Originally Posted by
minigundiplomat
Now the foolishness of that strategy is laid bare, they’re calling for the Uk to introduce conscription and bail them out. Ukraine is 1600 miles from the UK - I’d like to see Europeans defending Europe. There seems to be a lot of fighting age Eastern European males in the UK, whom I’d expect to return and fight before we start feeding our youth into the grinder.
1. I have not heard anyone in the rest of Europe (or the USA) ask the UK to introduce conscription. I have heard the former head of the army suggest that our
own defence failures mean that we would be forced to introduce conscription if required to meet our treaty obligation in a future (hypothetical) conflict.
2. Nobody has asked the UK (or any other European country) to send personnel to fight in Ukraine. We have been asked to consider our own strategic interests in: preserving the post cold war order; constraining Russian imperialism and preventing a wider conflict in Europe (which would almost certainly involve us whether or not we wanted it to). To this end, the UK has done a reasonable (but not exceptional job) of financing and supplying Ukrainian defences. Eastern Europe (as you might expect) is well ahead of us. Estonia, for example, has committed about 3 times more than us (as % of GDP).