The Law Conscription/National Service

[Episode IV]

Yeah fair enough, I also grew up in the 70s, so I also have many years of observation. So, as my opinion is also speculative.

I suppose the one point we differ on is the resilience and the 'measure' of it. I'd argue though that the 'resilience' is different to what it used to be, not necessarily less which is what I thought you were alluding.

I was, actually. I do believe we are less resilient. Beyond the topic of conscription, the Australians of recent times have become more directionless and self-serving than in the past... in my opinion.

Wouldn't mind hearing you expound upon that distinction a bit more though.

 

[Carringbush2010]

I was, actually. I do believe we are less resilient. Beyond the topic of conscription, the Australians of recent times have become more directionless and self-serving than in the past... in my opinion.

Wouldn't mind hearing you expound upon that distinction a bit more though.

Probably because we as a society by and large are resilient about different things, we don't need to be resilient about being conscripted (for now) for example.

Resilient more so about illnesses compared to back in the 70s, probably because a lot illnesses that we know now we didn't know back then. If you're diagnosed with cancer you have more chance of survival now and as a result can be more resilient than back in the 70s.

If you're young now you have to be more resilient about col than any time in the last coupla hundred years vs being more resilient about sporting injuries in the 70s for example, because we didn't have the medical technologies that we have now.

I fairly speculate the resilience is different, not necessarily less so. Speculation none the less.

 

[kranky al]

As an ex grunt I’d like to know that the bloke next to me is in it thick or thin and not going to cut and run.

Having said that in Vietnam all the battalions had a mix of volunteers and conscripts and the conscripts acquitted themselves as well as the regs.

However , this was in a different era when just about every one of their fathers and extended family would have served in ww1, 2 or Korea. We were a lot more likely to believe what the government had to say, there was no internet and voices against the war took time to build.


Today there’s as much chance of conscription getting up as there is 1990 Linda Evangelista banging my door demanding sex ……and it turning out to be my wife’s birthday present.

If it’s for a foreign “hey we are doing our bit for big daddy so we can sit under big daddy’s umbrella war” and they tried conscription it would fall flat on its face really quickly. I can see mass disobedience - I can’t honestly ever see it even being touted except for fringe lunatics.

If there was a war where we were invaded it would happen quickly. The only countries big enough to invade us are America, India, China and Indonesia.

America is unlikely unless we had been taken already by another nation. Aka being fought over like the Middle East in WW2

Indonesia lacks the capacity but theoretically could one day - same for India.

China is the obvious threat. Give China 10-15 years and they will be near Americas ability to force project - if any of those countries bar the US invaded we would have no choice but to conscript and to do so as fast as possible.

The Australian military is quite top heavy with many more sncos and senior officers than required to fill spots. This is so we can expand quickly and train up a much bigger army than we currently have. Thing is if China were to invade, it would be a typical nation / state “armed robbery” They wouldn’t need to invade all of Australia. There’s no need. Invade from about Jurien bay up to the tip of WA and you’ve just taken 70% of our resources and rather than fight an endless guerrilla war, you deport the what? 100-150000 people who live there to the uninvaded part. Say to the rest of Australia, we’ve got your shit, now you can’t even afford to fight us. Stay on your side and we will stay on ours.

We have next to no military force in that region to stop them and I can’t see the political will to oppose it unless the Yanks are onboard. This is not assured with MAGA.

Once China was established here with supply lines we would face a near impossible task to root her out.