Nato’s top military commander said the alliance is ‘ready to fight tonight’ amid fears over Russia
Archived version: https://archive.is/newest/https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/uk-fight-war-russia-uk-nato-poll-b3065856.html
Disclaimer: The article linked is from a single source with a single perspective. Make sure to cross-check information against multiple sources to get a comprehensive view on the situation.
Let me know when half are willing to fight with the invaders. It won’t be long.
If I recall Ukraine had a similar polling, but that all changed when the Invasion happened for real.
That makes perfect sense. From among all possible ways to “fight for your country”, your country actually being invaded is the most legitimate.
So of course being invaded is going to result in more war readiness and invading someone else is going to result in less war readiness than the poll that tries to answer both questions at the same time.
“Fighting for the UK” is statistically quite likely going to involve something evil like contributing to the genocide of Palestinians or massacring refugees at the border or invading Iran under false pretenses because the US asked them to, so being unwilling to “fight for the UK” makes sense.
From among all possible ways to “fight for your country”, your country actually being invaded is the
mostonly legitimate.
Fixed that for you.
“Fighting for the UK” is statistically quite likely going to involve something evil like contributing to the genocide of Palestinians or massacring refugees at the border or invading Iran under false pretenses because the US asked them to, so being unwilling to “fight for the UK” makes sense.
Spot on.
Defensive alliances are legitimate. If Russia invaded Lithuania, it would be legitimate for EU and NATO member states to help Lithuania out.
Eh… Like America after Pearl Harbour, they weren’t being invaded but it’s hard to argue that wasn’t a legitimate fight.
The sovereign nation of Hawaii was violently overthrown by US colonists just 48 years before Pearl Harbor. Japanese intentions weren’t noble, but destroying US military engaging in the colonial occupation of Hawaii was based.
It’s hard to call any war by the US legitimate, even defensive ones, because they are defense of stolen land taken from people the US committed genocide on. Japan made no indication of targeting US civilians, they purely went for dismantling the colonial occupation forces.
US civilians were not under threat, the US colonial empire was.
US victory paved the way for US-backed fascist rule over tens of millions of people in South America, as well as US killing millions of innocent people directly or by proxy in the Americas, South-east Asia, and elsewhere, not to mention the exploitation and displacement of native Hawai’ians.
So no, I don’t think the US cause was particularly legitimate. And before you talk about killing nazis - the US specifically did not want to go to war to kill nazis. There was a lot of nazi sympathy in the US, and after the war the US would go on to rescue many nazis through operation paperclip as well as advocate for the return of fascists to positions of power in Germany and Japan. The US went to war because their colonial empire was under threat, and that is hardly a legitimate reason.
Have to say, I was not expecting a hot take of ‘US shouldn’t have entered the world wars’ today.
US killing millions of innocent people directly or by proxy in the <…> South-east Asia
Wow. As a SE Asian, yeah, fuck off with that bullshit. Fucking Japan committing atrocities on a scale comparable with the Holocaust, a fact the Western world largely forgets because it wasn’t white people being fucked, and your concern is American ‘colonialism’.
The US could have helped Korea when they got invaded, or China when they got invaded, or south-east Asia when they got invaded, or Poland when they got invaded, or France when they got invaded. All of those would have meant the US entering WW2, and all of them would have been pretty righteous. (Though, to be consistent, it would have meant fighting Britain and France because of their colonial atrocities, as well as not committing atrocities within their own borders).
But instead the US was happy to let the fascists do their thing until the fascists attacked their colonial outpost.
An important distinction is wars fought abroad of dubious necessity versus a war of self-defense fought at home to protect family, friends, and property from a foreign invader.
Maybe Germany will try again. But, this time America would be on the side of the Nazis. That would fucking suck.
The UK is at the forefront of fascism. Further ahead than the US, without the muscle, in truth.
The U.S. may be an unreliable ally at the moment, but Germany gets far more out of free trade with cooperative neighbors in the EU than it ever could out of war.
The benefits of EU membership (along with the international arbitration mechanisms that modern treaties provide) are probably Europe’s strongest defense against war between its members.
Yeah, but America doesn’t care about that. And the AFD are essentially just being funded by American Nazi billionaires like Elon Musk.
You’re not wrong. But the actions of any state aren’t always taken in the interest of the people of that state. It’s actually quite often the opposite. Do you think America invaded Iran for the interest of American people? Capitalist influence and interest are far more helpful when looking at what actions a state will or will not take.
this chain went through my thought processes while looking at this.
Yup. Especially Russian-speaking Ukrainians who previously didn’t identify themselves much with Ukraine (the country, its culture and language) pivoted hard towards Ukrainian nationalism virtually over night (to the point of even stopping to speak Russian) the moment Russian tanks crossed the border.
While it’s practically impossible for Russia to invade the UK with troops, I would presume that missile and drone attacks (which, given the Russian modus operandi, would heavily focus on civilian targets from day one) would result in a dramatic shift in public opinion.
Even in full mobilization during wartime, you would usually expect 10% or less of the populace to be actively involved in fighting. Germany hit 30% during WWII but that was a major outlier.
In the world wars it took something like 5 workers working to field 1 soldier. They are participating too. Obviously that factor has been increasing with technology, and is even higher now, as you are saying.
And it’s not like tactics haven’t changed either, wars can now continue with a very low proportion of the population’s participation.
Even though it means less direct casualties to use robots, I suspect it will lead to problems when wars don’t need the public’s consent or participation to continue.
It should be mentioned - particularly in the context of the topic of this article - that 41% of the so-called Independent is owned by this guy:
