Conscription is done in preparation for “mass kidnappings of cannon fodder”, as you put it.
No?..
…yes? Or do you think the countries with peacetime conscription do it for shits and giggles, and the massive economic benefit of half the population losing about a year of working life?
Russia has conscription but not kidnapping part and forbidding to leave the country part. So do many other countries.
Russia has a larger population than Ukraine, and thus the luxury to not need everyone, and still they have called in reservists in “partial mobilization”, exact number unknown. As Russia has conscription, every adult man who has performed their service is in reserve. As of 2023, reservists called into service are not allowed to leave and are subject to restrictions until they report to duty, which seems like high-tech enforcement/“kidnapping” to me. The conscriptions have also hit poorer regions, often with large ethnic minorities, more harshly, but I’m sure that’s just coincidence.
There are reports of some military districts closing borders, of mobilized men being ill-equipped and used as cannon fodder, being killed in large numbers, you name it. As with all war reporting, hard to get well-verified factsfacts, especially from a country hostile to neutral reporters. We do know that protests are broken (and male protestors sometimes drafted).
But yeah, probably not needing troop replacements to the same extent as Ukraine. Who, I’m saying again, are fighting for the survival of their country and culture.
I said “countries that are considered “good” and “democratic”” by the west. Does Cuba fit that definition now?
I honestly don’t know that much about Cuba, seems like country much like any other that has trouble because of a difficult neighbor and making the best of it? But if we’re talking about whether mandatory military service is sometimes justified, not whether mass media is biased (duhhhhh), perceptions held by the majority are inconsequential.
“Conscription” - that’s not what am I talking about though. Conscription (which is also absolutely wrong of course) is indeed present in a lot of countries. Mass kidnappings of cannon fodder that is not allowed to leave is quite unique to Zelensky’s regime.
Conscription is done in preparation for “mass kidnappings of cannon fodder”, as you put it.
Edit: Also kudos for not trying to defend ethnic Russians’ history of ethnic cleansing.
A brief scroll of Wikipedia (the sources seemed legit) shows that, for example, Cuba (which I’m assuming you admire?) has mandatory military service, no known policy of alternatives for conscientious objectors, and harsh punishments for evading it even in peacetime, to the point that people have attempted to injure themselves to get out of it. They haven’t been tried in modern war, but can’t see them suddenly relaxing the rules when actually tested. Border countries tend to take defence very seriously.
For countries and cultures bordering Russia, this really is an existential question. The forced population transfer/ethnic cleansing of Tatars, Ingrians, Chechens and Ingush, Balkars, etc. show what tends to happen. And before you say “well that was Stalin”, I’ll point to the Russification efforts of Alexander III and Nicholas II, and to… well, just about all speakers of Uralic languages still existing in Russia, facing steadily or rapidly declining numbers. Also the number of people identifying as ethnic Russians in the Baltics and Crimea, directly attributable to said forced population transfers; Transnistria, where the change happened more organically but was nonetheless used as an excuse for invasion; and to some degree in eastern Ukraine, that saw significant russification attempts and Russians moving in to man the industrial centers during SU, inflating the numbers of ethnic Russians and prevalence of the Russian language at cost of the native population.
Just because this needs to be said.
Open borders: Closed for Ukrainian men of military age during wartime. You, I, journalists, etc. can still come and go.
Competitive political space: Banned parties supporting the country they are currently at war with. No matter how you feel about who’s at fault, that must be an understandable action to you. Also, most members of the largest banned party (Opposition Platform - For Life) are still in the parliament and just formed other parliamentary groups.
Competitive information space: Again, wartime with a country engaging in propaganda eagerly and with talent.
Elections: Would be against Ukrainian constitution to have elections under martial law, not to mention impossible to arrange or supervise. Or you think it would be possible to organise an election where everyone had easy and reliable access to vote right now? The decision was just confirmed unanimously yesterday, with all 17 previous members of the banned …For Life -party who were present also voting for it.
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I don’t see how the countries that haven’t gotten into NATO are relevant.
It is relevant to claims of NATOs “expansionist” nature. But we can drop that topic.
“unprovoked” invasion.
I’d just like to point out that the “Russia was provoked” arguments are based on the realism school of foreign affairs, which boils down to “might makes right”. Seeing fellow lefties more radical than me espouse it with such glee is always such a sad thing.
Czechia, Hungary, Poland, Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Albania, Croatia, Montenegro, and North Macedonia.
Now I don’t quite know what you want me to do with that list. Yes, they were (probably, haven’t checked but will take you at your word) members of NATO at the time. Do you want me to find sources for them aspiring to become members of NATO well before the invite? But that would be going back to the “NATOs expansionist nature” debate. Do you want to discuss the relevance of the “not one inch eastward” comments? But there are plenty of sources articulating that better than we could.
Those countries, in practice, applied to join, and many are still stuck in the application process. Just because it’s called an “invitation” doesn’t make it so.
Don’t think I can make it any more concise than that.
Err, as a Finn, we didn’t want to join for decades and neither did Sweden, and neither of us received any invites. When we did want to join, invitation was part of the process, probably the last step but I really don’t remember. Several other countries wanting to join, some for a long time, have not been invited. How is it a bullshit argument?
You do realise it’s an invitation in name only, not extended unless the aspirant country wants it?
True, refusing to accept is always possible. But NATO is not pushing itself, countries want to or don’t want to join of their own agenda. Which doesn’t really make it “expansionist”, just “accepting”.
Yes, this massive Nato expansion, almost as bad as the EU expansion, forcing one country after another to join then.
Also the verbal agreement to not situate military stuff in former DDR, in a time when the Soviet Union was alive and the situation was “slightly” different, clearly applies today. Do you want to bring the Warsaw pact back too, I’m sure there are agreements somewhere?
So, Russia gains all their prime objectives through offensive warfare, and Ukraine is forced to keep kowtowing to Russia in some semblance of neutrality (finlandization was not fun, you know).
Tell me again how this is a compromise. Also how this is not a full return to “might makes right”, the final nail in the coffin of the fragile East-European stability agreed to in the Helsinki accords.
What doesn’t Kremlin consider an escalation of tension? Spine-removing surgery?
Under half of women orgasm from penetration alone, and for about one in ten it’s outright painful. For me it does pretty much nothing. I guess we could move to whether air and vibrations on clit count as friction, but I’m pretty sure that’s not what anyone had in mind. Nor whether kisses and general intimate closeness count as “sexual pleasure”.
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Friction. 🤮 No. NO.
I’ll just give you a partial list of European countries that 1) had wartime conscription, and 2) executed deserters, in WW1 or 2, which would indicate an equally/more drastic “kill or be killed” choice, and is way easier to find. Or do you know better how conscription worked in the WWs off the top of your head?