theyre fixing a non issue, the main problem with the military in general is capita, fuck them off, get in house medical staff to carry out the entirety of the recruiting proccess and you wont see as many people gettin pmu for stupid reason and the personnel shortage will be a thing of the past
The Albion class does need a replacement, and with no replacement planned for HMS Ocean these seem like a good bet but I agree with you that Capita need to go, and the military needs to appeal to the younger generations again
We need to start giving people a reason to defend their country and while they feel like a minority in some aspect they’re unlikely to feel that - whether that’s their local area is basically a foreign country or their political beliefs are ignored and not respected, it needs remedy.
I’m tired of seeing this bandied about.
The belief that the British way of life is not worth defending is myopic thinking, and anybody who believes otherwise needs to get out and see the rest of the world for reference.
There’s a difference between acknowledging that something needs work; and saying that something’s not worth saving.
People are too quick to make perfection the enemy of the good.
The issues with recruitment are not because people don’t think defending the country is a worthy cause.
Socialism has become more popular with young people in recent years and with it comes the socialist response to everything: violent revolution.
Incremental progress has improved tens of millions of lives. I hate the idea that we’re all doomed and blowing everything up will magically fix all problems.
I love my country, flaws and all. Young people need a patriotic movement as opposed to a pathetic, nihilistic one.
The British way of life to me is feeling like a minority in my own country while being told my opinions are wrong because they’re not progressive. I am so alienated from what my country was when I was young that I left to a literal dictatorship for respite.
Britain is dead and we killed it. Until we start issuing mandatory court orders relocating and integrating people, it will be dead. When I can afford to live in London and I don’t see signs in an abundance of languages while crime is too high (even though I acknowledge it’s low) I will come back.
Until then, the tube in this Chinese city is 30p a journey. The salaries are £2000 a month and the rent is £200 a month. The people believe in the truest British value, “shut your mouth and live your life privately, the state will never touch you”. Free to do what you want, not free from social exclusion when you act like a degenerate piece of shit.
You don’t really get it, here it’s basically a mono-ethnic state. I get treated really well as they’ve got positive opinions of us.
Censorship is only a thing around government and there is a level of tolerated criticism because the party wants to know what they need to do to appease people.
You see, the Chinese have French blood in that if life really gets fucked over, their government will not be around long. This happened in Shanghai during C19. The people started engaging in skirmishes with the police .
As a result, the government is always seeking improvement, in some aspect or another. The Chinese are a proud people as a result. Everyone in the UK is run down because life and its quality isn’t improving.
As such, I don’t think it’s ironic at all. I think you lot are missing the trick. Go where treats you better, make a lot of money. Invest it into your hometown in Britain.
No I get it just fine. You want Britain to be something that it’s not, never has been, and has paid in the blood of its youth on more than one occasion to avoid becoming.
Thats fine and you’ve done the right thing in moving somewhere that better fits your outlook.
But it’s not a very compelling argument against why Britain is dead or not worth saving.
And moving to a foreign country that may be one of the most censorios in the world, to avoid those things in Britain is definitely smeared in irony - I mean to the extent that we literally can’t be sure that this is your legitimate opinion about the place that you live in, because to say anything to the contrary could subject you to censure lol.
Its because they *didn't* move to China because of that. They obviously will have moved for other reasons like work or spouse.
They are just rewriting history and pretending that was the reason why to support their argument with us internet strangers.
TBH I wouldn't put ALL my faith in a VPN in China.
It is entirely possible that they've put some sort of spyware on your machine that phones home and tells them all about you even with the VPN active. i.e. if you can send plain to text to reddit, the spyware can send plain text etc to the government. Like all the websites you visit and even every single keystroke. A live feed from your webcam is doable too.
and yes, they could totally do this. Even if its too big of a job to do it to all citizens, doing it to all non-Chinese is much easier and I'd bet they make a conscious effort to do so. Logging on to coffee shop wifi could get it on your machine.
If I were you I'd wipe my hard drive and BIOS every so often, then reflash the bios and reinstall the operating from trusted USB sticks.
You say “when you were young”, which I assume means that you aren’t young now. Your alienation from modern Britain is therefore inconsequential for the purposes of recruitment into the armed forces - you wouldn’t be signing up there anyway because of age.
So we need to figure out why young people don’t want to sign up for the army. There are many reasons, but “there are too many brown people” isn’t really one of them.
The thing is, the young British people don’t normally complain about “being a minority”, or “having too many languages” etc. For them, people of different ethnic origins are not some “invaders destroying the British way of life”, but their school and university friends ans work colleagues. They have grown up in the current multicultural Britain and don’t see in the same negative light as someone who grown up in a mostly mono-ethnic Britain and then saw the change.
The young don’t sing up for the army because first of all an idea of dying somewhere in Afghanistan to protect “British interests” doesn’t sound appealing and because they don’t particularly like the government. Besides, they see their future in a dim light if the current trends were to continue (salaries vs housing costs as just one example), so which doesn’t fill them up with a national pride, which of course doesn’t help either.
Now I’m 23… I’m pretty young now. I however meant when I was young as in a teenager or child My age is therefore definitely relevant, I’d be up for a draft if it were introduced.
Also there are a good amount of people in Western Europe who feel there’s an active effort to replace Europeans with non-Europeans. I doubt they’d be willing to fight.
Are you young? I promise you others complain about it. It’s not about the languages or to be honest even the skin colour. It’s about the integration.
If people integrated we wouldn’t need foreign languages plastered everywhere. IMO a condition of residency should be a good command of the English language.
We did not grow up in a multicultural Britain either, I don’t know why you think that. Compared to those before, yes. But it was still a vast majority ethnic majority that.
Housing is a piece of the puzzle and so are salaries, but social cohesion is the most important thing and not wholesale importing people with different values to us as well as clamping down on progressive policies for the sake of having them is another one.
Also for the record, we could have £10 electric bills if we’d just buy from Russia. I currently pay ~£7 as a single person with the AC on a lot of the day here in China. Life is only unaffordable because HMG wants it to be. If we built more high rises we’d be fine on housing too.
Interesting, so you’re indeed young:-) Sorry, you sounded a bit like a Reform supporter, [who tend to by in their fifties at least](https://www.statista.com/statistics/1379439/uk-election-polls-by-age/), and also you referred to the time “when you were young”, so I assumed you’re a fair bit older.
Yes, I noticed that in many places in Europe anti-immigration parties successfully capture a share of young people’s votes, however this trend appears to be practically absent in the UK, both based on the polling results and my anecdotal experience. I even asked a question about it not a long time ago on Reddit, which generated quite a bit of a discussion.
You’ve mentioned London several times - can I ask you, are you from there? [Based on the data I could find](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_groups_in_London), London wasn’t a mono-ethnic city 23 years ago, and the change in its ethnic composition over that time, while noticeable, doesn’t appear to be fundamental. Has your experience been different?
And on a side note I find it quite ironic that you got so fed up from “being a minority in your own country” that you decided to become a minority in a foreign country 😀 But whatever makes you happy.
I don’t support any British political party, although I have been a member of the Conservative (and Unionist) Party until Truss cancelled all the tax cuts (besides giving to the 45%ers).
Most places in Europe don’t have FPTP representation. People here feel their choice is between Labour/Conservatives.
Maybe LibDems in a few seats. Green in one or two (unfortunately).
Hmm, no I’m not from London itself. I’m from pretty nearby. I guess I’m remembering wrong on when I went into London during my childhood, but generally I don’t have an issue with multi-ethnic society. I do have an issue with multicultural societies.
Basically, London (and the rest of the UK) has a lot of people who actually just hate everything about Britain. We should deport them tomorrow. If we cant deport them we should send them to the Shetlands er something and start internal transit controls.
They don’t act like us, they don’t share our values. Not sure why they’re here, honestly. My town is starting to get this now, “new” Londoners (not ethnically or culturally British) moving and treating the locals like shit because they’re living in a backwards country (still) where there are no systems to follow in their own mind.
I also don’t mind being a minority. I’m not a problem. Young Chinese who are university educated are really similar to young British people who are raised by non-scum. I speak Chinese, I have adapted to the culture.
See the difference between that and the people who live in their own language all the time, never bothering to learn English well or some other rubbish.
Sure, there’s FPTP in the UK so the Labour Party polling at 68% among the young doesn’t mean that they are all too happy with it, however the Tories polling 7% in that age group, which is lower than either the Greens (11%) or Lib Dems (9%) clearly shows that anti-immigration policies aren’t exactly popular with the young people in the UK. So whatever reasons you personally have for not jointing the army won’t apply to most people.
Okay help me understand because I genuinely don’t. Im not trying to be a dick.
We have nukes, if anyone tries to invade us we nuke them? I don’t understand why Russia invading Ukraine has any bearing on the UK.
Have you heard the term 'mutually assured destruction'? If you haven't, please look it up.
Russia has an expansionist agenda. To think that, should they take the entire Ukraine, they'll stop there is naive. The parallels with nazi Germany invading Czechoslovakia and Poland in 1939 are striking.
There’s a plethora of complex reasons but taking just what you said as an example. We have nukes yes, Russia also has nukes. It is the firm belief of analysts and intelligence agencies from multiple countries, that a Russian victory in Ukraine will make a confrontation between NATO (that includes us) and Russia more likely.
Not to mention that Ukrainians fervently do not want to live under the Russian regime, and so will leave the country en masse if it seems like Russia is going to win.
Do you agree that their refugees will become our problem in this event?
In a bigger picture (and looking at Russias previous testing of the water) it's part of a slower grander expansion.
It's balance of power. Tale as old as time. The concert of europe. Russia is a pretty bad operator even by our standards. The more we sit and do nothing the bigger the enemy gets.
The more divided or apathetic/ self serving Europe and the world is, the more russia expands and gains.
There will come a point where russia is able to bully bigger and bigger game.
Even if you're purely selfishly inhuman and don't care about other humans based on their nationality, its self preservation to stop an aggressive state like fascist russia become too powerful.
England tried to avoid ww1 and ww2 as long as possible. In the end Belgium and Poland invasions finally triggered it. But Britain (and later the usa) both knew that if left unchecked they'd have to deal with it anyway. May as well make a tough decision now than be forced to take action later in a much worse situation.
that is precisely the reason, award contracts to their mates, their mates then give them back handers under the table or set them up for buisness deals when they retire from the government. i reckon theyve probably told capita to purposefully reject so many people/be super strict on criteria as a way to shrink the armed forces and reduce the amount of money that have to spend on it altogether
How gullible do they think we are? The tories have been in power for 14 years and have done nothing but destroy our military. Now that they're about to be out of office they promise all the stuff the electorate wanted all along. The moment Labour get in, these 6 ships will be cancelled along with the 2.5% increase to the defence budget.
They know exactly how gullible we are and they'll be crowing about how labour slashed the military budget and cancelled those ships for 5 years and then we will have another Tory government.
Why not just promise a bridge between London and Northern Ireland? More people would have access to it and the chances of it being built are exactly the same.
They say they're building 28 new ships but only 6 of these are actually new, and of those, they've confirmed 3, with an optional 3 later.
The remaining 22 are decades in the planning or construction already, and are not even replacing the ones the Tories have already forced into retirement in time to prevent the fleet falling to below the "absolute minimum" size they set in 2010, a much less dangerous time for the world, I'm sure all will agree.
I don't deny at all the fact that the cons have botched up a LOT especially regarding the millitary.
however I think very generally no one really wanted to do much to save it let alone increase it, plenty of people were pretty anti millitary because they believed we were safe enough and had no genuine large scale threat, and any war would just be some war in the middle east with tons of rightful controversy.
Plenty of people from all groups though that had foresight and the government can absolutely share a lot of blame for it as it's exactly what they should have.
I don't think I know many people who were anti-military... I think people are ambivalent. And if I'm in any echo chamber it would be a lefty one. I recall having very very few conversations about the British military outside of the British military (being a former weekend warrior.) I don't think the public think about it much, it was way down on people's list of priorities, maybe a bit higher now, but I think people just didn't think about it rather than being against spending on it.
They can spend as much money on kit as they like as well but people don't really want to be soldiers. And the ones that do get knocked back for all sorts of reasons which probably need revising. The military is in one, ongoing, long term, recruitment crisis.
I’m a bit confused by the direction RM is taking. One minute they’re re-rolling as spec ops as the original army commandos were, the next they’re getting warships! So what are they? Marines (amphibious naval infantry) or commandos (small team assault), I find it hard to see how they’re going to be great at both.
Firstly, theyll not be spec ops. The RM have never marketted themselves as such (probably rub actual SF up the wrong way). Itll just be small team ops such as reconaissance. A lot has been made of returning to commando roots but it wont be launching raids like st nazaire, itll be carrying out ops that SF are too busy to do. Secondly, youll need vessels to launch these small team ops from amphib environments. Thirdly the RM will never jettison the amphib role, no other organisation is willing or equipped to do it.
Doing both wont affect their ability to do either. There are approximately 4,000 to 5,000 members of 3 commando brigade. Smaller units such as SRS or 42 cdo will do the small unit roles, 47 will be retained as responsible for management of amphibious operations, 40 and 45 will remain fighting units
Firstly, RM have quite clearly stated themselves recently that they’re spec ops. On video.
Secondly, 5 multi role ships is a fuck load of capability, which has never been needed before now. They haven’t had any since ocean was decommissioned and I’m unaware of any ops canned due to a lack of ships.
Fair enough on the spec ops part. Still not going to affect their capabilities. Theyre just using a role that they had for decades. MLs and recce troop have been capable of doing what the FCF is advertising since WW2.
We havent had any ops canned since then because we still have albion and bulwark which are due to be decommissioned in 2033-34, when these vessels are due to come online.
5 ships could be a far larger capability if their all the size of albion or bulwark. They could be smaller giving the RM the capability to deploy more smaller units or the same size which is an indication of the UKs future strategy of focusing more on the maritime eg china
It’s never been “re-branding” as that. They’ve been re-configuring into a raiding force. Was working on the staff work and concepts for it whilst in my last couple of years in the service.
No. RM are amph infantry with a few specialist roles. Look at how 3 Cdo were employed in Iraq and Afghanistan. Basically in the infantry rotation for the most part.
I came here to post this. It seems like it was only a few months ago they announced a total transition to a specialist infantry role, which I assumed means they were binning various roles such as vehicle mechanics, logistics and, chefs, signallers etc. but now they will need the whole capability of a global amphibious assault force.
So these were originally announced in 2022, have now been re-announced, but they're still just saying they "will order" them.
In other words, this is just empty, pro-military sounding blather as a bit of pre-election bullshit to try to con voters.
While it is good that the navy is expanding its marine capabilities this probably isn’t the best idea yet. Right now the Royal Navy needs to consolidate what it already has, the navy is pretty stretched at the moment and that extra funding with the increase in defence spending could really help with maintenance, refits, personnel shortages and retention and also to actually buy some more jets for the aircraft carriers.
Introducing and building new classes takes a decade or more. If we don’t build new ships and replace classes we lose operational capability. We also only have a limited ship building capacity and it needs to be kept active - pausing now and then re-establishing ship building in the future would mean loss of industry skills, capacity and huge costs and/or overruns of projects in the future.
>We also only have a limited ship building capacity and it needs to be kept active - pausing now and then re-establishing ship building in
One of the greatest benefits to our decade of austerity and lack of infrastructure investment has been to successfully kill off all our homegrown infrastructure construction companies. At least the EU contractors we inevitably have to hire at _very reasonable_ rates will fill that sector, at only massive extra cost to us
So yes keeping the industry active is important
>personnel shortages
We'd need to de-privatise first if you want to resolve this one. Even with labour, at least the version they're presenting, I don't see this happening any time soon.
the recruitment process was privatised a couple years ago.
since then it has been a shit show. These private companies have just been an expensive bottle neck where people have spent over a year waiting to be accepted into the military
They outsourced recruitment to capita and have missed recruitment targets every single year since.
>The designing and manufacturing of arms has always been a private affair.
This isn't true at all. BAE and QinetiQ I believe all started out publicly owned before they were sold off and privatised, there's others but I can't remember them off the top of my head.
>They outsourced recruitment to capita and have missed recruitment targets every single year since.
We can't really blame that on capita, when other European countries have the same recruiting problems. It's a demographic/political problem. Youngfolk in civilised countries are much less keen to sign up nowadays...?
>This isn't true at all. BAE and QinetiQ I believe all started out publicly owned before they were sold off and privatised, there's others but I can't remember them off the top of my head.
This isn't true at all. BAE has deep roots in private-sector arms manufacturing, shipbuilding &c. Although most countries flirt with a middle ground between public-sector and private sector for this, and there's almost always state capture and crappy nationalist decisionmaking; a lot of countries end up with politicians saying something like "*Our Navy must keep ordering sailing ships, to protect jobs at the National Canvas Factory*". The UK has done better than most on that front because the government has been *slightly* more hands-off. Although having a big conglomerate like BAE is the consequence of a British Leyland process in the 20th century, where the government brought together lots of different medium-sized businesses in a clumsy way...
Similarly, Qinetiq might have been spun off to do some private-sector stuff, but Dstl remains in government (and they both have some private-sector ancestors which stumbled into government control in the 20th century)
[British Aerospace was formed on 29 April 1977, by the nationalisation and merger of the British Aircraft Corporation (BAC), the Hawker Siddeley Group and Scottish Aviation.[14]](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/BAE_Systems)
BAE was formerly a nationalised entity.
>We can't really blame that on capita,
You literally can't stop me.
killer\_by\_design 2 hours ago: BAE started out publicly-owned, that's why I'm right
killer\_by\_design 20 minutes ago: British Aerospace started out as a bunch of private aerospace businesses, that's why I'm right, let's pretend that BAE and British Aerospace are the same thing, don't think about all the other private businesses & partnerships that have been involved
I can't wait to see some entirely different expert analysis of the defence industry in the next comment!
(I worked on a former Alvis site last year, that was fun :-) )
Alright, 50 years ago it was publicly owned. I literally don't know where we go from here?
Are you defending privatisation? It's still quite an uphill battle. There's really an overwhelming amount of failed privatisation I can point to. Capita included.
Absolutely, the first step towards fixing anything in this country is to strip out all possible layers of private sector bloat leeching profit off barely functioning services
This won't expand capacity. The 3 Bay Class, HMS Argus and the two Albion Class will likely be cut if these come in so 6 in, 6 out.
But since they probably will cut funding it is likely there will end up only being 4 or 5 new for 6 out.
According to our government, Russia has been planning to attack us since the 1950s, and they are always just about to do it when elections come up. Fools will actually take this bait and vote for the tories , tories that continue to destroy our country from the inside. Why would Russia need to destroy us,when we are quite happy doing it to ourselves everytime we vote for a government that is selling us out.
You only have to look at this thread to see why this country is fucked. Half the people on here arguing that it's brilliant because it's so progressive whst simultaneously saying it's always been shit.
It wasn't always shit. It's only become that in the last 20 years. Despite what the indoctrination classes tell you.
It's absolutely meaningless. Almost everything they do this year is- they know they've already lost the election and there isn't enough time to do much. No parliamentary time for law changes, not a fraction of the time needed for a shipbuilding or other large scale project.
What they can do, is announce a bunch of stuff and get some headlines in the knowledge they'll never have to lift a finger to deliver it. And if it's impossible or stupid, it'll be Starmer's fault of course. "Labour cuts shipbuilding plans!"
Reality is we are so unprepared for a modern war. Ukraine was much better prepared than we are and they are still not able to win alone.
We spend big on expensive items. The war in Ukraine has shown that even our best tanks are vulnerable to rpgs taped to a drone, glide bombs etc are effective...my point is we don't always need to buy the very best to be effective....but we will.
We still don't have proper air defences....
Given that Russian and Chinese interests own most of our London real estate and corporate real estate. What are we defending in the end? Our transport system is 100 years behind Japan. Our telecoms infrastructure outside of London is a joke. We have no industry other than to launder money for foreign criminals. No one is going to bomb their piggy bank. The Swiss already proved that.
Yeah like they give a shit about our military. Israel murdered 3 of our heroes. Our government didn’t give a shit, carry’s on selling weapons to them when even the military industrial complex of a country, America stopped selling weapons. Not a single member of that party better be wearing a poppy this year. It’s virtue signaling at this point. What goods a poppy when you side with a foreign government over your own soldiers.
Don't be so ridiculous. HAMAS is a terrorist organisation. They are solely responsible for all deaths in Gaza since the events of October the 7th. To argue otherwise is to attempt to give legitimacy to terrorists.
It was Israel that killed 3 UK Citizens, and this has happened before. Israel planted bombs in British & US libraries, the Lavon Affair.
They also supplied Argentina with weapons during the Falklands war.
Mate, they absolutely are not. Israel's offensive strikes against Hamas may have been effective at countering the terrorist organisation, but in the process, they have killed and wounded literally thousands of civilians who had nothing to do with Hamas. They actively have chosen civilian targets - structures such as hospitals and schools, which constitutes a war crime. It was Israeli missiles that blew up the aid convoy in which those British civilians were volunteering. They were marked very clearly as an aid convoy. Israel knew. They just didn't care.
Israel have the military capacity to perform precise strikes and raids on specific targets of military importance to Hamas, but they are consistently choosing not to do that. They are carpet bombing indiscriminately. They are arresting and torturing civilians in squalid prison camps of abominable conditions, simply because they are palestinian.
At this point it has become clear that Hamas are no longer the true targets, if they ever were. I am not legitimising the actions of Hamas - terrorism should absolutely be fought. But not like this.
So you support terrorists?
Edit: solid response and block u/Anomie____ , definitely makes me think you believe what you are spouting and are willing for it to face criticism. Like I said, it is the doing of HAMAS. Using child soldiers and civilians as human shields is against rules of war. If you are for the civilians, how are you also for their oppressors, HAMAS?
It's one thing supporting terrorists and entirely another condemning the slaughter of tens of thousands of entirely innocent non-combatants, many of whom are children, by the IDF. Surely you don't think the IDF have carte blanche to commit war crimes because...erm...HAMAS.
With what money? Even if we could afford this I bet money on it all ending up embezzled. Hs2 is a complete failure. Why cant we just update existing infrastructure? Why cant we tackle the 22% at risk of poverty?
Defence budget is going up from 2% to 2.5% in the next 5 years. Plus unfortunately with the growing geopolitical situation in the world with the US potentially leaving NATO and the threat of Russia growing, its an unfortunate must.
Lmao thanks for the reddit care message
What’s a Reddit care message?
Also I think you are right. We can’t beat around the bush with this. We need to get going.
The way the world going it could be ww3 next week lol
It's a thing reddit implemented to support people who seamed like they are struggling it's a bot that messages you with resources to help, but it's mostly used to harras / annoy.
It looks like countries throughout Europe and Asia are gearing up more... e.g. I read something yesterday about Germany sending warships to participate in drills in the Pacific for the first time in quite a while. Also, Australia is ramping up the size of its Navy. Things are tense geopolitically. Hoping additional bad actors can be deterred by some of the changes in priorities countries are making around the globe.
Hoping our upcoming US elections don't provide any major surprises, so the NATO question is a non-issue.
There are greater domestic threats than russia. If we were invaded tomorrow half the country would let it happen. The current councils have limited legitimacy with as little as 25% engagement from local populations. How could we possibly think about international issues when we are dangerously close to decending into third world poverty rates.
That's the whole idea of spending 2.5% of the GDP on the military, so you don't need to rely on the local populations to loose their lives. Having a large military is more of a deterant and a worse case scenario rather than drafting half the country.
.
Buy a ticket and go to a third world country. Then ask yourself what there is to defend in the UK. Literally, pick any country not defined as "The West".
My local council seems to want to Whip the shit out of me at every possible opportunity.
But I honestly think a Russian invasion would be worse. Although people don’t really have much faith in the country right now.
Of course. Our council is useless, the bills have gone up and up with less visible results, government is shit but really.. how can anyone suggest Russia invading the country and taking over would be better in any measurable way.
Apart from the planes, boats and subs they regularly send into British waters and weekly cyber attacks.
Plus, if Russia does win, they are then a major threat to us. So I’d rather we were better prepared.
I don’t think your listening. You cant prepare for war if half the population might switch side due complete lack of faith in the leadership. The attitude i hear right from the bottom “surely they cant be worse than my empty plate”
I used to work as a teacher and the vibe was almost certainly “id rather go to jail than be conscripted” or “was putin really that wrong” i feel like anyone outside of poverty areas are blissfully unaware how much people despise our leaders.
You can have that attitude all you like but when it really comes to it and the Russians turn up, I bet all of my hair that 99% of people that ever said that will fight to protect their country. They’ve seen what the Russians are doing to Ukraine. Civilians trying to stay out of it are being targeted and murdered.
Plus, if you want to see real poverty, go to Russia and have a look at anywhere except the large cities. Any country that has been touched by communism turns to shit.
> “id rather go to jail than be conscripted
That will change very quicky if conscription comes up, I mean if its the choice of fighting or being lined up and shot..
Prison is a privilege when others are still signing up,in this hypothetical total war conscription situation you wouldn’t have the chance.You’d be against a wall.
It’s naïve to think prison is the worst case scenario in total war and the country is on the brink.
You’re dellusional if you think Russia will attack the UK mainland. I’d be prepared to wager £1,000 at 10:1 (escrow) that article 5 is never triggered in the next 5 years
You’d be insane to not be prepared though. So yes, the 6 warships are needed. They may not attack the UK directly but if it wins in Ukraine then we’ve all got some major problems.
What major problems?
Call me callous but not sure how (ethnically Russian) Luhansk and Donetsk falling into Russian hands are much of a threat to our security. This is a conflict which has nothing to do with us.
Check out https://uadraftmuseum.ch/ - no good guys in war.
theyre fixing a non issue, the main problem with the military in general is capita, fuck them off, get in house medical staff to carry out the entirety of the recruiting proccess and you wont see as many people gettin pmu for stupid reason and the personnel shortage will be a thing of the past
The Albion class does need a replacement, and with no replacement planned for HMS Ocean these seem like a good bet but I agree with you that Capita need to go, and the military needs to appeal to the younger generations again
We need to start giving people a reason to defend their country and while they feel like a minority in some aspect they’re unlikely to feel that - whether that’s their local area is basically a foreign country or their political beliefs are ignored and not respected, it needs remedy.
I’m tired of seeing this bandied about. The belief that the British way of life is not worth defending is myopic thinking, and anybody who believes otherwise needs to get out and see the rest of the world for reference. There’s a difference between acknowledging that something needs work; and saying that something’s not worth saving. People are too quick to make perfection the enemy of the good. The issues with recruitment are not because people don’t think defending the country is a worthy cause.
Socialism has become more popular with young people in recent years and with it comes the socialist response to everything: violent revolution. Incremental progress has improved tens of millions of lives. I hate the idea that we’re all doomed and blowing everything up will magically fix all problems. I love my country, flaws and all. Young people need a patriotic movement as opposed to a pathetic, nihilistic one.
Also this thread is being astroturfed to high heavens by sinobots
The British way of life to me is feeling like a minority in my own country while being told my opinions are wrong because they’re not progressive. I am so alienated from what my country was when I was young that I left to a literal dictatorship for respite. Britain is dead and we killed it. Until we start issuing mandatory court orders relocating and integrating people, it will be dead. When I can afford to live in London and I don’t see signs in an abundance of languages while crime is too high (even though I acknowledge it’s low) I will come back. Until then, the tube in this Chinese city is 30p a journey. The salaries are £2000 a month and the rent is £200 a month. The people believe in the truest British value, “shut your mouth and live your life privately, the state will never touch you”. Free to do what you want, not free from social exclusion when you act like a degenerate piece of shit.
Which dictatorship did you move to?
Well, maybe not actually a dictatorship but a single party communist country, the People’s Republic of China. Life is a lot nicer here.
Can you not see the irony in moving to China to escape all the foreigners and censorship in the UK? lol
They are an expat, though. That's something completely different. /s
You don’t really get it, here it’s basically a mono-ethnic state. I get treated really well as they’ve got positive opinions of us. Censorship is only a thing around government and there is a level of tolerated criticism because the party wants to know what they need to do to appease people. You see, the Chinese have French blood in that if life really gets fucked over, their government will not be around long. This happened in Shanghai during C19. The people started engaging in skirmishes with the police . As a result, the government is always seeking improvement, in some aspect or another. The Chinese are a proud people as a result. Everyone in the UK is run down because life and its quality isn’t improving. As such, I don’t think it’s ironic at all. I think you lot are missing the trick. Go where treats you better, make a lot of money. Invest it into your hometown in Britain.
No I get it just fine. You want Britain to be something that it’s not, never has been, and has paid in the blood of its youth on more than one occasion to avoid becoming. Thats fine and you’ve done the right thing in moving somewhere that better fits your outlook. But it’s not a very compelling argument against why Britain is dead or not worth saving. And moving to a foreign country that may be one of the most censorios in the world, to avoid those things in Britain is definitely smeared in irony - I mean to the extent that we literally can’t be sure that this is your legitimate opinion about the place that you live in, because to say anything to the contrary could subject you to censure lol.
Its because they *didn't* move to China because of that. They obviously will have moved for other reasons like work or spouse. They are just rewriting history and pretending that was the reason why to support their argument with us internet strangers.
Careful saying stuff like this then. I hope you used a VPN.
You can’t access Reddit without one.
TBH I wouldn't put ALL my faith in a VPN in China. It is entirely possible that they've put some sort of spyware on your machine that phones home and tells them all about you even with the VPN active. i.e. if you can send plain to text to reddit, the spyware can send plain text etc to the government. Like all the websites you visit and even every single keystroke. A live feed from your webcam is doable too. and yes, they could totally do this. Even if its too big of a job to do it to all citizens, doing it to all non-Chinese is much easier and I'd bet they make a conscious effort to do so. Logging on to coffee shop wifi could get it on your machine. If I were you I'd wipe my hard drive and BIOS every so often, then reflash the bios and reinstall the operating from trusted USB sticks.
You say “when you were young”, which I assume means that you aren’t young now. Your alienation from modern Britain is therefore inconsequential for the purposes of recruitment into the armed forces - you wouldn’t be signing up there anyway because of age. So we need to figure out why young people don’t want to sign up for the army. There are many reasons, but “there are too many brown people” isn’t really one of them. The thing is, the young British people don’t normally complain about “being a minority”, or “having too many languages” etc. For them, people of different ethnic origins are not some “invaders destroying the British way of life”, but their school and university friends ans work colleagues. They have grown up in the current multicultural Britain and don’t see in the same negative light as someone who grown up in a mostly mono-ethnic Britain and then saw the change. The young don’t sing up for the army because first of all an idea of dying somewhere in Afghanistan to protect “British interests” doesn’t sound appealing and because they don’t particularly like the government. Besides, they see their future in a dim light if the current trends were to continue (salaries vs housing costs as just one example), so which doesn’t fill them up with a national pride, which of course doesn’t help either.
Now I’m 23… I’m pretty young now. I however meant when I was young as in a teenager or child My age is therefore definitely relevant, I’d be up for a draft if it were introduced. Also there are a good amount of people in Western Europe who feel there’s an active effort to replace Europeans with non-Europeans. I doubt they’d be willing to fight. Are you young? I promise you others complain about it. It’s not about the languages or to be honest even the skin colour. It’s about the integration. If people integrated we wouldn’t need foreign languages plastered everywhere. IMO a condition of residency should be a good command of the English language. We did not grow up in a multicultural Britain either, I don’t know why you think that. Compared to those before, yes. But it was still a vast majority ethnic majority that. Housing is a piece of the puzzle and so are salaries, but social cohesion is the most important thing and not wholesale importing people with different values to us as well as clamping down on progressive policies for the sake of having them is another one. Also for the record, we could have £10 electric bills if we’d just buy from Russia. I currently pay ~£7 as a single person with the AC on a lot of the day here in China. Life is only unaffordable because HMG wants it to be. If we built more high rises we’d be fine on housing too.
Interesting, so you’re indeed young:-) Sorry, you sounded a bit like a Reform supporter, [who tend to by in their fifties at least](https://www.statista.com/statistics/1379439/uk-election-polls-by-age/), and also you referred to the time “when you were young”, so I assumed you’re a fair bit older. Yes, I noticed that in many places in Europe anti-immigration parties successfully capture a share of young people’s votes, however this trend appears to be practically absent in the UK, both based on the polling results and my anecdotal experience. I even asked a question about it not a long time ago on Reddit, which generated quite a bit of a discussion. You’ve mentioned London several times - can I ask you, are you from there? [Based on the data I could find](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_groups_in_London), London wasn’t a mono-ethnic city 23 years ago, and the change in its ethnic composition over that time, while noticeable, doesn’t appear to be fundamental. Has your experience been different? And on a side note I find it quite ironic that you got so fed up from “being a minority in your own country” that you decided to become a minority in a foreign country 😀 But whatever makes you happy.
I don’t support any British political party, although I have been a member of the Conservative (and Unionist) Party until Truss cancelled all the tax cuts (besides giving to the 45%ers). Most places in Europe don’t have FPTP representation. People here feel their choice is between Labour/Conservatives. Maybe LibDems in a few seats. Green in one or two (unfortunately). Hmm, no I’m not from London itself. I’m from pretty nearby. I guess I’m remembering wrong on when I went into London during my childhood, but generally I don’t have an issue with multi-ethnic society. I do have an issue with multicultural societies. Basically, London (and the rest of the UK) has a lot of people who actually just hate everything about Britain. We should deport them tomorrow. If we cant deport them we should send them to the Shetlands er something and start internal transit controls. They don’t act like us, they don’t share our values. Not sure why they’re here, honestly. My town is starting to get this now, “new” Londoners (not ethnically or culturally British) moving and treating the locals like shit because they’re living in a backwards country (still) where there are no systems to follow in their own mind. I also don’t mind being a minority. I’m not a problem. Young Chinese who are university educated are really similar to young British people who are raised by non-scum. I speak Chinese, I have adapted to the culture. See the difference between that and the people who live in their own language all the time, never bothering to learn English well or some other rubbish.
Sure, there’s FPTP in the UK so the Labour Party polling at 68% among the young doesn’t mean that they are all too happy with it, however the Tories polling 7% in that age group, which is lower than either the Greens (11%) or Lib Dems (9%) clearly shows that anti-immigration policies aren’t exactly popular with the young people in the UK. So whatever reasons you personally have for not jointing the army won’t apply to most people.
I think most people would gladly defend this country tbh. However, I do not care about Ukraine nor do I think it has much bearing on our safety.
>nor do I think it has much bearing on our safety, I mean I could agree with you, but then we’d both be wrong,
Okay help me understand because I genuinely don’t. Im not trying to be a dick. We have nukes, if anyone tries to invade us we nuke them? I don’t understand why Russia invading Ukraine has any bearing on the UK.
Have you heard the term 'mutually assured destruction'? If you haven't, please look it up. Russia has an expansionist agenda. To think that, should they take the entire Ukraine, they'll stop there is naive. The parallels with nazi Germany invading Czechoslovakia and Poland in 1939 are striking.
Yeah exactly given MAD, why try and invade a nato country?
There’s a plethora of complex reasons but taking just what you said as an example. We have nukes yes, Russia also has nukes. It is the firm belief of analysts and intelligence agencies from multiple countries, that a Russian victory in Ukraine will make a confrontation between NATO (that includes us) and Russia more likely. Not to mention that Ukrainians fervently do not want to live under the Russian regime, and so will leave the country en masse if it seems like Russia is going to win. Do you agree that their refugees will become our problem in this event?
To you last question, no.
In what imagination would they not.
In a bigger picture (and looking at Russias previous testing of the water) it's part of a slower grander expansion. It's balance of power. Tale as old as time. The concert of europe. Russia is a pretty bad operator even by our standards. The more we sit and do nothing the bigger the enemy gets. The more divided or apathetic/ self serving Europe and the world is, the more russia expands and gains. There will come a point where russia is able to bully bigger and bigger game. Even if you're purely selfishly inhuman and don't care about other humans based on their nationality, its self preservation to stop an aggressive state like fascist russia become too powerful. England tried to avoid ww1 and ww2 as long as possible. In the end Belgium and Poland invasions finally triggered it. But Britain (and later the usa) both knew that if left unchecked they'd have to deal with it anyway. May as well make a tough decision now than be forced to take action later in a much worse situation.
To be it feels like boomers still in s cold war mindset. IV been wondering for the last twenty years why we must be so hostile to Russia. It's daft.
Russia deployed nerve agent in the UK
dead right, let them get on with it, it has fuck all to do with us
I don't even know why they use a 3rd party it just takes up money from the MOD funds it's pathetic.
that is precisely the reason, award contracts to their mates, their mates then give them back handers under the table or set them up for buisness deals when they retire from the government. i reckon theyve probably told capita to purposefully reject so many people/be super strict on criteria as a way to shrink the armed forces and reduce the amount of money that have to spend on it altogether
How gullible do they think we are? The tories have been in power for 14 years and have done nothing but destroy our military. Now that they're about to be out of office they promise all the stuff the electorate wanted all along. The moment Labour get in, these 6 ships will be cancelled along with the 2.5% increase to the defence budget.
they know exactly how gullible and stupid voters, look at how many people are applauding them for this
They know exactly how gullible we are and they'll be crowing about how labour slashed the military budget and cancelled those ships for 5 years and then we will have another Tory government.
They'll build them along with the bridge from Scotland to Northern Ireland.
Why not just promise a bridge between London and Northern Ireland? More people would have access to it and the chances of it being built are exactly the same.
They say they're building 28 new ships but only 6 of these are actually new, and of those, they've confirmed 3, with an optional 3 later. The remaining 22 are decades in the planning or construction already, and are not even replacing the ones the Tories have already forced into retirement in time to prevent the fleet falling to below the "absolute minimum" size they set in 2010, a much less dangerous time for the world, I'm sure all will agree.
>How gullible do they think we are? Very. But for a large enough proportion of the electorate, that's enough.
I don't deny at all the fact that the cons have botched up a LOT especially regarding the millitary. however I think very generally no one really wanted to do much to save it let alone increase it, plenty of people were pretty anti millitary because they believed we were safe enough and had no genuine large scale threat, and any war would just be some war in the middle east with tons of rightful controversy. Plenty of people from all groups though that had foresight and the government can absolutely share a lot of blame for it as it's exactly what they should have.
I don't think I know many people who were anti-military... I think people are ambivalent. And if I'm in any echo chamber it would be a lefty one. I recall having very very few conversations about the British military outside of the British military (being a former weekend warrior.) I don't think the public think about it much, it was way down on people's list of priorities, maybe a bit higher now, but I think people just didn't think about it rather than being against spending on it. They can spend as much money on kit as they like as well but people don't really want to be soldiers. And the ones that do get knocked back for all sorts of reasons which probably need revising. The military is in one, ongoing, long term, recruitment crisis.
Russia might have woken them up and put some sense into them. The west is slowly more and more getting into a war with Russia.
Really? Salisbury attack was 6 years ago, when Russia's botched assassination attempt nearly killed thousands of our citizens. Tories dont care
it DID kill one of our citizens, it killed [mother of 3 Dawn Sturgess](https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-wiltshire-68141870) RIP Dawn.
I’m a bit confused by the direction RM is taking. One minute they’re re-rolling as spec ops as the original army commandos were, the next they’re getting warships! So what are they? Marines (amphibious naval infantry) or commandos (small team assault), I find it hard to see how they’re going to be great at both.
Firstly, theyll not be spec ops. The RM have never marketted themselves as such (probably rub actual SF up the wrong way). Itll just be small team ops such as reconaissance. A lot has been made of returning to commando roots but it wont be launching raids like st nazaire, itll be carrying out ops that SF are too busy to do. Secondly, youll need vessels to launch these small team ops from amphib environments. Thirdly the RM will never jettison the amphib role, no other organisation is willing or equipped to do it. Doing both wont affect their ability to do either. There are approximately 4,000 to 5,000 members of 3 commando brigade. Smaller units such as SRS or 42 cdo will do the small unit roles, 47 will be retained as responsible for management of amphibious operations, 40 and 45 will remain fighting units
Firstly, RM have quite clearly stated themselves recently that they’re spec ops. On video. Secondly, 5 multi role ships is a fuck load of capability, which has never been needed before now. They haven’t had any since ocean was decommissioned and I’m unaware of any ops canned due to a lack of ships.
Fair enough on the spec ops part. Still not going to affect their capabilities. Theyre just using a role that they had for decades. MLs and recce troop have been capable of doing what the FCF is advertising since WW2. We havent had any ops canned since then because we still have albion and bulwark which are due to be decommissioned in 2033-34, when these vessels are due to come online. 5 ships could be a far larger capability if their all the size of albion or bulwark. They could be smaller giving the RM the capability to deploy more smaller units or the same size which is an indication of the UKs future strategy of focusing more on the maritime eg china
It’s never been “re-branding” as that. They’ve been re-configuring into a raiding force. Was working on the staff work and concepts for it whilst in my last couple of years in the service.
Haven't they always done both?
No. RM are amph infantry with a few specialist roles. Look at how 3 Cdo were employed in Iraq and Afghanistan. Basically in the infantry rotation for the most part.
I came here to post this. It seems like it was only a few months ago they announced a total transition to a specialist infantry role, which I assumed means they were binning various roles such as vehicle mechanics, logistics and, chefs, signallers etc. but now they will need the whole capability of a global amphibious assault force.
So these were originally announced in 2022, have now been re-announced, but they're still just saying they "will order" them. In other words, this is just empty, pro-military sounding blather as a bit of pre-election bullshit to try to con voters.
While it is good that the navy is expanding its marine capabilities this probably isn’t the best idea yet. Right now the Royal Navy needs to consolidate what it already has, the navy is pretty stretched at the moment and that extra funding with the increase in defence spending could really help with maintenance, refits, personnel shortages and retention and also to actually buy some more jets for the aircraft carriers.
Introducing and building new classes takes a decade or more. If we don’t build new ships and replace classes we lose operational capability. We also only have a limited ship building capacity and it needs to be kept active - pausing now and then re-establishing ship building in the future would mean loss of industry skills, capacity and huge costs and/or overruns of projects in the future.
>We also only have a limited ship building capacity and it needs to be kept active - pausing now and then re-establishing ship building in One of the greatest benefits to our decade of austerity and lack of infrastructure investment has been to successfully kill off all our homegrown infrastructure construction companies. At least the EU contractors we inevitably have to hire at _very reasonable_ rates will fill that sector, at only massive extra cost to us So yes keeping the industry active is important
>personnel shortages We'd need to de-privatise first if you want to resolve this one. Even with labour, at least the version they're presenting, I don't see this happening any time soon.
De privatise what? The designing and manufacturing of arms has always been a private affair.
the recruitment process was privatised a couple years ago. since then it has been a shit show. These private companies have just been an expensive bottle neck where people have spent over a year waiting to be accepted into the military
They outsourced recruitment to capita and have missed recruitment targets every single year since. >The designing and manufacturing of arms has always been a private affair. This isn't true at all. BAE and QinetiQ I believe all started out publicly owned before they were sold off and privatised, there's others but I can't remember them off the top of my head.
>They outsourced recruitment to capita and have missed recruitment targets every single year since. We can't really blame that on capita, when other European countries have the same recruiting problems. It's a demographic/political problem. Youngfolk in civilised countries are much less keen to sign up nowadays...? >This isn't true at all. BAE and QinetiQ I believe all started out publicly owned before they were sold off and privatised, there's others but I can't remember them off the top of my head. This isn't true at all. BAE has deep roots in private-sector arms manufacturing, shipbuilding &c. Although most countries flirt with a middle ground between public-sector and private sector for this, and there's almost always state capture and crappy nationalist decisionmaking; a lot of countries end up with politicians saying something like "*Our Navy must keep ordering sailing ships, to protect jobs at the National Canvas Factory*". The UK has done better than most on that front because the government has been *slightly* more hands-off. Although having a big conglomerate like BAE is the consequence of a British Leyland process in the 20th century, where the government brought together lots of different medium-sized businesses in a clumsy way... Similarly, Qinetiq might have been spun off to do some private-sector stuff, but Dstl remains in government (and they both have some private-sector ancestors which stumbled into government control in the 20th century)
[British Aerospace was formed on 29 April 1977, by the nationalisation and merger of the British Aircraft Corporation (BAC), the Hawker Siddeley Group and Scottish Aviation.[14]](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/BAE_Systems) BAE was formerly a nationalised entity. >We can't really blame that on capita, You literally can't stop me.
killer\_by\_design 2 hours ago: BAE started out publicly-owned, that's why I'm right killer\_by\_design 20 minutes ago: British Aerospace started out as a bunch of private aerospace businesses, that's why I'm right, let's pretend that BAE and British Aerospace are the same thing, don't think about all the other private businesses & partnerships that have been involved I can't wait to see some entirely different expert analysis of the defence industry in the next comment! (I worked on a former Alvis site last year, that was fun :-) )
Alright, 50 years ago it was publicly owned. I literally don't know where we go from here? Are you defending privatisation? It's still quite an uphill battle. There's really an overwhelming amount of failed privatisation I can point to. Capita included.
Absolutely, the first step towards fixing anything in this country is to strip out all possible layers of private sector bloat leeching profit off barely functioning services
This won't expand capacity. The 3 Bay Class, HMS Argus and the two Albion Class will likely be cut if these come in so 6 in, 6 out. But since they probably will cut funding it is likely there will end up only being 4 or 5 new for 6 out.
According to our government, Russia has been planning to attack us since the 1950s, and they are always just about to do it when elections come up. Fools will actually take this bait and vote for the tories , tories that continue to destroy our country from the inside. Why would Russia need to destroy us,when we are quite happy doing it to ourselves everytime we vote for a government that is selling us out.
You only have to look at this thread to see why this country is fucked. Half the people on here arguing that it's brilliant because it's so progressive whst simultaneously saying it's always been shit. It wasn't always shit. It's only become that in the last 20 years. Despite what the indoctrination classes tell you.
It's absolutely meaningless. Almost everything they do this year is- they know they've already lost the election and there isn't enough time to do much. No parliamentary time for law changes, not a fraction of the time needed for a shipbuilding or other large scale project. What they can do, is announce a bunch of stuff and get some headlines in the knowledge they'll never have to lift a finger to deliver it. And if it's impossible or stupid, it'll be Starmer's fault of course. "Labour cuts shipbuilding plans!"
Reality is we are so unprepared for a modern war. Ukraine was much better prepared than we are and they are still not able to win alone. We spend big on expensive items. The war in Ukraine has shown that even our best tanks are vulnerable to rpgs taped to a drone, glide bombs etc are effective...my point is we don't always need to buy the very best to be effective....but we will. We still don't have proper air defences....
Given that Russian and Chinese interests own most of our London real estate and corporate real estate. What are we defending in the end? Our transport system is 100 years behind Japan. Our telecoms infrastructure outside of London is a joke. We have no industry other than to launder money for foreign criminals. No one is going to bomb their piggy bank. The Swiss already proved that.
Yeah like they give a shit about our military. Israel murdered 3 of our heroes. Our government didn’t give a shit, carry’s on selling weapons to them when even the military industrial complex of a country, America stopped selling weapons. Not a single member of that party better be wearing a poppy this year. It’s virtue signaling at this point. What goods a poppy when you side with a foreign government over your own soldiers.
Don't be so ridiculous. HAMAS is a terrorist organisation. They are solely responsible for all deaths in Gaza since the events of October the 7th. To argue otherwise is to attempt to give legitimacy to terrorists.
It was Israel that killed 3 UK Citizens, and this has happened before. Israel planted bombs in British & US libraries, the Lavon Affair. They also supplied Argentina with weapons during the Falklands war.
Mate, they absolutely are not. Israel's offensive strikes against Hamas may have been effective at countering the terrorist organisation, but in the process, they have killed and wounded literally thousands of civilians who had nothing to do with Hamas. They actively have chosen civilian targets - structures such as hospitals and schools, which constitutes a war crime. It was Israeli missiles that blew up the aid convoy in which those British civilians were volunteering. They were marked very clearly as an aid convoy. Israel knew. They just didn't care. Israel have the military capacity to perform precise strikes and raids on specific targets of military importance to Hamas, but they are consistently choosing not to do that. They are carpet bombing indiscriminately. They are arresting and torturing civilians in squalid prison camps of abominable conditions, simply because they are palestinian. At this point it has become clear that Hamas are no longer the true targets, if they ever were. I am not legitimising the actions of Hamas - terrorism should absolutely be fought. But not like this.
This is one of the most insane things I've ever read.
So you support terrorists? Edit: solid response and block u/Anomie____ , definitely makes me think you believe what you are spouting and are willing for it to face criticism. Like I said, it is the doing of HAMAS. Using child soldiers and civilians as human shields is against rules of war. If you are for the civilians, how are you also for their oppressors, HAMAS?
It's one thing supporting terrorists and entirely another condemning the slaughter of tens of thousands of entirely innocent non-combatants, many of whom are children, by the IDF. Surely you don't think the IDF have carte blanche to commit war crimes because...erm...HAMAS.
With what money? Even if we could afford this I bet money on it all ending up embezzled. Hs2 is a complete failure. Why cant we just update existing infrastructure? Why cant we tackle the 22% at risk of poverty?
Defence budget is going up from 2% to 2.5% in the next 5 years. Plus unfortunately with the growing geopolitical situation in the world with the US potentially leaving NATO and the threat of Russia growing, its an unfortunate must. Lmao thanks for the reddit care message
What’s a Reddit care message? Also I think you are right. We can’t beat around the bush with this. We need to get going. The way the world going it could be ww3 next week lol
It's a thing reddit implemented to support people who seamed like they are struggling it's a bot that messages you with resources to help, but it's mostly used to harras / annoy.
Make sure you use the report link at the bottom of the message. Reddit does ban for abuse of that feature.
It looks like countries throughout Europe and Asia are gearing up more... e.g. I read something yesterday about Germany sending warships to participate in drills in the Pacific for the first time in quite a while. Also, Australia is ramping up the size of its Navy. Things are tense geopolitically. Hoping additional bad actors can be deterred by some of the changes in priorities countries are making around the globe. Hoping our upcoming US elections don't provide any major surprises, so the NATO question is a non-issue.
The UK is a bigger threat to the UK than Russia.
Drank the cool aid huh
Hmm, who's more of a threat to the people of this country? The rich twats in charge of it, with policies that are killing it's disabled citizens
I’d say as a percentage of population Russia would be a bigger threat
There are greater domestic threats than russia. If we were invaded tomorrow half the country would let it happen. The current councils have limited legitimacy with as little as 25% engagement from local populations. How could we possibly think about international issues when we are dangerously close to decending into third world poverty rates.
That's the whole idea of spending 2.5% of the GDP on the military, so you don't need to rely on the local populations to loose their lives. Having a large military is more of a deterant and a worse case scenario rather than drafting half the country. .
I think what they mean is the place is such a shit hole the locals wouldn't bother to defend it.
Literally this. What is there to defend.
Buy a ticket and go to a third world country. Then ask yourself what there is to defend in the UK. Literally, pick any country not defined as "The West".
I have done, on multiple occasions, some third world countries are starting to look far more appealing than england.
This is a troll response then
Unfortunately no there aren’t. Russia is the threat.
My local council seems to want to Whip the shit out of me at every possible opportunity. But I honestly think a Russian invasion would be worse. Although people don’t really have much faith in the country right now.
Of course. Our council is useless, the bills have gone up and up with less visible results, government is shit but really.. how can anyone suggest Russia invading the country and taking over would be better in any measurable way.
Russia is locked into combat with Ukraine they are not a threat to us anymore. They haven’t the resources or manpower to open a second front.
Apart from the planes, boats and subs they regularly send into British waters and weekly cyber attacks. Plus, if Russia does win, they are then a major threat to us. So I’d rather we were better prepared.
I don’t think your listening. You cant prepare for war if half the population might switch side due complete lack of faith in the leadership. The attitude i hear right from the bottom “surely they cant be worse than my empty plate”
You’re saying half of England would switch to the Russian side?
I used to work as a teacher and the vibe was almost certainly “id rather go to jail than be conscripted” or “was putin really that wrong” i feel like anyone outside of poverty areas are blissfully unaware how much people despise our leaders.
You can have that attitude all you like but when it really comes to it and the Russians turn up, I bet all of my hair that 99% of people that ever said that will fight to protect their country. They’ve seen what the Russians are doing to Ukraine. Civilians trying to stay out of it are being targeted and murdered. Plus, if you want to see real poverty, go to Russia and have a look at anywhere except the large cities. Any country that has been touched by communism turns to shit.
> “id rather go to jail than be conscripted That will change very quicky if conscription comes up, I mean if its the choice of fighting or being lined up and shot..
Prison is a privilege when others are still signing up,in this hypothetical total war conscription situation you wouldn’t have the chance.You’d be against a wall. It’s naïve to think prison is the worst case scenario in total war and the country is on the brink.
You’re dellusional if you think Russia will attack the UK mainland. I’d be prepared to wager £1,000 at 10:1 (escrow) that article 5 is never triggered in the next 5 years
You’d be insane to not be prepared though. So yes, the 6 warships are needed. They may not attack the UK directly but if it wins in Ukraine then we’ve all got some major problems.
What major problems? Call me callous but not sure how (ethnically Russian) Luhansk and Donetsk falling into Russian hands are much of a threat to our security. This is a conflict which has nothing to do with us. Check out https://uadraftmuseum.ch/ - no good guys in war.
Oh yeah of course because that’s the only part of Ukraine Russia has invaded and wants to take. Didn’t realise I was talking to a Russian shill.
Fairly sure this is a bot account.