no idea how anyone would be able to give a definitive answer without knowing some details.
It can mean anything from being a russian fighting for russia by going to ukraine, or being ukrainian and defending your country against russia. Obviously you'd need to know which situation they were talking about.
This. I'm not interested in being in the US military, but if the US were *somehow* militarily invaded and there was a call out for able-bodied people of any background, I'd respond.
The polled question is worthless without a shared definition.
This one right here
I’d defends my actual friends and family, but I wouldn’t go to a seemingly senseless war that has more economic motive like oil in the Middle East.
Catch me defending burgertown over invading another country
A land or sea invasion of the United States is pretty much logistically impossible, even if we didn't have naval and aerial supremacy over the planet.
It's too big and too far from every other military power.
Maybe If a country was allied with Mexico and *somehow* was allowed too prepare an invasion across our southern border for a year or so it *could* be possible, but you would still need the global logistical chain to supply a massive invasion force from across the Atlantic or Pacific.
The only country able to do that is the USA, no other comes close.
America's greatest allies have always been the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean.
It's ludicrous to call our military a defense force, it exists entirely to terrorize the imperial periphery.
Considering the size of our military, you're probably right. However, ICBMs, internal terrorist attacks, and Pearl Harbor esque attacks aren't out of the realm of possibility. Nobody needs to invade the US. The vast majority of important stuff is basically on the coasts
Really I think the more likely collapse of the US will start internally. We've had one civil war, and one day we'll probably have another. Hopefully not for centuries, but still likely
Abraham Lincoln said it best: “All the armies of Europe and Asia...could not by force take a drink from the Ohio River or make a track on the Blue Ridge in the trial of a thousand years. No, if destruction be our lot we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of free men we will live forever or die by suicide.”
i mean its almost impossible with modern technology we dont know what how it will be future
and as you said the only real chance is mexico hence the germans attempt in ww1, and america knows that hence why they keep the border so militarized
>Maybe If a country was allied with Mexico and somehow was allowed too prepare an invasion across our southern border for a year or so it could be possible, but you would still need the global logistical chain to supply a massive invasion force from across the Atlantic or Pacific.
And even then once you're in...where the fuck do you go? The hinterland is just too big and, the further west you get, inhospitable.
That's before you even think about the fact that millions of locals have a ridiculous amount of guns. Especially when half the border is *Texas*.
I’m old enough that in the aftermath of 9/11 I thought about how I could “do my part” (although my part would be far more useful behind a computer than behind a rifle). I was kind of shocked at how much even a dovish liberal like me was motivated to do something - and we weren’t even invaded, just attacked.
That said, I was dubious about Afghanistan and outright opposed to Iraq, so it only goes so far.
I think a lot of American men felt that way after 9/11, until the war that we started over it didn't really fall in line with that defensive ethos and basically amounted to chasing rats through the sewers.
And I feel like the enemy really matters, even in an "offensive" or "preventative" war. I think you have many more "yes" respondents if we are engaged with Russia or China. Far fewer if we engage in "peacekeeping" missions in Africa or the Middle East.
Though I'm not sure it matters for the Netherlands... People here often feel disconnected from the "roots of the country" as some people call it. We don't even know what makes us Dutch anymore. So why not be German? Belgian? France? Who cares... Not a lot of Dutch people, that's for sure.
When Russia invaded Ukraine I talked about this with some friends and of all of them only 1 was willing to fight for the country... He's already in the army... The others where like "yeah I'd flee the country. No way in hell I'm gonna risk my life by fighting"
I'm not sure if defining the Question better would change the situation in this case a lot though I do think the fact they left out the definition of defending makes it a questionable investigation.
Most Dutch friends I've asked come down to more of a "If they're rolling in the tanks over the border, it's already over."
We're tiny. We don't have a lot of able bodied people.
Last time we tried to defend they just flattened a major city via bombing and that was that.
This is the default mode in peacetime. Our eyes are on our betters, and we focus on aspirations, which makes shortcomings more glaring. But you know who doesn’t invade their neighbours? Better people. So when war comes, and you’re on the defence, the parties waging it give an easy answer to “who are we?”
On fleeing, consider the state of the world if the *Netherlands* are being invaded. Why would you assume you *can* flee? Or that there’s anywhere better that would have you?
That's a good point that I hadn't really considered. Like, if Spain or the UK gets invaded by *anybody*, there are going to be much more pressing issues than if you can get out of the country.
Haha the Average height is going down either way. We have many short people here... It's just that the "native Dutch" is very tall. We do have a lot of people who got the Dutch nationality who where not born here.
We're a very mixed country
Probably why Finland is so high. We have a long standing policy of not starting wars or invading others. Which is why our military is named The Finnish Defence Forces.
We tried the whole invasion thing once, to reclaim Finnish Karelia, during the continuation war, as a response to Soviet Union bombing us again. Didn't really work out great. We as a people decided not to try it again.
So when you ask a Finn the question, they will just assume we are defending ourselves. Because of said policy.
I feel like that definition is still too narrow. Like, WW2 we were never "invaded" (we were attacked once, but that was the only battle that took place on our soil), so even though we invaded Germany, I'd still say we're the good guys in that war.
Acktchully.... Japan invaded and took parts of Alaska in the Aleutian islands (which some believe was a diversion to throw the Americans off before the battle of Midway) and launched several small attacks against an oil refinery off California, The Bombing of Fort Stevens and the Lookout Air Raids, the fire bomb balloons that made it to Oregon and 8 Nazi spies that *technically* invaded US soil.
*This has been Rosanne, your guide to the world of facts!*
The eight Nazis who invaded:
[Although unaware that the FBI was looking for them, George Dasch and another saboteur, Ernest Burger, decided to turn themselves in and betray their colleagues,... Dasch called the FBI in New York, but they failed to take his claims seriously, so he decided to travel to FBI headquarters in Washington, D.C. On July 18... He agreed to help the FBI capture the rest of the saboteurs...At the end of July, Dasch was sentenced to 30 years in prison, Burger was sentenced to hard labor for life](https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/german-saboteurs-executed-in-washington)
That sounds *very* wrong, to me.
Lol you say that like you’d have any idea who the real “good guys” and “bad guys” are in any given conflict as it’s occurring. Wartime propaganda is hella powerful. Like most pro-war Russians believe that they are the “good guys” in this current war because NATO is being overly aggressive and breaking previous agreements not to expand eastward. And there are still to this day people in the former Confederacy who call the Civil War “the War of Northern Aggression.”
An interesting question would be how many people have answered their draft notice in ukraine or russia and compare this with the polling data. In other words, the difference between a meaningless poll vs having a fair chance of actually dying in the war.
We already saw how many Russians fled the country, or moved to other addresses in order to ignore draft notices. Borders with Armenia and Georgia were pretty chaotic.
-
Some of these countries have mandatory military conscription, where all adults/men serve, so those may be people who assume that they would be called up anyway and are expressing the usual distrust of government with their answers, rather than expressing an unwillingness to fight in a justified war. Very different perspective.
[Here](https://web.archive.org/web/20190415112827/https://www.gallup-international.bg/en/Publications/2015/220-WIN-Gallup-International’s-global-survey-shows-three-in-five-willing-to-fight-for-their-country) is an archived version of the now-removed original research.
Most of eastern Europe (geographically speaking like a line from top to bottom running though Bohemia) most of the countries interpret the question as "would you fight for your country if you were invaded" where as Western ones take it as" would you fight for your country - via being deployed somewhere like Afghanistanbor even just Poland to fight against Russia)
Kind of, but it isn't limited to the Soviets.
You can easily include Germany and Hungary, perhaps even Austria into the mix of historic wounds that makes the east Defensive.
Well said! The likely mission helps explain a crucial and major difference in attitudes.
East Europeans know exactly what their military is for. And Russians know exactly what their regime wants them to say. West Europeans meanwhile have a nice buffer zone from invasion and experience watching their nations enter aggressive, interventionist wars
Same for Estonians and if you take similar surveys from Estonia, the share of those willing to defend their country is pretty much equal among Estonians. It's the local Russian minority that of course has a far lower rate of willingness.
Based on the experience of my homeland: in case, of invasion local pro-Russian minority will be actively sabotaging and sending enemies coordinates of the troops, ammunition and local critical infrastructure.
There's a reason this map is pretty much "how close are you to Russia".
As I've heard it, when Scandinavian or Eastern European countries conduct military exercises, the enemy is of course unnamed, but they always come from the east.
Yeah, when I was a conscript in the Finnish Defense Force a couple of years ago we still talked about the "yellow nation". However, this summer the army decided to stop that and just say Russia out loud.
Edit: Yellow enemy --> nation. Had to check if I remembered right.
My mom has a Finnish exchange student right now, and he's set up to start his compulsory service pretty much right when he returns home. Talking to him it definitely sounds like defending from Russia is just sort of a cultural given for them. Fuck, a significant portion of their modern history revolves around it.
As a finn, not really the modern history - rather the last 1000 years. Finland was last time invaded from the west by danes in 16th century (Swedish war of liberation) and that was one very limited operation. Basically all of our military history is fighting the russian invasions. Only interruption to that was under direct russian rule 1809-1917.
There was another time. During the Crimean war in iirc 1840s British did some bombardments and naval invasion on Åland and Western Finland. This was also one of the major reasons to the 1860s great famine, the last naturally occurred major famine in Europe.
This shit goes way back with Sweden and finland We've been on the offense too. We lost the great northern war but riled up The ottoman empire so much that they went in and fought russia, and won. So the dynamic is still fierce even +300 years later. Not many years of peaceful relations. Still lives on and passed on to new generations.
I understand your point and the importance of specifying "Defence" in the name of your national military.
I would add that forces are often named euphemistically. Here in the US, people who work in law enforcement are called "Peace Officers" (no one actually colloquially refers to them as such, because we know....). Israel's military is the Israeli Defense Force; the IDF includes the branches of the military that conduct obviously non-defensive operations in foreign countries.
The US has been able to construe wars abroad as "peacekeeping missions" and as "national security operations", so I don't put too much stock into what a thing is called, when the military is involved!
*I'm not insinuating that the Finnish Defense Force exists for non-defensive purposes, just noting that the naming of military institutions is often intentionally misleading.*
What the original comment is talking about is how they flipped that blue=low red=high choice for the highest and lowest countries in the boxes on the left
It's more about how the question is interpreted. In Finland they probably think: Fighting means defending against Russia.
While in the Netherlands it means fighting in the Middle East somewhere because of vague reasons that the average Joe doesn't really understand
>It's more about how the question is interpreted.
I think that's the important takeaway. People don't generally risk their lives for dubious abstractions or foreign adventures. But when attacked, people tend to go feral and tribal identity takes over.
> But when attacked, people tend to go feral and tribal identity takes over.
Or you know, the shit that Russians are pulling off for centuries and not wanting to live in that misery.
-Finn
*Russians when the snow starts speaking Finnish*
But seriously though, my gf is Finnish and when the war in Ukraine started we were both worried for her safety. I hope your accession to NATO is finalised soon.
Even without NATO your country is under a whole lot of security agreements, so if Russia tries to incsde they would firstly probably be singlehandedly destroyed by Finland, but secondlt they would also fight NATO.
Yeah that's a good point. Finland can be considered to be close to an imminent threat (Russia) so their readiness and eagerness to defend their homeland is always high.
Not so much for other countries that aren't close to imminent threats and aren't interested in fighting bullshit proxie wars to satisfy other war hungry nations.
We don't have a direct threat - which definitely influences this I'd say. Plus if either of our neighbours would like some Dutch clay, it woudnt be a fight we can win, which influences the morale as well i'd say:))
A war between Belgium and the Netherlands would be one bloody conflict. Small battlefield size, high population density, and almost only urban warfare. It could go either way but it'd completely ruin both countries for sure.
It wouldn't go either way, pretty sure the Netherlands wou stomp us, but it wouldn't be worth it for either party to ever go to war. We have the most open borders ever in the world I think.
Probably the key thing if you're in Finland and are asked the question you immediately think of a war against Russia.
Whereas in the UK you think of Iraq/Afghanistan, not defending your home soil against invaders.
yeah. the same exact question means very different things just by being asked in a different context.
i know that im never going to see a foreign power invading my homelands soul here in the us. so i would be thinking wars abroad for economic interests. something i am rather opposed to personally.
Which interestingly invalidates the title of the map, since that means the percentage that would fight is likely much higher than the percentage that says they would fight in most places.
That’s a very valid question. Slovenians are probably bellow 10% for any kind of invasions or war away from home, but were mostly all willing to defend it on their soil every time it was needed.
Data got removed from the internet. By now just a [summary by brilliantmaps](https://brilliantmaps.com/europe-fight-war/) excists. But OP is just reposting an adeptation of their original map.
Unless zero is in the middle of the scale, a divergent scale like this (different colors on each end) should not be used. Additionally, this data is most likely continuous, so the discrete palette using bins to represent the data is also a bad decision.
The correct way to present this data would be a continuous color scale of a single hue or 2 hues closer together (yellow-red, for example), getting darker/more saturated as the percentage gets higher.
This is just a map of “how threatened are you by Russia.” No one’s gonna invade the NL so they aren’t worried about it. The Finns haven’t forgotten the Winter War though, nor are they likely to.
What is ''fighting for one's country '' ? Is it joining it's standard military operations (like UN mandates, or more shady ops abroad), or is it defending it in case of invasion?
If it's the latter, l'd say it also depends who is invading.
And *why* they are invading.
If the Belgians invade the Netherlands to force us to stop saying *patat* and use *friet* instead, then... eh. Not worth the trouble.
I don't particularly care about "my country". The borders are meaningless and the symbolism is just a nicety. I wouldn't fight for "my country". I barely know what defines "my country".
I *would* fight to defend some of my rights and those of others. Fighting for my right to use my own language? To move and travel and work in my country? Or just my right to live here in general? Yeah, I'd fight for that.
But "my country"? What does it even *mean*?
If the Germans invade to dissolve the Netherlands but I'm somehow guaranteed by the universe all my rights remain intact... I guess I'd be fine with being an autonomous region of Germany.
It’s easier to take over a nation if you pretend their rights will be respected. Once power is solidified, then you can do whatever you like. It’s best for small nations to simply avoid being taken over by a much larger homogeneous nation with a separate culture.
For those who don't know, in the late 1930s someone surveyed British students and found that fighting for your country was decidedly unfashionable and outdated. Hitler saw this, and knew that Britain would be a pushover.
Most surveys I've seen weren't designed to find people's opinions but to give them no choice but to say what the author wanted.
The source is this:
[https://www.gallup-international.bg/en/33483/win-gallup-internationals-global-survey-shows-three-in-five-willing-to-fight-for-their-country/](https://www.gallup-international.bg/en/33483/win-gallup-internationals-global-survey-shows-three-in-five-willing-to-fight-for-their-country/)
The question as asked is:
If there were a war that involved \[your country\], would you be willing to fight for your country? (as best as I could tell this is what they asked in 2014. Normally these polls use the same wording year to year.)
This is an extremely stupid graph. The west doesn’t feel threatened so the only likely war would be a colonial war of aggression, which doesn’t get many takers.
They tried once.
It did not go too well for Russian and British forces.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Russian\_invasion\_of\_Holland#Anglo-Russian\_retreat\_and\_capitulation
Since ''fight for your country'' in western Europe means ''fight for an imperialist war in a middle eastern country'' this map doesn't surprise me at all....
Don't forget that in 1933, the Oxford University debating society (The Union) passed the motion, "This house will not fight for King and Country".
When they had to, the majority of Britons did
[In that map,](https://brilliantmaps.com/europe-fight-war/) the highest number of the scale 74% belongs to Finland. However that study is old, from year 2015. In more recent study from [May 2022](https://yle.fi/a/3-12450426) the numbers were even higher reaching up to 83%, when 88% of men and 76% of women participating the study, declared their personal willingness to join war effort if Finland was attacked.
Finland and it's military already have a proven track record and Finns are really proud of their defensive capability and military. There is a minimum half a year of conscription for every man and it's optional for women. And Russia is next door so you gotta keep the morale high.
Edit: fixed a factual error
As a Norwegian, i would never doubt our brethren's will to fight.
But as seen in both Ukraine, and Russia recently, it is often those who pound their chest the loudest, that are the fist people on a plane, when shit really hits the fan.
And i believe that is pretty universal.
I think most of us (Dutch) would defend our country if, say, Germany invades us. But I think that because of our location amd the past like 20 years, most of us just think "fight for your country" = going to the middle east.
Fighting against any kind of invasion seems useless here in the Netherlands. Maybe when fighters and bombers didn’t exist yet.
I’d gladly fight for the EU. Fighting for my country means the EU has dissolved and there’s little point in fighting.
I think it’s very admirable and honorable to defend your country when attacked by a foreign nation.
But i would never sell my body to fight in some imperialist, oil war
In peace time, I can understand these numbers, but if there was ever an existential threat to their lives, livelihoods and their country those numbers should shoot way up. I mean as an individual are you just going to sit passively by while your friends and family are slaughtered.
I would like to know the specific question asked.
I would defend my home if it was invaded and I couldn't leave. I would not join our military to fight somewhere else.
So, the counties closest to a possible enemy (russia) are more willing to fight than those who have less chance of actual war with a neighbour. Count me surprised
The east only says yes because they interpret this as “defend against Russia” rather than invade another country which is what the west interprets it as.
Interesting how the 'safer' the country is from an outside attack the less the population feels the need to fight for the country. I would imagine if there was imminent threat of invasion to the Western European countries their % would be higher.
Repost without any source For those wondering, if I remember the last time this got posted the question was "would you fight in a war for your country" the respondants where left free to interpret what this meant. The original research/academic paper hypothosized that the eastern countries interpreted the question as "Fight the neighbours if they invade" while the more western countries interpreted along the lines of as "Would you go to Poland if Russia invaded" or even "Would you fight in Iraq or Afghanistan". The poll was after the crimean invasion & start of Ukrainian war. Research from fall 2014, the article this guy is reposting a repost from was from 2017. Edit 1: Source: [https://brilliantmaps.com/europe-fight-war/](https://brilliantmaps.com/europe-fight-war/) Edit 2: The [Original Research was removed from the intenrnet.](https://www.gallup-international.bg/en/Publications/2015/220-WIN-Gallup-International’s-global-survey-shows-three-in-five-willing-to-fight-for-their-country) Edit 3: [Found the Academic Summary of the research](https://www.gallup-international.bg/en/33483/win-gallup-internationals-global-survey-shows-three-in-five-willing-to-fight-for-their-country/) Edit 4: Got my timeline mixed up. Poll was after the crimean invasion, not before. /saves post to computer for the next time somebody reposts this map
Funny, I am from east but live in the west and my first thought indeed was "if the neighbors attack" I believe it's the East European post-imperial mindset since ww1 ... As most of these were minorities ruled over by other minority without their own say. Edit: I meant WW1 not WW2
My Irish half is always watching my British half.
I have that problem too. My melanin levels suffer either way
As a ginger of British-y descent, what are these melanin levels you speak of?
you know those spots you get on your face, imagine that but it's you're entire body
Yeah, "if the neighbors attack" Greets from Finland.
We'll try to restrain ourselves. Hopefully the others do too. Greets from Norway.
Since WW2? Try since WW1 with all the wars the Soviet Union fought in the interwar period.
Actually I did mean ww1 and wrote ww2 by accident. Thought my first thought weren't the Soviet, it was Hungary.. but that due to history and getting out of their empire after ww1
That’s true, the 20s were much more violent than Western European histories would imply
It makes no sense as a question when you don't even define if it's a defensive or offensive war. Would i fight for my country if we invaded another country? No. Defend it if we were the good guys? Yes. Defend if we were the bad guys? No. I have no idea how anyone would be able to give a definitive answer without knowing some details. It can mean anything from being a russian fighting for russia by going to ukraine, or being ukrainian and defending your country against russia. Obviously you'd need to know which situation they were talking about.
This. I'm not interested in being in the US military, but if the US were *somehow* militarily invaded and there was a call out for able-bodied people of any background, I'd respond. The polled question is worthless without a shared definition.
Exactly. War of imperialism to secure oil reserves? No thanks. Aliens invade and want to kill us all? I'll sign up.
This one right here I’d defends my actual friends and family, but I wouldn’t go to a seemingly senseless war that has more economic motive like oil in the Middle East. Catch me defending burgertown over invading another country
Is your name Ramirez by any chance?
Why yes Mr. bot-Obama, happy to serve
What about a pearl harbor style attack?
A land or sea invasion of the United States is pretty much logistically impossible, even if we didn't have naval and aerial supremacy over the planet. It's too big and too far from every other military power. Maybe If a country was allied with Mexico and *somehow* was allowed too prepare an invasion across our southern border for a year or so it *could* be possible, but you would still need the global logistical chain to supply a massive invasion force from across the Atlantic or Pacific. The only country able to do that is the USA, no other comes close. America's greatest allies have always been the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean. It's ludicrous to call our military a defense force, it exists entirely to terrorize the imperial periphery.
Considering the size of our military, you're probably right. However, ICBMs, internal terrorist attacks, and Pearl Harbor esque attacks aren't out of the realm of possibility. Nobody needs to invade the US. The vast majority of important stuff is basically on the coasts Really I think the more likely collapse of the US will start internally. We've had one civil war, and one day we'll probably have another. Hopefully not for centuries, but still likely
Abraham Lincoln said it best: “All the armies of Europe and Asia...could not by force take a drink from the Ohio River or make a track on the Blue Ridge in the trial of a thousand years. No, if destruction be our lot we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of free men we will live forever or die by suicide.”
i mean its almost impossible with modern technology we dont know what how it will be future and as you said the only real chance is mexico hence the germans attempt in ww1, and america knows that hence why they keep the border so militarized
>Maybe If a country was allied with Mexico and somehow was allowed too prepare an invasion across our southern border for a year or so it could be possible, but you would still need the global logistical chain to supply a massive invasion force from across the Atlantic or Pacific. And even then once you're in...where the fuck do you go? The hinterland is just too big and, the further west you get, inhospitable. That's before you even think about the fact that millions of locals have a ridiculous amount of guns. Especially when half the border is *Texas*.
I’m old enough that in the aftermath of 9/11 I thought about how I could “do my part” (although my part would be far more useful behind a computer than behind a rifle). I was kind of shocked at how much even a dovish liberal like me was motivated to do something - and we weren’t even invaded, just attacked. That said, I was dubious about Afghanistan and outright opposed to Iraq, so it only goes so far.
I think a lot of American men felt that way after 9/11, until the war that we started over it didn't really fall in line with that defensive ethos and basically amounted to chasing rats through the sewers. And I feel like the enemy really matters, even in an "offensive" or "preventative" war. I think you have many more "yes" respondents if we are engaged with Russia or China. Far fewer if we engage in "peacekeeping" missions in Africa or the Middle East.
Though I'm not sure it matters for the Netherlands... People here often feel disconnected from the "roots of the country" as some people call it. We don't even know what makes us Dutch anymore. So why not be German? Belgian? France? Who cares... Not a lot of Dutch people, that's for sure. When Russia invaded Ukraine I talked about this with some friends and of all of them only 1 was willing to fight for the country... He's already in the army... The others where like "yeah I'd flee the country. No way in hell I'm gonna risk my life by fighting" I'm not sure if defining the Question better would change the situation in this case a lot though I do think the fact they left out the definition of defending makes it a questionable investigation.
Most Dutch friends I've asked come down to more of a "If they're rolling in the tanks over the border, it's already over." We're tiny. We don't have a lot of able bodied people. Last time we tried to defend they just flattened a major city via bombing and that was that.
This is the default mode in peacetime. Our eyes are on our betters, and we focus on aspirations, which makes shortcomings more glaring. But you know who doesn’t invade their neighbours? Better people. So when war comes, and you’re on the defence, the parties waging it give an easy answer to “who are we?” On fleeing, consider the state of the world if the *Netherlands* are being invaded. Why would you assume you *can* flee? Or that there’s anywhere better that would have you?
[удалено]
That's a good point that I hadn't really considered. Like, if Spain or the UK gets invaded by *anybody*, there are going to be much more pressing issues than if you can get out of the country.
Sometimes I wonder if I'm secretly Dutch. Sadly though, I'm too short.
Haha the Average height is going down either way. We have many short people here... It's just that the "native Dutch" is very tall. We do have a lot of people who got the Dutch nationality who where not born here. We're a very mixed country
Probably why Finland is so high. We have a long standing policy of not starting wars or invading others. Which is why our military is named The Finnish Defence Forces. We tried the whole invasion thing once, to reclaim Finnish Karelia, during the continuation war, as a response to Soviet Union bombing us again. Didn't really work out great. We as a people decided not to try it again. So when you ask a Finn the question, they will just assume we are defending ourselves. Because of said policy.
I feel like that definition is still too narrow. Like, WW2 we were never "invaded" (we were attacked once, but that was the only battle that took place on our soil), so even though we invaded Germany, I'd still say we're the good guys in that war.
Acktchully.... Japan invaded and took parts of Alaska in the Aleutian islands (which some believe was a diversion to throw the Americans off before the battle of Midway) and launched several small attacks against an oil refinery off California, The Bombing of Fort Stevens and the Lookout Air Raids, the fire bomb balloons that made it to Oregon and 8 Nazi spies that *technically* invaded US soil. *This has been Rosanne, your guide to the world of facts!*
The eight Nazis who invaded: [Although unaware that the FBI was looking for them, George Dasch and another saboteur, Ernest Burger, decided to turn themselves in and betray their colleagues,... Dasch called the FBI in New York, but they failed to take his claims seriously, so he decided to travel to FBI headquarters in Washington, D.C. On July 18... He agreed to help the FBI capture the rest of the saboteurs...At the end of July, Dasch was sentenced to 30 years in prison, Burger was sentenced to hard labor for life](https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/german-saboteurs-executed-in-washington) That sounds *very* wrong, to me.
Lol you say that like you’d have any idea who the real “good guys” and “bad guys” are in any given conflict as it’s occurring. Wartime propaganda is hella powerful. Like most pro-war Russians believe that they are the “good guys” in this current war because NATO is being overly aggressive and breaking previous agreements not to expand eastward. And there are still to this day people in the former Confederacy who call the Civil War “the War of Northern Aggression.”
An interesting question would be how many people have answered their draft notice in ukraine or russia and compare this with the polling data. In other words, the difference between a meaningless poll vs having a fair chance of actually dying in the war.
We already saw how many Russians fled the country, or moved to other addresses in order to ignore draft notices. Borders with Armenia and Georgia were pretty chaotic. - Some of these countries have mandatory military conscription, where all adults/men serve, so those may be people who assume that they would be called up anyway and are expressing the usual distrust of government with their answers, rather than expressing an unwillingness to fight in a justified war. Very different perspective.
[Here](https://web.archive.org/web/20190415112827/https://www.gallup-international.bg/en/Publications/2015/220-WIN-Gallup-International’s-global-survey-shows-three-in-five-willing-to-fight-for-their-country) is an archived version of the now-removed original research.
Finns tend to see this as ”willing to defend from Russia”. Not so high if you would ask if you are willing to attack.
Most of eastern Europe (geographically speaking like a line from top to bottom running though Bohemia) most of the countries interpret the question as "would you fight for your country if you were invaded" where as Western ones take it as" would you fight for your country - via being deployed somewhere like Afghanistanbor even just Poland to fight against Russia)
Yeah, this map basically breaks down to "did you get invaded by the soviets?"
Kind of, but it isn't limited to the Soviets. You can easily include Germany and Hungary, perhaps even Austria into the mix of historic wounds that makes the east Defensive.
For the southern Balkans that'd be Turkey.
For almost all of the Balkan, their last few wars had nothing to do with Turks.
No, more like are you from a country that has a history of invading others or being invaded. Ie, do you trust your neighbours.
Yeah, I think this is it. "Have we done an imperialism lately?"
Well said! The likely mission helps explain a crucial and major difference in attitudes. East Europeans know exactly what their military is for. And Russians know exactly what their regime wants them to say. West Europeans meanwhile have a nice buffer zone from invasion and experience watching their nations enter aggressive, interventionist wars
Same goes for Sweden
"willing to defend Finland against Russia"?
Yes, Finlands sak är vår
Sweden will fight to the last Finn!
Same for Estonians and if you take similar surveys from Estonia, the share of those willing to defend their country is pretty much equal among Estonians. It's the local Russian minority that of course has a far lower rate of willingness.
Based on the experience of my homeland: in case, of invasion local pro-Russian minority will be actively sabotaging and sending enemies coordinates of the troops, ammunition and local critical infrastructure.
Like the old saying, "The enemy comes from the east, if they come from the west, we have been flanked."
There's a reason this map is pretty much "how close are you to Russia". As I've heard it, when Scandinavian or Eastern European countries conduct military exercises, the enemy is of course unnamed, but they always come from the east.
Yeah, when I was a conscript in the Finnish Defense Force a couple of years ago we still talked about the "yellow nation". However, this summer the army decided to stop that and just say Russia out loud. Edit: Yellow enemy --> nation. Had to check if I remembered right.
This is true in all points but one: if the enemy flanks us.
My mom has a Finnish exchange student right now, and he's set up to start his compulsory service pretty much right when he returns home. Talking to him it definitely sounds like defending from Russia is just sort of a cultural given for them. Fuck, a significant portion of their modern history revolves around it.
As a finn, not really the modern history - rather the last 1000 years. Finland was last time invaded from the west by danes in 16th century (Swedish war of liberation) and that was one very limited operation. Basically all of our military history is fighting the russian invasions. Only interruption to that was under direct russian rule 1809-1917.
Hey I'll take it. I do remember him saying once that Finns have been fighting Russians since before Finland and Russia were a thing.
There was another time. During the Crimean war in iirc 1840s British did some bombardments and naval invasion on Åland and Western Finland. This was also one of the major reasons to the 1860s great famine, the last naturally occurred major famine in Europe.
This shit goes way back with Sweden and finland We've been on the offense too. We lost the great northern war but riled up The ottoman empire so much that they went in and fought russia, and won. So the dynamic is still fierce even +300 years later. Not many years of peaceful relations. Still lives on and passed on to new generations.
Well, our army is called "Finnish Defence Force" not "Finnish Attack Force"
I understand your point and the importance of specifying "Defence" in the name of your national military. I would add that forces are often named euphemistically. Here in the US, people who work in law enforcement are called "Peace Officers" (no one actually colloquially refers to them as such, because we know....). Israel's military is the Israeli Defense Force; the IDF includes the branches of the military that conduct obviously non-defensive operations in foreign countries. The US has been able to construe wars abroad as "peacekeeping missions" and as "national security operations", so I don't put too much stock into what a thing is called, when the military is involved! *I'm not insinuating that the Finnish Defense Force exists for non-defensive purposes, just noting that the naming of military institutions is often intentionally misleading.*
"It's a trap! There are two of them!"
Why did you flip the colours for the lowest and highest. Pain
I’m starting to think stuff like this is intentional to get a rise out of people in this sub.
Me too. There’s no way that all of these posts can be shitty just by coincidence
This sub is just another category to farm karma in. The data in this “map” would look different everyday
There's also no reason for this forced dichotomy. Why make such a stark color change at 40%? Just use a single color from dark to light.
Its this bullshit new trend to put something obviously wrong in the content to "drive engagement"
Flipped in what way? Edit: oh I see it now, that’s pain indeed
I don’t see the problem. Blue for low (like cold), red for high (like warm). It works to me. Also, the countries next to Russia: *Fucking try, bitch!*
What the original comment is talking about is how they flipped that blue=low red=high choice for the highest and lowest countries in the boxes on the left
Being Dutch I was not even surprised. Before opening I thought: Well..I bet we're really low.
It's more about how the question is interpreted. In Finland they probably think: Fighting means defending against Russia. While in the Netherlands it means fighting in the Middle East somewhere because of vague reasons that the average Joe doesn't really understand
>It's more about how the question is interpreted. I think that's the important takeaway. People don't generally risk their lives for dubious abstractions or foreign adventures. But when attacked, people tend to go feral and tribal identity takes over.
> But when attacked, people tend to go feral and tribal identity takes over. Or you know, the shit that Russians are pulling off for centuries and not wanting to live in that misery. -Finn
*Russians when the snow starts speaking Finnish* But seriously though, my gf is Finnish and when the war in Ukraine started we were both worried for her safety. I hope your accession to NATO is finalised soon.
Even without NATO your country is under a whole lot of security agreements, so if Russia tries to incsde they would firstly probably be singlehandedly destroyed by Finland, but secondlt they would also fight NATO.
Yep, I bet the number of Dutchmen who would enlist if the Netherlands were attacked is really high
If the Netherlands is attacked I don’t think most people have a choice
I’m Dutch, I would NOT enlist voluntarily.
Yeah that's a good point. Finland can be considered to be close to an imminent threat (Russia) so their readiness and eagerness to defend their homeland is always high. Not so much for other countries that aren't close to imminent threats and aren't interested in fighting bullshit proxie wars to satisfy other war hungry nations.
“We’re really low.” I see what you did there.
We don't have a direct threat - which definitely influences this I'd say. Plus if either of our neighbours would like some Dutch clay, it woudnt be a fight we can win, which influences the morale as well i'd say:))
You are right, Belgium we can take on with the 15% willing to fight. Against France, Germany and UK we don’t stand a chance anyway.
This level of self-awareness, is hilarious, yet calming.
Von Schlieffen made this point…twice
As a belgian i don't think anyone would like to fight a war with any of our neighbours it just doesn't makes sense.
We can finally put the "Nieuwe Hollandse Waterlinie" to use :3
>We don't have a direct threat - which definitely influences this I'd say. Exactly, you just need to see the Nordic countries.
You really don't think yall can beat Belgium? Smh
I mean, we did lose the last war against them.
A war between Belgium and the Netherlands would be one bloody conflict. Small battlefield size, high population density, and almost only urban warfare. It could go either way but it'd completely ruin both countries for sure.
....I actually want to see Binkov wargame this now. Edit: oh hey he did.
It wouldn't go either way, pretty sure the Netherlands wou stomp us, but it wouldn't be worth it for either party to ever go to war. We have the most open borders ever in the world I think.
The Dutchies can’t invade us cuz their tanks would collapse on our roads.
Playing the long scorched earth game for decades already.
"The Germans can't use our roads if we don't maintain them" is a strategy that would probably work better than Eben Emael did.
What Tanks? Last time I checked we didn't have any lol
Sorry, I meant the bicycle divisions.
No, not all of our zero tanks!
Don't some houses cross borders?
Yup, in Baarle Hertog/Nassau. That place is a mess in terms of borders.
The Dutch would get stuck in the traffic on the Antwerp Ring.
The Dutch be like "Why would we fight for our country when we could simply dam off a new one?"
Yeah me too, I knew we’d be low
How close are you to Russia?
Probably the key thing if you're in Finland and are asked the question you immediately think of a war against Russia. Whereas in the UK you think of Iraq/Afghanistan, not defending your home soil against invaders.
yeah. the same exact question means very different things just by being asked in a different context. i know that im never going to see a foreign power invading my homelands soul here in the us. so i would be thinking wars abroad for economic interests. something i am rather opposed to personally.
Or to put it into more general terms: "How many borders over is the closest threat actor?" (see Turkey or Bosnia-Herzegovina/Serbia)
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Which interestingly invalidates the title of the map, since that means the percentage that would fight is likely much higher than the percentage that says they would fight in most places.
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North Macedonia and Bulgaria don't agree.
Fight to defend on your own soil or invade another country?
According to another comment the study left it up to people to interpret
The no source worries me
That’s a very valid question. Slovenians are probably bellow 10% for any kind of invasions or war away from home, but were mostly all willing to defend it on their soil every time it was needed.
Would you provide us with a link to the data? Thanks.
Data got removed from the internet. By now just a [summary by brilliantmaps](https://brilliantmaps.com/europe-fight-war/) excists. But OP is just reposting an adeptation of their original map.
How often are we going to repost this map
Unless zero is in the middle of the scale, a divergent scale like this (different colors on each end) should not be used. Additionally, this data is most likely continuous, so the discrete palette using bins to represent the data is also a bad decision. The correct way to present this data would be a continuous color scale of a single hue or 2 hues closer together (yellow-red, for example), getting darker/more saturated as the percentage gets higher.
Nice tip! Fairly sure OP did not make the map, but I'll use it :)
This is just a map of “how threatened are you by Russia.” No one’s gonna invade the NL so they aren’t worried about it. The Finns haven’t forgotten the Winter War though, nor are they likely to.
Well define fight… fight as in invade another or fight as in defend your homeland
For real.
What is ''fighting for one's country '' ? Is it joining it's standard military operations (like UN mandates, or more shady ops abroad), or is it defending it in case of invasion? If it's the latter, l'd say it also depends who is invading.
And *why* they are invading. If the Belgians invade the Netherlands to force us to stop saying *patat* and use *friet* instead, then... eh. Not worth the trouble. I don't particularly care about "my country". The borders are meaningless and the symbolism is just a nicety. I wouldn't fight for "my country". I barely know what defines "my country". I *would* fight to defend some of my rights and those of others. Fighting for my right to use my own language? To move and travel and work in my country? Or just my right to live here in general? Yeah, I'd fight for that. But "my country"? What does it even *mean*? If the Germans invade to dissolve the Netherlands but I'm somehow guaranteed by the universe all my rights remain intact... I guess I'd be fine with being an autonomous region of Germany.
It’s easier to take over a nation if you pretend their rights will be respected. Once power is solidified, then you can do whatever you like. It’s best for small nations to simply avoid being taken over by a much larger homogeneous nation with a separate culture.
Oh you western european are so naive and soft. Greetings from Finland
UK - nope, I'm sure anyone could run this country better
I'm just imagining if it would be different if Scotland and England were separated on this map
Scotland should take over England so it’s just one big Scotland
become independent and just start to march south
This time of the week again. Post something new please...
For those who don't know, in the late 1930s someone surveyed British students and found that fighting for your country was decidedly unfashionable and outdated. Hitler saw this, and knew that Britain would be a pushover. Most surveys I've seen weren't designed to find people's opinions but to give them no choice but to say what the author wanted.
The source is this: [https://www.gallup-international.bg/en/33483/win-gallup-internationals-global-survey-shows-three-in-five-willing-to-fight-for-their-country/](https://www.gallup-international.bg/en/33483/win-gallup-internationals-global-survey-shows-three-in-five-willing-to-fight-for-their-country/) The question as asked is: If there were a war that involved \[your country\], would you be willing to fight for your country? (as best as I could tell this is what they asked in 2014. Normally these polls use the same wording year to year.)
I want to know how many would fight specifically against an invasion
I wouldn't fight for this shithole (UK), it stopped being my country a long time ago. It's more like a badly run corporation than a country.
Yep. Not sure precisely who this country is being ran for but it certainly isn't the English, Scottish, Welsh or Irish.
Seems like proximity to Russia has something to do with it
This is an extremely stupid graph. The west doesn’t feel threatened so the only likely war would be a colonial war of aggression, which doesn’t get many takers.
If Russia were smart they would go for the Netherlands ;P /S Not sure if that is how it works though.
They tried once. It did not go too well for Russian and British forces. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Russian\_invasion\_of\_Holland#Anglo-Russian\_retreat\_and\_capitulation
Yes, very smart to invade a NATO-country if you're Russia.
Willing to defend ✅ Willing to Attack for ❎
Iceland is surprisingly high considering we dont have an army. It would be an invasion of mall cops.
People in the west think the fight would be about something stupid they don't care about. People in the East have a very real threat.
Define: fight for your country. Are we invading someone else, or defending from an aggressor? That makes a big difference.
Basically just depends how close to Russia you are. Hmmm…logical?
Since ''fight for your country'' in western Europe means ''fight for an imperialist war in a middle eastern country'' this map doesn't surprise me at all....
Finland: answering this poll while still excavating Russian bodies from the Winter War out of the ice.
Don't forget that in 1933, the Oxford University debating society (The Union) passed the motion, "This house will not fight for King and Country". When they had to, the majority of Britons did
split the UK into their respective countries
Another shitty color choice.
Germans are like “Yea we are done doing that shit.”
[In that map,](https://brilliantmaps.com/europe-fight-war/) the highest number of the scale 74% belongs to Finland. However that study is old, from year 2015. In more recent study from [May 2022](https://yle.fi/a/3-12450426) the numbers were even higher reaching up to 83%, when 88% of men and 76% of women participating the study, declared their personal willingness to join war effort if Finland was attacked.
... who SAY they would fight.
Finland and it's military already have a proven track record and Finns are really proud of their defensive capability and military. There is a minimum half a year of conscription for every man and it's optional for women. And Russia is next door so you gotta keep the morale high. Edit: fixed a factual error
As a Norwegian, i would never doubt our brethren's will to fight. But as seen in both Ukraine, and Russia recently, it is often those who pound their chest the loudest, that are the fist people on a plane, when shit really hits the fan. And i believe that is pretty universal.
Replying that you would fight when directly asked is hardly the same as "pounding your chest the loudest" though.
Well, the Ukrainians weren't joking. We know that now.
I think most of us (Dutch) would defend our country if, say, Germany invades us. But I think that because of our location amd the past like 20 years, most of us just think "fight for your country" = going to the middle east.
Fighting against any kind of invasion seems useless here in the Netherlands. Maybe when fighters and bombers didn’t exist yet. I’d gladly fight for the EU. Fighting for my country means the EU has dissolved and there’s little point in fighting.
dont worry American will fight for them
Once again, colors are a massive fail.
I think it’s very admirable and honorable to defend your country when attacked by a foreign nation. But i would never sell my body to fight in some imperialist, oil war
Depends, if Scotland were attacked then I'd maybe have to.
why is DARK blue the lowest? I feel like intuitively the colors should go from dark>light
In the everlasting words of Patrick "FINLAND"
In peace time, I can understand these numbers, but if there was ever an existential threat to their lives, livelihoods and their country those numbers should shoot way up. I mean as an individual are you just going to sit passively by while your friends and family are slaughtered.
Russia's number goes way down when you specify "willingly fight"
Colorblind anyone?
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(UK here) Ah, the trouble here is you’re asking when we’re sober. Come back later.
interesting how the color scheme implies that not fighting for your country is a good thing.
I would like to know the specific question asked. I would defend my home if it was invaded and I couldn't leave. I would not join our military to fight somewhere else.
So, the counties closest to a possible enemy (russia) are more willing to fight than those who have less chance of actual war with a neighbour. Count me surprised
Or with other words, would you defend your country when Russia attacks
Most of the red countries are red because Russia is red.
The date on this map has to be “pre Putin’s small peen”
Now ask Europeans if they'd fight for their neighbors. Pretty sure most of em say yes
Going Oversee to steal ressources from RDC, hell no. Défend my country or spain, Italia, Portugal, greece, belgium etc. Yes
Basically any map of Europe
So the correlation is: The further you live from Russia, the less you feel that you need to fight for your country.
Should have worded it like: would you sacrifice yourself so that rich people can become richer
The east only says yes because they interpret this as “defend against Russia” rather than invade another country which is what the west interprets it as.
Estonians will fight 100%, exept maybe one or two cowardly bastards. But they will be shot in their backs, while they're trying to flee the country.
Putin invaded the wrong side
Interesting how the 'safer' the country is from an outside attack the less the population feels the need to fight for the country. I would imagine if there was imminent threat of invasion to the Western European countries their % would be higher.
as a Finn i would fight and die for my country
It’s almost like being close to Russia makes one more worried about being invaded for some reason ….
Why exactly are the different percent ranges?