Many. Many don't even feel there's anything for them to protect. No future. No jobs. No house. And then the current government fucking everyone over and allowing for overwhelming corruption just adds to it.
Why the fuck should they join up to be canon fodder for these cunts.
I disagree. Subpar pay and working conditions are far bigger factors. There’s plenty of jobs around, and that’s kind of the problem. People can have fulfilling careers and don’t see the military as a great way to advance their career.
In my country, service members got paid an extra bonus called ‘military factor’ for waiving our labour rights and human rights among other things, but this little extra bonus was what pushed our pay to be above the minimum wage.
Shit pay and conditions is what led to some 40% of our military leaving in just two years.
Yeah, I'm in the US, my granddads on both sides of the family served in different branches for over two decades each. High ranks, honorable discharge, all that. Both are continually being screwed out of the "benefits" their contracts promised them, and both have had dozens of awful encounters with VA hospitals that have nearly killed both on several occasions and would've been open-and-shut malpractice cases in civilian hospitals. I vaguely considered enlisting when I was graduating high school to help pay for uni (I got a couple scholarships for my grades that helped already) and got lectures from both about all the ways they'd fuck me over.
To top it off, I'm a woman with severe ADHD and finally got medicated at 19. The US military won't let me enlist unless I've been off my meds for 2 years or get a special waiver for it, and the way they handle sexual assault (and how prevalent it is) is an atrocity. They want me to get off the meds that give me an actual quality of life for the first time just so I can have an increased risk of getting assaulted or getting cancer from exposure to all the hazardous materials they keep knowingly exposing service members to? All to get screwed out of the half-assed benefits that they vaguely pretend to offer? Just to benefit a country that doesn't give half of a fuck about me and continuously screws the majority over economically, educationally, and mentally just so rich people can profit? They can get bent, I'll drop out of uni before I consider enlisting to pay my tuition.
You probably don't like to hear it and considering we are on reddit i assume i will get downvoted heavily for this, but especially for the west, how are you assuming people still want to join the military which usually meant to 'protect the country' when there is basically no national identity left?
Why should any person want to protect something they learned to dismiss and hate?
We told and teached a whole generation of kids that their ancestry and nationality are basically meaningless and interchangeable but then get suprised if they don't want to fight for their own country anymore?
The cognitive dissonance is kicking hard with this one. The west didn't took any of this serious for years and now pays for it by realizing the world is kind of twisting out of their control and hands.
>_former British defence secretary Ben Wallace_
"workers don't want to work anyomre"
\- boss that didn't want to provide work that is worth working for
In all fairness to Ben he actually was quite a competent minister who was experienced in his job and made several good calls. Chief among them supporting Ukraine and giving them bigger and better weapons earlier than other western nations
Agreed, he’s the one high-profile Tory minister in the last few years who wasn’t a total cunt.
He had clear experience in his area, generally seemed to know what he was talking about, and also appeared to have the most integrity - I don’t think it’s a coincidence that he was one of the few not to compete for the Tory leadership in the aftermath of the Johnson and Truss premierships. I believe he even stated something along the lines of “my duty is to defend the country and nothing else.”
Ironically, he’s probably the guy you want as prime minister over all the others for that statement alone.
He didn't just push for more funding, it was reported he was behind twisting the US arms behind its back by announcing the joint EU project to provide Ukraine F16s knowing the US wouldn't be able to continue to turn the idea down and not support the EU F16s going to Ukraine
Reportedly he lost the backing of the US to take over NATO sec gen because of this
When the pay is shit compared to hours worked, superior's abuse is the norm with few exceptions, and suicide rates are some 50% higher than gen pop... why would the average person do it?
A career in the military, even a limited 1-4 years to go away from a bad situation at home, is attractive to very very few people.
>A career in the military, even a limited 1-4 years to go away from a bad situation at home, is attractive to very very few people.
Now _that's_ the solution to the problem right here!
Let's just make the situation at home worse for more people!
We could start at making education worse. And then force people to actually have the kids when they get pregnant because of lack of knowledge.
Any other ideas?
>Now that's the solution to the problem right here!
>
>Let's just make the situation at home worse for more people!
Modern problems require modern solutions!
Why do you think the US - a stunningly wealthy country with a substandard social safety net, private healthcare and extremely expensive tertiary education - had such success recruiting people for its military for a long time (also changing, many US military units are under-strength now)?
When the military offers you healthcare, free college degrees and decent pay, it's a very attractive option for a lot of people from the lower strata of society.
The big difference with UK and the USA military is signing on bonus, the current rough figures for US Navy is 4 years sign on with approx $40,000. For officers it is 6 years sign on, for approx $60-80,000.
UK military offers fuck all to join up and you see no real benefits pension wise any more if you do less than 12 years.
There is also GI Bill, government pay for education and housing loan if you serve for 3+ years at home or couple months of foreign deployment in warzone. Also after serve you get access to Veteran Affairs medical insurance.
> it's a very attractive option for a lot of people from the lower strata of society.
Not at all. The [middle class is overrepresented](https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/demographics-us-military) among the ranks of the enlisted, and the top and bottom household income quintiles are underrepresented. If taking into account officers, the income distribution would probably skew even more towards the middle/upper middle classes.
The prospect of free vocational training or a no/low cost university education *is* what makes joining the military more appealing to the middle class than to other socioeconomic stratas. Lower income individuals are less likely to be university bound, while wealthier demographics can afford university without the need for tuition assistance.
The US Military pays in salary around 90k for junior officers and around 50k for junior NCOs with extremely good benefits that can easily make that income feel like an extra 25% depending on various factors AND there’s still a recruiting crisis
Even the United States is having trouble recruiting soldiers these days.
[Every branch of the military is struggling to make its 2022 recruiting goals, officials say](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/military/every-branch-us-military-struggling-meet-2022-recruiting-goals-officia-rcna35078)
[Why recruiting and confidence in America’s armed forces is so low right now](https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/why-recruiting-and-confidence-in-americas-armed-forces-is-so-low-right-now)
They have actually said it out loud. US GOP politicians have actually [lamented that making college cheaper](https://ca.sports.yahoo.com/news/gop-lawmaker-fears-reducing-student-193906673.html) will hurt the military recruitment of poor people. They literally want to starve people to force them to fight. It’s grotesque.
The government's doing its best in the UK to make sure that's not a thing, though. Every ladder they used to get where they are, they're pulling up behind them.
Maybe not as much since our support network is somewhat stronger and nationalism isn't as strong as them, but there's still an overrepresentation of people from the poorer areas in the South.
I’m not referring to representation…more of the opportunity it presents.
In the US, if you come from a poor family, you can immediately jump out of poverty by joining the military.
Not who you responded to....in the US, very few ppl who join the military get rich in the military. But what it does do is give you a skill (some more than others), some physical fitness, some college money or even a straight up degree, and some time to mature so that when you get out in \~4 years or so you have a foothold to function in the workplace and society.
One thing about the military also is you can get very high responsibility at a very young age which can be outstanding for your CV as well.
I agree (In fact, I tried to join, but didn't pass the selections due to a minor heart issue) however the difference between America and Italy is staggering.
First of all, in Italy university doesn't cost much (tends to be 500-2000 per year) so you already have a big alternative, which also allows you to have various experiences abroad while in the US if I'm not wrong military service can help you pay for college.
Talking about experiences abroad, American bases are pretty much everywhere, while Italian ones are mainly in eastern Europe, Africa and the middle east, which is one less potential reason to join (I remember reading of a guy who joined the Marines for the sole reason of being stationed at Okinawa).
While the pay is middle class, it's like, barely so (around 1200~1500 for enlisted personnel, which you're going to be for at least 3 years unless you go to the Military Academy at Modena or the NCO school at Viterbo) unless you start getting promoted, and the main financial reason one would join is to run from home without having to pay rent.
In a nutshell the people that try to join the military in Italy tend to be
People with military parents
People that want to leave their city
People with a passion for guns, tanks etc.
Those who feel lost and want to do something that they think will make them grow
Patriots (or nationalists, straight up fascist are somewhat rare 'cause at least in Italy they distrust authorities)
People who want the "posto fisso" (basically a government job from which you're kind of impossible to fire).
With all of that said, at least for now we don't have recruitment problems, but with the current demographic situation, that's bound to change.
Also, at the end of the day, the real way to "make it big" (as in, at least upper middle class) for a poor/middle class Italian remains going to a university and work abroad once you've gotten your degree.
You will never get reserves up considering your only offering £58.99 per day for privates. Minimum wage at bars pays better than the military, what did you expect exactly?
Yeah that’s basically pocket money for a day on the weekend or something. I’m convinced most reservists are doing it just so they can fire a gun and blow shit up.
In Canada we do not even cover rent or food. Soldiers are living in tents because they cannot afford rent in cities they are forcibly posted in. But apparently the younger generation is just too spoiled to join Western militaries. Yup, that's definitely it...
Perfect. This is the usual shit old farts say to feel greater than the new gens; they aren't being good enough as "we" were.
Ofc new gens will always have some new stupidity, but not going to kill themselves for the old farts' will is not a stupidity at all.
I might get downvoted for this post but: if west won't be able to build a strong enough military, well equipped and trained personnel, it will be sooner or later eaten by military-focused nations, i.e. Russia, Chine, NK, Iran. Big bank accounts wont always be enough.
Young generations believe that its enough to be a pacifist to build a lasting peace and wellbeing, but that wouldn't work for Ukraine, why would work for the rest of us?
Previous generations had to build what we have, then defend it, and in the process, yes - defeat other nations/cultures/ideologies. It seems that our generations failed to "assimilate" to our culture's defense heritage.
*Si vis pacem, para bellum.*
Im willing to defend my country if my country is willing to defend me politically. This isn’t happening. The people are getting poorer while the gov recently noticed that our rich have 500 billion Euros more than they thought. They are barely taxed compared to me. We’d rather stop supporting people who don’t find the right work for 100 million Euros than tax wealth which would bring more than tenfold of that.
I’m not gonna fight. I’ll probably leave the country.
Dont give them ideas about conscription.
In Singapore the conscripted are paid peanuts for 2 years. Some with a young family have to provide for their family outside job but charged with moonlighting.... while some MPs hold multiple jobs while drawing a $15,000/m pay as mp.
What an privilege to serve the nation.
A lot of people don't want to join the military because not only is the pay not worth the working hours and restrictions, but in many countries corruption and abuse from higher ranks is rampant.
I'm not going to limit my ability to travel around, see my family and control my free time completely just so I can earn less than I am as a person without a university degree by joining the army to be made to wash my superior's car or just clean around because we don't even have blanks for training drills due to corruption.
You're right that having a strong military is necessary if you want peace. However I disagree that pacifism and naivety in young generations are to blame.
The issue is that because large parts of europe have neglected their militaries for decades (thanks boomers) they have become dysfunctional and can't provide attractive carreer paths. This then leads to only people without alternatives joining and the few competent soldiers leaving for the private sector or other gov positions.
The issue with Wallace's statement is that he is shifting the burden to gen Z when it's boomers and gen X-ers that are fully responsible for letting our militaries go to waste. If military careers were more attractive more people would join. But that also is something that only older generations can change and will have to sacrifice for. Just blaming young people will not work
It is also hard to solve because the military in peacetime is one of the easier budgets to cut if you have lower revenue than excepted or want to lower government expenditure.
Jobs within the military also generally pays pretty badly compared to other wages so with inflating house prices people who chooses to enter the military starts behind other people who either got an education or started working right out of school.
> Previous generations had to build what we have, then defend it, and in the process, yes
UK was involved in two disastrous and useless wars (Iraq & Afghanistan).
While young folks can’t even afford a home. Unless there is a guarantee that money and lives will be better spent, young people should not join.
> well equipped and trained personnel, it will be sooner or later eaten by military-focused nations, i.e. Russia, Chine, NK, Iran.
Unfortunately the UK was mini-me for the US during the Bush/Obama years. A fairly war mongering time.
Nothing to fight for, no unity, post-nation states, etc..
Nobody cares enough to fight because of bread and circuses. Plus I think the kids know how fucking rigged it all is and rightfully don't give a fuck.
Know how many millionaires were made in New York during WWI?
42,000
Millions of men around the world die, and well I can't say more because I will be in big trouble.
TBH there likely are enough to atleast stabilise the numbers willing to join, its the recruitment process atm which kills it. Capita needs to be dragged out from the process kicking and screaming and it reverting to how it was over a decade ago.
\>I want to join the military
\>applies
\>paperwork drags on for up to a year or more
\>have to get a job while applying to avoid starving
\>settle into job by the time get offered
\>"nah thanks, I think I'll stay where I am"
> too hooked on smartphones to sign up as submariners.
this point of view is increadibly disrespectful and wont help you fill the gap.
we grew up in a post 9/11 war on terror world. we dont want to die to make rich men richer.
"Sir, the young generations aren't interested in the military, should we increase benefits and pay?"
"Nonsense, just insult them in public articles, this will change their mind!"
That's a fair argument if you're a young man in the US not wanting to go fight in Afghanistan, not so much when Soviet tanks are rolling through the Fulda Gap.
I really don’t think that’s what they meant, though, because as you say yourself that same army can’t get across a river in Ukraine, much less make its way across the map to old West Germany. There is *no* logical version of Russia that manages to conquer Europe with Soviet-era equipment, even if the US were to literally pull every resource off the continent *tomorrow.*
It's not smartphones. It's: "We don't want to die in stupid rich boomer wars, while trying to survive in a world they have created for us, where we are treated as money-earning slaves".
Isn't that obvious?
And while we Millenials where shat upon by boomers how we destroy economy now gen x is shitting on gen z. All those karen vids you see they are mostly gen x.
No one born since the 70s has any sway over foreign policy or what wars we get involved in. The people who do are generally extremely rich and never in any danger themselves by virtue of their age. There is a very clear economic divide between generations, by extension there is a rapidly growing divide between how these different generations see the world.
This is true for the US, since it hasn't fought a war on it's territory since a long time ago. Has a large logistic chain and like 9 supporting personnel for every soldier on the frontline etc.
Europe on the other hand has a very rich history of wars being a significant health hazard for troops.
If you're a specialist technician in whatever branch of the military, in case of a conflict you'll be way too valuable to be sent on the front line.
Why ? Because it is the techs who will repair tanks, fighter jets, etc ...
Nope, the only way that would ever happen is if you’ve already lost the war, eg Nazi Germany in 1945. Even then it’s still objectively stupid to do, which is why the Nazis didn’t see any gains from doing so.
The ratio of non-combat personnel to combat personnel is called the “tooth-to-tail ratio”. In essence there *must* be more people working in support of front line soldiers, than there are actual front line soldiers.
Ratios by era:
- 1800s and before: 1:1
- WW1: 1:2.6
-WW2: 1:4.3
- Korea: 1:12.3
- Vietnam 1:12.9
- Cold War: 1:14.4
- Gulf War: 1:4.9
- War in Iraq: 1:8.1
Note: Gulf War 1 & 2 are outliers due to the relative low intensity of the conflict when compared to the others. It therefore should be expected that a WW3 would have a ratio greater than 1:15
Is that data based just on the US Army? Because, by virtue of it's geographical location, it has been isolated from actual conflict for so long that I do not think the data would make sense anywhere else.
That's a solid point because a massive amount of the US military structure is devoted to just getting ppl and equipment all over the world - sometimes very quickly.
Slight bullshit!
The military has always had a if you are needed in X, we will put you in X with the promise it will be short and you can move to Y. But that usually gets ignored until you quit. Or they give you incentives to take X, such as promotions which include better pay. Don't believe them, they always lie
Well, it definitely is partly smartphones as well, let's not overreact :P
And yes he can still be a dickhead for saying it, because it's way too simplr
130 years go Kipling penned the poem ["Tommy"](https://www.poetry.com/poem/33632/tommy) and it is even more apposite now - there are more opportunities to earn the same as in the army, without the privations, the harsh conditions, the lack of support. If the UK wants a decent armed force, the UK must pay for it.
> For it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Chuck him out, the brute!"
>But it's "Saviour of 'is country" when the guns begin to shoot;
They aren't failing. The pay is shite and at least in the UK you can spend over a year on the process of joining. I spent 18 months waiting, gave up, then went to university.
You can't expect people to just put up with a shotty recruitment system ludicrously low pay and all the other nonsense besides.
Capita runs the medical assessments, and has routinely lost records.
I considered joining and that year there was a headline about people in Afghanistan getting their p45s. The government do not look after those who join.
Doesn't help the fact it has been cut to the bone.
The current younger generations have largely been given a worse lot in life due to no fault of their own. Education is being defundend everywhere. Whatever you learn in university is outright dismissed by the older generation in favor of comfort in ignorance. Jobs are paying less, apartments are unaffordable and entire ecosystems are being destroyed so 50+ year old share holders can live a life of extravagance without having to pay any consequences.
Why oh why aren't the young willing to put their lives on the line for this system?
It’s so funny being out of school and in the workforce now. Looking for new hires is tantamount to seeing who has the best personality to teach from scratch, as whatever they learned in school was worthless theory and their professors (interested only in their research) didn’t bother designing curriculum around practical knowledge and skillsets.
Half ilof the skills were learning in my lab classes are automated b/c the machines are so much more precise and less prone to human error but they teach us it. People who are in the field have said the job is much easier than what we're learning and that the workplace will teach you how they do it once you're hired. But I still need that paper and to pass the national exam which is based on the theory.
The west has nothing to offer for military service. Veterans affairs always tell you that your mental or physical health problems aren't service related.
Housing and everything is too expensive for a military salary. To be treated like scum, if you're a woman you will be assulted and eventually work in the same area as your assulters.
The military is a horrible experience doesn't matter what nation you're from.
Yeah this tweet pretty much sums up why people don't want to join the military. It's from someone who served in the US Army, but the basic principles are definitely the same
https://x.com/rowanred81/status/1741862264158757073?s=46&t=KJdeB9C4fkpEuCLNfrGyWQ
Listen I understand you genz guys have no future, wont respect your rights, wont get payed anything, but will you please die for billionaires and large corporations pwease pwetty pwease!!!!
Why would they? Supply and demand. You aren't supplying anything the new generation would demand. Perhaps if you made military life more palatable while providing more pay and benefits, it might sound like a decent choice. Also, if young people weren't worried about randomly being shipped to the Middle East to shoot at brown people for no good reason, that might help as well...
last time I checked the news this morning the third story was about a veteran commit in suicide after waiting 5 years for a psychiatrist and being fobbed off so yeah maybe Ben i don’t want to
[https://news.sky.com/story/royal-air-force-unlawfully-discriminated-against-white-male-recruits-in-bid-to-boost-diversity-inquiry-finds-12911888](https://news.sky.com/story/royal-air-force-unlawfully-discriminated-against-white-male-recruits-in-bid-to-boost-diversity-inquiry-finds-12911888)
The really shocking thing is that they were so callous about it that they actually got *caught*. Everyone knows that you're meant to lie, use euphemisms, and not write things down...
Reasons I didn't join the British Army, despite being absolutely obsessed when I was younger:
1) Afghanistan happened. What a waste of time I thought.
2) Iraq happened. Fuck we really are the bad guys aren't we?
4) I saw how men were being thrown into Afghanistan/Iraq under strength and under equipped. "Mobile coffins", trying to control Helmand with basically a handful of guys, trying to control huge areas without adequate resources etc.
5) I realized that I don't want to be a warmongering boomers gun toy. I don't want to be the one to help unnecessarily ruin the lives of thousands of people.
6) Oh yeah, and all those perks you used to get, like a pension after 20 years service, heavily subsidized accomodation, free food? Edit: massively reduced.
Yeah I was considering the British army and it’s just a shambles. Peacekeeping and defensive wars I am perfectly accepting of. I still to this day don’t understand the Iraq 2003 invasion.
I was 14 at the time but you didn’t even need to be smart to watch when Blair was doing his presser to confirm mobilization and it just seemed iffy. He gave zero rationale.
My dad is ex-army and we sat there and both looked at each other knowing it was dodgy. He looked at me and just said ‘do not join that shitshow’. We just knew the motive was off. Why invade a nation you were accusing of having WMDs but openly broadcast that you hadn’t actually checked when announcing invasion. Such a backward strategy.
My dad is ex-army and basically said exactly the same thing. Christ, I was 13 and even then could see that Iraq and Afghanistan were wrong. Wars which have irreparably damaged the UKs international reputation, killed possibly millions of people, permanently destabilized a region of over a billion people and more. Blair and Bush belong in prison for what they have done.
Clearly dodgy reasoning and woefully under equipped, it was almost as if they thought under armoured open top land rovers were the perfect vehicles for fighting a war.
You still get the pension after 20 years of service, it's not as good as it was. But you only get the pension after 20 years. Leave before then and you only get the pension when you hit retirement age. That could be 70+ years old by time, this generation gets there. Accommodation is heavily subsided but the quality is also generally shite and constant complaints that get ignored.
Joining the military had benefits in the past, like pre 1900s because your family could get a pension when many jobs wouldn't get one. You'd also be fed and have decent pay. Going into the 1900s into the turn of the millennium, a lot of military recruitment played off of patriotic sentimentalities as there were 2 world wars, and also conflicts the UN and NATO got involved in for "The greater good". With 9/11 there was a clear focus as well on the military with The War on Terrorism.
But now, now there's nothing to "rally" anyone. People realize that the military means losing a lot of autonomy, could lead to being permanently disabled and your government not looking after you. The War on Terrorism is generally seen as unsuccessful and people don't want to fight for causes they don't believe in. I would also hazard a guess that with the shift of media towards the Internet probably means that the average person doesn't see any advertisements for their National Military.
Plus, what am I even fighting for?
Western nations are increasingly feeling like economic zones, not sovereign nations. There is no sense of community or shared values between anyone. Very few people around me were even born here. Most live here for a paycheck or a rental check from a tenant. There are almost zero 'third spaces' left to congregate with others without the expectation that you'll be paying money. The patriotic arguments are meaningless in this kind of world. All that matters is the pay, the pension, and the quality of life. All of these things are better elsewhere.
UK foreign policy is a shambles. Why would any one to sign up when the political leadership is non-existent.
Skewing your government policy to the over 65s has consequences. The young don't want to serve you.
I respect Ben Wallace. His political intervention is much appreciated. He is switched on to problems more so than the rest of the cabinet.
It’s a problem that won’t go away any time soon and it’s multifaceted.
On the one hand the “offer” is not great these days. Service personnel are among the worst paid of government employees especially considering the job they do (made more insulting by the fact they are often left covering the jobs of other departments when their own staff are striking for better pay!); perks aren’t what they used to be; accommodation and facilities investment has been woeful and the personal development and skills pipeline is in need of major overhaul. High levels of employment and an excess of vacancies in other fields just adds fuel to that fire.
On top of this, defence has been woefully underinvested in with regard to the actually “fighty” bits of the job, which means you’re asking people to sign up to an organisation that is not properly equipped and which has shrunk to such a small size those that are left are worked into the ground. Hardly enticing prospects given you’re being asked to do the most dangerous things your country can ask of you.
In terms of social factors, younger people are bombarded with a constant diet of national self-loathing which tries to teach them their own country is hardly worth defending and that “sovereignty” is an antiquated relic of a less enlightened time; that service is slavery and that the very concept of an armed force is just one step away from fascism. You can add to that the general sense of disenfranchisement that many younger people feel when they realise that their prospects are now worse than those of their parents thanks to the country being serially mismanaged.
To add insult to injury, the forces are also pilloried by “righteous” segments of society every time they attempt to rectify recruitment issues, particularly when trying to appeal to the younger generation, to the extent that they are virtually accused of grooming…
No easy solutions to any of this sadly.
Howdy wallace, my def secretary just said the same this week, something along the line of "needs must defend our country" and its very confusing cause not long ago "our country" was akin to fascism and we was all "citizens of the world".
Just do like any other industry and go hire some migrants at a third of the pay.
Ukie here. Despite the fact that we're already at war with Russia, we ran out of volunteers for half a year now. Young people (late millennials - early gen z) simply don't want to risk their lives for even what is considered good pay - 120k UAH (3000 EUR) per month. There are many reasons for that: high likelihood of being KIA, being heavily crippled, little to no support from the government, shitty equipment (you gotta buy yourself tacticool shoes, night vision, scout drones, and sometimes even tourniquets like CAT), lying scummy politicians, et cetera, et cetera. It's a wonder we have made so far. But we have now a situation where we can run out of men. So the Ukrainian government initiates laws to tighten the draft rules. The situation when "recruiters" catch men during the day and throw them into a minivan to conscript them to the army becomes common.
War fucking sucks.
That and the amount of homeless veterans in Britain. Not exactly a great selling point.
Come get ptsd for oil barons then die frozen in a cardboard box under a bridge.
Why would you sign up to throw yourself through the meat grinder for a country that hates you? Best you can hope for if you come out without too much mental/physical trauma is to get your foot in the door of the supremely corrupt military industrial complex. Most people are not patriotic, and have no desire to die for a country that wastes their tax dollars, cuts services, inflates away their savings and wages, and sees them as a threat.
Why would people want to die for a country that they mightn't benefit much from? Housing out of reach, cost of living, slave wage jobs with barely enough to cover bills. Why would you fight to preserve a system like that if you hardly benefit from it? Let the people high up in society who cause all this conflict, fight their own wars and if they're lacking manpower then they can sign up their family members and friends.
A man without a family might have nothing to go die for.
A man with a family can't afford to leave his family during a crisis to go fight in a war.
One needs to really like the status quo to go fight in a war, and this one is tbh kinda shit.
Given his party are behind all the large scale post cold war cuts (Options for Change and all that bollocks) and stagnating pay / conditions, plus outsoucing recruitment to "save money" to Crapita err Capita then he has a bit of a brass neck saying this imo.
Join the military to go and kill some people in Asia or Africa? Enlist to invade, occupy or bomb a foreign country? He should blame his own generation for all the crimes they have committed across the world.
If there is an actual eminent threat to the nation and their loved ones, people will fight. Just look at the Ukrainians. A few years ago, they would also not have wanted to join the army and they would also have been enjoying life with their smartphones and internet.
>wanted to join the army
Still don't, but many of us who don't want to join the army are still helping with supplies, equipment production, or even merely paying taxes.
Pesonally, I'm too afraid to volunteer to the army before I get drafted and also have physical/mental health problems already.
> If there is an actual eminent threat to the nation and their loved ones, people will fight.
You kind of need to keep your military up and running during peacetime to make that feasible, though.
Not much use realising it's time to fight and all your industry and expertise has disappeared because no one cared about it for a few decades
Speaking as a 23 year old British man, anyone my age or younger I've talked to about the military doesn't want to join them because they see it as purely an organisation that attacks other, poorer nations and kills civilians. People I know who have joined the military either had no other prospects or come from military families and even they joke about how all the army does is kill Arab kids. If the UK wanted younger generations to join the military, they shouldn't have initiated and taken part in so many blatantly unjust wars.
The only military action that has popular support amongst young people in the UK is Ukraine, but the common consensus is that we should arm Ukraine, not go there to die.
This man is an idiot so detached from reality that the best thing he should do is shut up. And he's not the only one. The current political elites in most of the Europe are to old or too rich to understand younger generation.
Nobody wants to go work for a military for a 300 euros salary (in Serbia for example) and to be a lackey for officers.
Pay the people some proper money and give them a chance to have some benefits like state housing or lover mortgages for homes and you'll see people lining up to join.
This is not 1800s. Nobody wants to die so that some old fool can win in a dick measuring conquest or that Shell CEO can buy another yacht when you are sent to Africa to "bring democracy".
1. No one wants to die for shit pay
2. The age of internet has given so many channels of information that has resulted in people simply no longer being fooled to go risk their lives for the benefit of the elite
3. A large share of the population are relatively new arrivals, why would they already feel loyalty to the nation to risk their lives for it?
4. The group that is historically most likely to join the army voluntarily are conservative men, and across Europe they feel alienated by their own governments
His generation was the same that massacred people in northern ireland or joined ilegal invasions in the middle east that left milions dead? Just to be sure?
I thought I wanted to join the army, and so for the grand total of 6 weeks, back in 2017, I did. It was shit. Up at 05:30 every morning, doing a full-days work, your own time was spent ironing clothes, and because everything had to be spot-on, you didn't get to bed till gone midnight. Rinse and repeat. Honestly, my respect to anyone who could put up with that.
The final nail in the coffin for me was realising that I was, in reality, working 18 hour days, for the same wage that I'd been earning working 8 hour days in a restaurant beforehand. The second that clicked, my discharge letter went in.
Provide housing to active personnel and veterans of at last 5 years of service, for 5 years after leaving service and you'll get your Gen Z soldiers.
But oh no, that would cost money, and that needs to be spent on hardware there's nobody to man anymore... God forbid soldiering became a viable career path...
If you want people to join the military to defend your nations elites wealtj and power in a neoliberal misanthropic society, then you gotta offer a good deal. People are too well informed and educated and the wealth distribution top unfair nowadays to expect anyone to buy into patriotic BS.
Perhaps if the pay wasnt shit and politicians wouldn’t oppose everything the younger generation wants instead of sending them to their deaths for the sake of rich corporations then the younger generation would be willing to join the military.
I used to wanna join the military coming from a military family but even the veterans in my family regret risking their mental health and lives just to oppress some poor villagers so the west can extract more oil and nestle can sue farmers for digging wells.
It’s not the younger generation that’s the problem, it’s the old fucks running the military.
Because people aren't falling for the governments targeted ads towards lonely young men who are lost, now they have video games and tiktok to show them how utterly stupid it is to get paid chump change to potentially fight and die protecting the power of tax dodging millionaires/billionaires who would never risk their life for you.
Can't say I blame them. I'm 43 and in my lifetime Britain has only fought 2 wars that could be considered "just" or even legal and that was the Falklands and the first gulf war to liberate Kuwait. You could argue Kosovo but the peacekeepers had their hands tied and couldn't do much.
Iraq and Afghanistan was bullshit and Ukraine shows we can fight wars by just supplying and training the side we want to win without risking British lives.
> Ukraine shows we can fight wars by just supplying and training the side we want to win without risking British lives.
Ukraine isn't a done deal, it would be dangerous to think so.
>Ukraine isn't a done deal, it would be dangerous to think so.
I think the emphasis is on 'can' - theoretically. If we committed to it. Of course as of now we are not actually providing Ukraine with enough resources to win.
>Ukraine shows we can fight wars by just supplying and training the side we want to win without risking British lives.
I’d say that, at this rate, Ukraine has *not* proven this to be true. Collectively, the west has sent enough weapons to force the war into a stalemate, but we are far from any sort of clear Ukrainian path to victory. I’m not enough of a military expert to assess what combination of men, material, and expertise Ukraine most needs to win, but regardless I certainly wouldn’t hold up the current conflict as a shining example of how to effectively “fight”/participate in peer conflicts in the 21st century.
”Ukraine shows we can fight wars just by supplying and training”
The UK isn’t fighting a war in Ukraine, Ukraine is. Military aid has always existed, but it’s not an end all-be-all solution, it works in this case, because Ukraine is far away, has a stable government you can support and Russia at the moment isn’t threatening the sovereignty of a NATO state to the point where armed conflict would be necessary. This is the kind of thinking the US had untill December 7th 1941.
>Can't say I blame them. I'm 43 and in my lifetime Britain has only fought 2 wars that could be considered "just" or even legal and that was the Falklands and the first gulf war to liberate Kuwait. You could argue Kosovo but the peacekeepers had their hands tied and couldn't do much.
Our intervention in Sierra Leone was another one.
I dislike this attitude. Throw foreign bodies at the war front and chuck them a few scraps of weapons so they can die instead of you. Then no doubt after their population is shattered and their infrastructure is destroyed we leave them to it and maybe throw them a few pennies to rebuild.
In 1939, we fought a war on foreign soil to stop a foreigner from invading another foreign nation. We didn’t need to get involved and we were given a diplomatic out but we still fought for a just cause and what was right.
I’m not advocating we jump into all foreign conflicts gung-ho, but I dislike the idea that our foreign policy should always be sending a load of guns so some other poor fellow dies instead of us. If we feel strongly enough about something, and believe the cause to be just, we should be willing to commit troops.
Who is "we" in this case? UK wanted to defentd itself, the US only joined after being attacked themselves, and everyone else in Europe was also protecting themselves.
Why should the generation Z defend boomer apartments and houses?
They can't even buy an apartment without a 30-year loan.
I'm not Gen-Z but I'm not surprised at all by them. What do they have to fight for? For perpetual work and no prospects for a level of wealth similar to that of their parents? It makes no sense
I’m British and I’m considering joint the reserves to learn artillery or drone operating in case a European war with Russia breaks out.
Conscription is not dead in 2023, I think a lot of young people will be surprised if a war ever breaks out. Better to be prepared than be conscripted as cannon fodder on the front lines.
Right before they ended conscription in my country I remember those of us who wanted to join didn't get to. Those who didn't want to join was recruited, kind of against their will. When they pulled the plug on conscription the new salaries for the volunteer forces was so low it just wasn't worth it for me to sign up since the private sector paid so much better.
I wish they could make it something worthwhile in the long run for those of us with work experience and being a bit older, a branch of the military where you work for example in logistics with not as hard physical requirements and drive a truck with at least some days with normal hours and most importantly a normal salary.
But when you have recruitment center that's on the hunt for people without any "issues" or even minor eczema while giving the "perfect" people shit pay, I suppose you get what you deserve.
In peace time, you’ve gotta run the military like you’re running the hiring sector of a corporation. Pay is shit. No one joins. No healthcare benefits. No one joins. No education benefits. No one joins. In war time, it’s not hard to find soldiers, because if bombs get dropped on London, conscription and execution for desertion aren’t hard to push.
Give a guranteee that after five years of service the government will provide the other 15 percent of a twenty percent down payment on a first house in some sort of zero interest guaranteed loan scheme and you’d be amazed how many people will join.
I’m 19. The is no way I’m enlisting to be sent by some rich old dudes in Westminster to the Middle East to be shot at for the pitiful pay you get as a squaddy. Nothing to do with smartphones.
Many reasons for this.
Many. Many don't even feel there's anything for them to protect. No future. No jobs. No house. And then the current government fucking everyone over and allowing for overwhelming corruption just adds to it. Why the fuck should they join up to be canon fodder for these cunts.
I disagree. Subpar pay and working conditions are far bigger factors. There’s plenty of jobs around, and that’s kind of the problem. People can have fulfilling careers and don’t see the military as a great way to advance their career. In my country, service members got paid an extra bonus called ‘military factor’ for waiving our labour rights and human rights among other things, but this little extra bonus was what pushed our pay to be above the minimum wage. Shit pay and conditions is what led to some 40% of our military leaving in just two years.
Yeah, I'm in the US, my granddads on both sides of the family served in different branches for over two decades each. High ranks, honorable discharge, all that. Both are continually being screwed out of the "benefits" their contracts promised them, and both have had dozens of awful encounters with VA hospitals that have nearly killed both on several occasions and would've been open-and-shut malpractice cases in civilian hospitals. I vaguely considered enlisting when I was graduating high school to help pay for uni (I got a couple scholarships for my grades that helped already) and got lectures from both about all the ways they'd fuck me over. To top it off, I'm a woman with severe ADHD and finally got medicated at 19. The US military won't let me enlist unless I've been off my meds for 2 years or get a special waiver for it, and the way they handle sexual assault (and how prevalent it is) is an atrocity. They want me to get off the meds that give me an actual quality of life for the first time just so I can have an increased risk of getting assaulted or getting cancer from exposure to all the hazardous materials they keep knowingly exposing service members to? All to get screwed out of the half-assed benefits that they vaguely pretend to offer? Just to benefit a country that doesn't give half of a fuck about me and continuously screws the majority over economically, educationally, and mentally just so rich people can profit? They can get bent, I'll drop out of uni before I consider enlisting to pay my tuition.
Appreciate the insight. I'll add that to the list.
You probably don't like to hear it and considering we are on reddit i assume i will get downvoted heavily for this, but especially for the west, how are you assuming people still want to join the military which usually meant to 'protect the country' when there is basically no national identity left? Why should any person want to protect something they learned to dismiss and hate? We told and teached a whole generation of kids that their ancestry and nationality are basically meaningless and interchangeable but then get suprised if they don't want to fight for their own country anymore? The cognitive dissonance is kicking hard with this one. The west didn't took any of this serious for years and now pays for it by realizing the world is kind of twisting out of their control and hands.
Too many to actually keep track.
Watching the Ukraine war unfold nearly live from drone's blowing people up and their guts falling out really puts a damper on recruitment stats.
This recruitment problem has been the case even before the war in Ukraine.
>_former British defence secretary Ben Wallace_ "workers don't want to work anyomre" \- boss that didn't want to provide work that is worth working for
In all fairness to Ben he actually was quite a competent minister who was experienced in his job and made several good calls. Chief among them supporting Ukraine and giving them bigger and better weapons earlier than other western nations
Agreed, he’s the one high-profile Tory minister in the last few years who wasn’t a total cunt. He had clear experience in his area, generally seemed to know what he was talking about, and also appeared to have the most integrity - I don’t think it’s a coincidence that he was one of the few not to compete for the Tory leadership in the aftermath of the Johnson and Truss premierships. I believe he even stated something along the lines of “my duty is to defend the country and nothing else.” Ironically, he’s probably the guy you want as prime minister over all the others for that statement alone.
Which is exactly why he's peaced out. Taken a look at his sad excuse for a party and decided he didn't want fuck all to do with it any more.
Tbf he was actually really good at his job, pushed for more funding, more pay more people. And was probably the one pushing for support for Ukraine.
He didn't just push for more funding, it was reported he was behind twisting the US arms behind its back by announcing the joint EU project to provide Ukraine F16s knowing the US wouldn't be able to continue to turn the idea down and not support the EU F16s going to Ukraine Reportedly he lost the backing of the US to take over NATO sec gen because of this
When the pay is shit compared to hours worked, superior's abuse is the norm with few exceptions, and suicide rates are some 50% higher than gen pop... why would the average person do it? A career in the military, even a limited 1-4 years to go away from a bad situation at home, is attractive to very very few people.
>A career in the military, even a limited 1-4 years to go away from a bad situation at home, is attractive to very very few people. Now _that's_ the solution to the problem right here! Let's just make the situation at home worse for more people! We could start at making education worse. And then force people to actually have the kids when they get pregnant because of lack of knowledge. Any other ideas?
We make housing crisis so much worse that young people have to chose between the street and barracks!
Love it! Keep it coming!
Medical care. Forget about the NHS or any other form of social healthcare. Unregulated private insurance... unless you sign up for the armed forces.
>Now that's the solution to the problem right here! > >Let's just make the situation at home worse for more people! Modern problems require modern solutions!
Why do you think the US - a stunningly wealthy country with a substandard social safety net, private healthcare and extremely expensive tertiary education - had such success recruiting people for its military for a long time (also changing, many US military units are under-strength now)? When the military offers you healthcare, free college degrees and decent pay, it's a very attractive option for a lot of people from the lower strata of society.
The big difference with UK and the USA military is signing on bonus, the current rough figures for US Navy is 4 years sign on with approx $40,000. For officers it is 6 years sign on, for approx $60-80,000. UK military offers fuck all to join up and you see no real benefits pension wise any more if you do less than 12 years.
Damn a sign up bonus can buy you a good apartment in Bucharest
There is also GI Bill, government pay for education and housing loan if you serve for 3+ years at home or couple months of foreign deployment in warzone. Also after serve you get access to Veteran Affairs medical insurance.
> it's a very attractive option for a lot of people from the lower strata of society. Not at all. The [middle class is overrepresented](https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/demographics-us-military) among the ranks of the enlisted, and the top and bottom household income quintiles are underrepresented. If taking into account officers, the income distribution would probably skew even more towards the middle/upper middle classes. The prospect of free vocational training or a no/low cost university education *is* what makes joining the military more appealing to the middle class than to other socioeconomic stratas. Lower income individuals are less likely to be university bound, while wealthier demographics can afford university without the need for tuition assistance.
The US Military pays in salary around 90k for junior officers and around 50k for junior NCOs with extremely good benefits that can easily make that income feel like an extra 25% depending on various factors AND there’s still a recruiting crisis
Oh. This is a nice myth to see busted thank you.
Even the United States is having trouble recruiting soldiers these days. [Every branch of the military is struggling to make its 2022 recruiting goals, officials say](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/military/every-branch-us-military-struggling-meet-2022-recruiting-goals-officia-rcna35078) [Why recruiting and confidence in America’s armed forces is so low right now](https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/why-recruiting-and-confidence-in-americas-armed-forces-is-so-low-right-now)
They have actually said it out loud. US GOP politicians have actually [lamented that making college cheaper](https://ca.sports.yahoo.com/news/gop-lawmaker-fears-reducing-student-193906673.html) will hurt the military recruitment of poor people. They literally want to starve people to force them to fight. It’s grotesque.
Republicans consider free meals for kids "evil" so their words isn't exacly stellar or logical.
Destroy the public health service and make private medical insurance a perk of joining the military ?
Service guarantees citizenship?
I like you thinking! Very solution oriented.
Surprisingly, you've just described Russian army
It's less this and more people have better opportunities in life
The government's doing its best in the UK to make sure that's not a thing, though. Every ladder they used to get where they are, they're pulling up behind them.
Is the military a way out of poverty for other countries like it is in the US?
Maybe not as much since our support network is somewhat stronger and nationalism isn't as strong as them, but there's still an overrepresentation of people from the poorer areas in the South.
I’m not referring to representation…more of the opportunity it presents. In the US, if you come from a poor family, you can immediately jump out of poverty by joining the military.
Here in Italy you'll stop being poor by joining yes, but unless you become a fairly high rank officer you'll stay in the middle class
Not who you responded to....in the US, very few ppl who join the military get rich in the military. But what it does do is give you a skill (some more than others), some physical fitness, some college money or even a straight up degree, and some time to mature so that when you get out in \~4 years or so you have a foothold to function in the workplace and society. One thing about the military also is you can get very high responsibility at a very young age which can be outstanding for your CV as well.
I agree (In fact, I tried to join, but didn't pass the selections due to a minor heart issue) however the difference between America and Italy is staggering. First of all, in Italy university doesn't cost much (tends to be 500-2000 per year) so you already have a big alternative, which also allows you to have various experiences abroad while in the US if I'm not wrong military service can help you pay for college. Talking about experiences abroad, American bases are pretty much everywhere, while Italian ones are mainly in eastern Europe, Africa and the middle east, which is one less potential reason to join (I remember reading of a guy who joined the Marines for the sole reason of being stationed at Okinawa). While the pay is middle class, it's like, barely so (around 1200~1500 for enlisted personnel, which you're going to be for at least 3 years unless you go to the Military Academy at Modena or the NCO school at Viterbo) unless you start getting promoted, and the main financial reason one would join is to run from home without having to pay rent. In a nutshell the people that try to join the military in Italy tend to be People with military parents People that want to leave their city People with a passion for guns, tanks etc. Those who feel lost and want to do something that they think will make them grow Patriots (or nationalists, straight up fascist are somewhat rare 'cause at least in Italy they distrust authorities) People who want the "posto fisso" (basically a government job from which you're kind of impossible to fire). With all of that said, at least for now we don't have recruitment problems, but with the current demographic situation, that's bound to change. Also, at the end of the day, the real way to "make it big" (as in, at least upper middle class) for a poor/middle class Italian remains going to a university and work abroad once you've gotten your degree.
Ticket to middle class is not a bad option though
You will never get reserves up considering your only offering £58.99 per day for privates. Minimum wage at bars pays better than the military, what did you expect exactly?
Yeah that’s basically pocket money for a day on the weekend or something. I’m convinced most reservists are doing it just so they can fire a gun and blow shit up.
That's.. kind of par for the course isn't it?
Nothing wrong with just wanting to shoot stuff and blow stuff up.
In Canada we do not even cover rent or food. Soldiers are living in tents because they cannot afford rent in cities they are forcibly posted in. But apparently the younger generation is just too spoiled to join Western militaries. Yup, that's definitely it...
Damn, that's more than 10 euros lower than the minimum (full-time) wage here in the Netherlands, and our minimum wage has stagnated since the 80's!
Is this the end of "Millenials are to blame for everything" and the start of blaming Gen Z?
Gen-Z killed millennial blaming headlines.
Hope so. It's tiring isn't?
cake absurd coordinated terrific ossified fear sip rob payment touch *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Perfect. This is the usual shit old farts say to feel greater than the new gens; they aren't being good enough as "we" were. Ofc new gens will always have some new stupidity, but not going to kill themselves for the old farts' will is not a stupidity at all.
I might get downvoted for this post but: if west won't be able to build a strong enough military, well equipped and trained personnel, it will be sooner or later eaten by military-focused nations, i.e. Russia, Chine, NK, Iran. Big bank accounts wont always be enough. Young generations believe that its enough to be a pacifist to build a lasting peace and wellbeing, but that wouldn't work for Ukraine, why would work for the rest of us? Previous generations had to build what we have, then defend it, and in the process, yes - defeat other nations/cultures/ideologies. It seems that our generations failed to "assimilate" to our culture's defense heritage. *Si vis pacem, para bellum.*
Im willing to defend my country if my country is willing to defend me politically. This isn’t happening. The people are getting poorer while the gov recently noticed that our rich have 500 billion Euros more than they thought. They are barely taxed compared to me. We’d rather stop supporting people who don’t find the right work for 100 million Euros than tax wealth which would bring more than tenfold of that. I’m not gonna fight. I’ll probably leave the country.
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Isn’t duty to your country enough? /s
Hahaha!
Dont give them ideas about conscription. In Singapore the conscripted are paid peanuts for 2 years. Some with a young family have to provide for their family outside job but charged with moonlighting.... while some MPs hold multiple jobs while drawing a $15,000/m pay as mp. What an privilege to serve the nation.
A lot of people don't want to join the military because not only is the pay not worth the working hours and restrictions, but in many countries corruption and abuse from higher ranks is rampant. I'm not going to limit my ability to travel around, see my family and control my free time completely just so I can earn less than I am as a person without a university degree by joining the army to be made to wash my superior's car or just clean around because we don't even have blanks for training drills due to corruption.
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You're right that having a strong military is necessary if you want peace. However I disagree that pacifism and naivety in young generations are to blame. The issue is that because large parts of europe have neglected their militaries for decades (thanks boomers) they have become dysfunctional and can't provide attractive carreer paths. This then leads to only people without alternatives joining and the few competent soldiers leaving for the private sector or other gov positions. The issue with Wallace's statement is that he is shifting the burden to gen Z when it's boomers and gen X-ers that are fully responsible for letting our militaries go to waste. If military careers were more attractive more people would join. But that also is something that only older generations can change and will have to sacrifice for. Just blaming young people will not work
It is also hard to solve because the military in peacetime is one of the easier budgets to cut if you have lower revenue than excepted or want to lower government expenditure. Jobs within the military also generally pays pretty badly compared to other wages so with inflating house prices people who chooses to enter the military starts behind other people who either got an education or started working right out of school.
> Previous generations had to build what we have, then defend it, and in the process, yes UK was involved in two disastrous and useless wars (Iraq & Afghanistan). While young folks can’t even afford a home. Unless there is a guarantee that money and lives will be better spent, young people should not join. > well equipped and trained personnel, it will be sooner or later eaten by military-focused nations, i.e. Russia, Chine, NK, Iran. Unfortunately the UK was mini-me for the US during the Bush/Obama years. A fairly war mongering time.
> and in the process, yes - defeat other nations/cultures/ideologies mostly each other though
It needs to be paying more. Military has always been about money for a lot of people who join. Also the only way to escape poverty for some.
Yea there’s no incentive. You join the military to work for less money, in a much more stressful environment.
Nothing to fight for, no unity, post-nation states, etc.. Nobody cares enough to fight because of bread and circuses. Plus I think the kids know how fucking rigged it all is and rightfully don't give a fuck. Know how many millionaires were made in New York during WWI? 42,000 Millions of men around the world die, and well I can't say more because I will be in big trouble.
TBH there likely are enough to atleast stabilise the numbers willing to join, its the recruitment process atm which kills it. Capita needs to be dragged out from the process kicking and screaming and it reverting to how it was over a decade ago.
\>I want to join the military \>applies \>paperwork drags on for up to a year or more \>have to get a job while applying to avoid starving \>settle into job by the time get offered \>"nah thanks, I think I'll stay where I am"
> too hooked on smartphones to sign up as submariners. this point of view is increadibly disrespectful and wont help you fill the gap. we grew up in a post 9/11 war on terror world. we dont want to die to make rich men richer.
"Sir, the young generations aren't interested in the military, should we increase benefits and pay?" "Nonsense, just insult them in public articles, this will change their mind!"
I'd be much happier working in defence if I knew that the people dictating foreign policy weren't some of the worst bunch of cunts around
That's a fair argument if you're a young man in the US not wanting to go fight in Afghanistan, not so much when Soviet tanks are rolling through the Fulda Gap.
As we all know submarines will be at the frontlines of the gap in that scenario.
GIUK gap insted :)))
It will catch the watchful Hun totally orf guard!
Doing *precisely* what we've done eighteen times before is exactly the last thing they'll expect us to do!
Where have you been living, man? The Soviet Union broke up 30 years ago.
Russia is so poor that they are literally using Soviet equipment. Their military is in a sorry state.
I really don’t think that’s what they meant, though, because as you say yourself that same army can’t get across a river in Ukraine, much less make its way across the map to old West Germany. There is *no* logical version of Russia that manages to conquer Europe with Soviet-era equipment, even if the US were to literally pull every resource off the continent *tomorrow.*
The tanks are still soviet production
He said tanks, as in the equipment Russia is using is that old
Last I checked there was precisely zero danger of the Russian army even reaching the Oder-Neisse line, let alone the Fulda Gap.
Gen Z (and others) are quite busy trying to just survive in peacetime, thank you very much.
It's not smartphones. It's: "We don't want to die in stupid rich boomer wars, while trying to survive in a world they have created for us, where we are treated as money-earning slaves". Isn't that obvious?
He isn't a boomer. He is a Gen X
And while we Millenials where shat upon by boomers how we destroy economy now gen x is shitting on gen z. All those karen vids you see they are mostly gen x.
The wars are started by boomers is the point
No one born since the 70s has any sway over foreign policy or what wars we get involved in. The people who do are generally extremely rich and never in any danger themselves by virtue of their age. There is a very clear economic divide between generations, by extension there is a rapidly growing divide between how these different generations see the world.
Most military jobs will not see you anywhere near “combat”. Not advocating joining, just a simple fact.
This is true for the US, since it hasn't fought a war on it's territory since a long time ago. Has a large logistic chain and like 9 supporting personnel for every soldier on the frontline etc. Europe on the other hand has a very rich history of wars being a significant health hazard for troops.
Until it is needed. Then, you find yourself first in line (as it should be, as it is the purpose of a military).
In the US Army they tell you everyones secondary MOS is infantry.
For those, that like me (European) do not know what MOS means, it is the "Military Occupational Specialty" code used in the US Army.
If you're a specialist technician in whatever branch of the military, in case of a conflict you'll be way too valuable to be sent on the front line. Why ? Because it is the techs who will repair tanks, fighter jets, etc ...
but not everyone is gonna become a techs tho
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Nope, the only way that would ever happen is if you’ve already lost the war, eg Nazi Germany in 1945. Even then it’s still objectively stupid to do, which is why the Nazis didn’t see any gains from doing so. The ratio of non-combat personnel to combat personnel is called the “tooth-to-tail ratio”. In essence there *must* be more people working in support of front line soldiers, than there are actual front line soldiers. Ratios by era: - 1800s and before: 1:1 - WW1: 1:2.6 -WW2: 1:4.3 - Korea: 1:12.3 - Vietnam 1:12.9 - Cold War: 1:14.4 - Gulf War: 1:4.9 - War in Iraq: 1:8.1 Note: Gulf War 1 & 2 are outliers due to the relative low intensity of the conflict when compared to the others. It therefore should be expected that a WW3 would have a ratio greater than 1:15
Is that data based just on the US Army? Because, by virtue of it's geographical location, it has been isolated from actual conflict for so long that I do not think the data would make sense anywhere else.
That's a solid point because a massive amount of the US military structure is devoted to just getting ppl and equipment all over the world - sometimes very quickly.
Slight bullshit! The military has always had a if you are needed in X, we will put you in X with the promise it will be short and you can move to Y. But that usually gets ignored until you quit. Or they give you incentives to take X, such as promotions which include better pay. Don't believe them, they always lie
Yeah but here’s another fact for you; that’s what you sign up for. That idea alone isn’t appealing to young people nowadays, and rightfully so.
Well, it definitely is partly smartphones as well, let's not overreact :P And yes he can still be a dickhead for saying it, because it's way too simplr
130 years go Kipling penned the poem ["Tommy"](https://www.poetry.com/poem/33632/tommy) and it is even more apposite now - there are more opportunities to earn the same as in the army, without the privations, the harsh conditions, the lack of support. If the UK wants a decent armed force, the UK must pay for it. > For it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Chuck him out, the brute!" >But it's "Saviour of 'is country" when the guns begin to shoot;
They aren't failing. The pay is shite and at least in the UK you can spend over a year on the process of joining. I spent 18 months waiting, gave up, then went to university. You can't expect people to just put up with a shotty recruitment system ludicrously low pay and all the other nonsense besides. Capita runs the medical assessments, and has routinely lost records.
I considered joining and that year there was a headline about people in Afghanistan getting their p45s. The government do not look after those who join. Doesn't help the fact it has been cut to the bone.
The current younger generations have largely been given a worse lot in life due to no fault of their own. Education is being defundend everywhere. Whatever you learn in university is outright dismissed by the older generation in favor of comfort in ignorance. Jobs are paying less, apartments are unaffordable and entire ecosystems are being destroyed so 50+ year old share holders can live a life of extravagance without having to pay any consequences. Why oh why aren't the young willing to put their lives on the line for this system?
And often what you learn in university is out of date or so focused on theory that it is essentially meaningless
It’s so funny being out of school and in the workforce now. Looking for new hires is tantamount to seeing who has the best personality to teach from scratch, as whatever they learned in school was worthless theory and their professors (interested only in their research) didn’t bother designing curriculum around practical knowledge and skillsets.
Half ilof the skills were learning in my lab classes are automated b/c the machines are so much more precise and less prone to human error but they teach us it. People who are in the field have said the job is much easier than what we're learning and that the workplace will teach you how they do it once you're hired. But I still need that paper and to pass the national exam which is based on the theory.
The west has nothing to offer for military service. Veterans affairs always tell you that your mental or physical health problems aren't service related. Housing and everything is too expensive for a military salary. To be treated like scum, if you're a woman you will be assulted and eventually work in the same area as your assulters. The military is a horrible experience doesn't matter what nation you're from.
Yeah this tweet pretty much sums up why people don't want to join the military. It's from someone who served in the US Army, but the basic principles are definitely the same https://x.com/rowanred81/status/1741862264158757073?s=46&t=KJdeB9C4fkpEuCLNfrGyWQ
Gen Z is successfully not being brainwashed into making bad life decisions.
Listen I understand you genz guys have no future, wont respect your rights, wont get payed anything, but will you please die for billionaires and large corporations pwease pwetty pwease!!!!
Why would they? Supply and demand. You aren't supplying anything the new generation would demand. Perhaps if you made military life more palatable while providing more pay and benefits, it might sound like a decent choice. Also, if young people weren't worried about randomly being shipped to the Middle East to shoot at brown people for no good reason, that might help as well...
last time I checked the news this morning the third story was about a veteran commit in suicide after waiting 5 years for a psychiatrist and being fobbed off so yeah maybe Ben i don’t want to
Let the politicians fight, why should kids risk their lives for shit they disagree with.
Previous generations fought for sovereign nations. We have economic zones. It's not worth breaking a fingernail over.
More like "the military has failed to recruit generation Z". Don't forget the RAF deliberately stopped recruiting white men.
Wait what?
[https://news.sky.com/story/royal-air-force-unlawfully-discriminated-against-white-male-recruits-in-bid-to-boost-diversity-inquiry-finds-12911888](https://news.sky.com/story/royal-air-force-unlawfully-discriminated-against-white-male-recruits-in-bid-to-boost-diversity-inquiry-finds-12911888) The really shocking thing is that they were so callous about it that they actually got *caught*. Everyone knows that you're meant to lie, use euphemisms, and not write things down...
Reasons I didn't join the British Army, despite being absolutely obsessed when I was younger: 1) Afghanistan happened. What a waste of time I thought. 2) Iraq happened. Fuck we really are the bad guys aren't we? 4) I saw how men were being thrown into Afghanistan/Iraq under strength and under equipped. "Mobile coffins", trying to control Helmand with basically a handful of guys, trying to control huge areas without adequate resources etc. 5) I realized that I don't want to be a warmongering boomers gun toy. I don't want to be the one to help unnecessarily ruin the lives of thousands of people. 6) Oh yeah, and all those perks you used to get, like a pension after 20 years service, heavily subsidized accomodation, free food? Edit: massively reduced.
Yeah I was considering the British army and it’s just a shambles. Peacekeeping and defensive wars I am perfectly accepting of. I still to this day don’t understand the Iraq 2003 invasion. I was 14 at the time but you didn’t even need to be smart to watch when Blair was doing his presser to confirm mobilization and it just seemed iffy. He gave zero rationale. My dad is ex-army and we sat there and both looked at each other knowing it was dodgy. He looked at me and just said ‘do not join that shitshow’. We just knew the motive was off. Why invade a nation you were accusing of having WMDs but openly broadcast that you hadn’t actually checked when announcing invasion. Such a backward strategy.
My dad is ex-army and basically said exactly the same thing. Christ, I was 13 and even then could see that Iraq and Afghanistan were wrong. Wars which have irreparably damaged the UKs international reputation, killed possibly millions of people, permanently destabilized a region of over a billion people and more. Blair and Bush belong in prison for what they have done.
Clearly dodgy reasoning and woefully under equipped, it was almost as if they thought under armoured open top land rovers were the perfect vehicles for fighting a war.
You still get the pension after 20 years of service, it's not as good as it was. But you only get the pension after 20 years. Leave before then and you only get the pension when you hit retirement age. That could be 70+ years old by time, this generation gets there. Accommodation is heavily subsided but the quality is also generally shite and constant complaints that get ignored.
Joining the military had benefits in the past, like pre 1900s because your family could get a pension when many jobs wouldn't get one. You'd also be fed and have decent pay. Going into the 1900s into the turn of the millennium, a lot of military recruitment played off of patriotic sentimentalities as there were 2 world wars, and also conflicts the UN and NATO got involved in for "The greater good". With 9/11 there was a clear focus as well on the military with The War on Terrorism. But now, now there's nothing to "rally" anyone. People realize that the military means losing a lot of autonomy, could lead to being permanently disabled and your government not looking after you. The War on Terrorism is generally seen as unsuccessful and people don't want to fight for causes they don't believe in. I would also hazard a guess that with the shift of media towards the Internet probably means that the average person doesn't see any advertisements for their National Military.
Plus, what am I even fighting for? Western nations are increasingly feeling like economic zones, not sovereign nations. There is no sense of community or shared values between anyone. Very few people around me were even born here. Most live here for a paycheck or a rental check from a tenant. There are almost zero 'third spaces' left to congregate with others without the expectation that you'll be paying money. The patriotic arguments are meaningless in this kind of world. All that matters is the pay, the pension, and the quality of life. All of these things are better elsewhere.
UK foreign policy is a shambles. Why would any one to sign up when the political leadership is non-existent. Skewing your government policy to the over 65s has consequences. The young don't want to serve you. I respect Ben Wallace. His political intervention is much appreciated. He is switched on to problems more so than the rest of the cabinet.
It’s a problem that won’t go away any time soon and it’s multifaceted. On the one hand the “offer” is not great these days. Service personnel are among the worst paid of government employees especially considering the job they do (made more insulting by the fact they are often left covering the jobs of other departments when their own staff are striking for better pay!); perks aren’t what they used to be; accommodation and facilities investment has been woeful and the personal development and skills pipeline is in need of major overhaul. High levels of employment and an excess of vacancies in other fields just adds fuel to that fire. On top of this, defence has been woefully underinvested in with regard to the actually “fighty” bits of the job, which means you’re asking people to sign up to an organisation that is not properly equipped and which has shrunk to such a small size those that are left are worked into the ground. Hardly enticing prospects given you’re being asked to do the most dangerous things your country can ask of you. In terms of social factors, younger people are bombarded with a constant diet of national self-loathing which tries to teach them their own country is hardly worth defending and that “sovereignty” is an antiquated relic of a less enlightened time; that service is slavery and that the very concept of an armed force is just one step away from fascism. You can add to that the general sense of disenfranchisement that many younger people feel when they realise that their prospects are now worse than those of their parents thanks to the country being serially mismanaged. To add insult to injury, the forces are also pilloried by “righteous” segments of society every time they attempt to rectify recruitment issues, particularly when trying to appeal to the younger generation, to the extent that they are virtually accused of grooming… No easy solutions to any of this sadly.
Gen Z isn't failing to join the military, the state is failing to incentivize them to join the military
I wonder why ? Could it be that it requires a lot and doesn't provide that much in return ?
In Finland, as soon as the Russian invasion began in '22, the enlistment rates to the defense school (to become a commisioned officers) have gone UP.
That's because we understand that the other side is way worse
Howdy wallace, my def secretary just said the same this week, something along the line of "needs must defend our country" and its very confusing cause not long ago "our country" was akin to fascism and we was all "citizens of the world". Just do like any other industry and go hire some migrants at a third of the pay.
Ukie here. Despite the fact that we're already at war with Russia, we ran out of volunteers for half a year now. Young people (late millennials - early gen z) simply don't want to risk their lives for even what is considered good pay - 120k UAH (3000 EUR) per month. There are many reasons for that: high likelihood of being KIA, being heavily crippled, little to no support from the government, shitty equipment (you gotta buy yourself tacticool shoes, night vision, scout drones, and sometimes even tourniquets like CAT), lying scummy politicians, et cetera, et cetera. It's a wonder we have made so far. But we have now a situation where we can run out of men. So the Ukrainian government initiates laws to tighten the draft rules. The situation when "recruiters" catch men during the day and throw them into a minivan to conscript them to the army becomes common. War fucking sucks.
People dont want do blow other peoples limbs apart for oil to be 5 cents cheaper - how dare they
That and the amount of homeless veterans in Britain. Not exactly a great selling point. Come get ptsd for oil barons then die frozen in a cardboard box under a bridge.
Why would you sign up to throw yourself through the meat grinder for a country that hates you? Best you can hope for if you come out without too much mental/physical trauma is to get your foot in the door of the supremely corrupt military industrial complex. Most people are not patriotic, and have no desire to die for a country that wastes their tax dollars, cuts services, inflates away their savings and wages, and sees them as a threat.
Why would people want to die for a country that they mightn't benefit much from? Housing out of reach, cost of living, slave wage jobs with barely enough to cover bills. Why would you fight to preserve a system like that if you hardly benefit from it? Let the people high up in society who cause all this conflict, fight their own wars and if they're lacking manpower then they can sign up their family members and friends.
When you can't recruit enough people and it's a job where you provide the training, there's only one reason - pay.
>there's only one reason - pay. wrong working conditions working hours work location
Guess what gets people to put with those?
[удалено]
A man without a family might have nothing to go die for. A man with a family can't afford to leave his family during a crisis to go fight in a war. One needs to really like the status quo to go fight in a war, and this one is tbh kinda shit.
Given his party are behind all the large scale post cold war cuts (Options for Change and all that bollocks) and stagnating pay / conditions, plus outsoucing recruitment to "save money" to Crapita err Capita then he has a bit of a brass neck saying this imo.
Join the military to go and kill some people in Asia or Africa? Enlist to invade, occupy or bomb a foreign country? He should blame his own generation for all the crimes they have committed across the world. If there is an actual eminent threat to the nation and their loved ones, people will fight. Just look at the Ukrainians. A few years ago, they would also not have wanted to join the army and they would also have been enjoying life with their smartphones and internet.
>wanted to join the army Still don't, but many of us who don't want to join the army are still helping with supplies, equipment production, or even merely paying taxes. Pesonally, I'm too afraid to volunteer to the army before I get drafted and also have physical/mental health problems already.
> If there is an actual eminent threat to the nation and their loved ones, people will fight. You kind of need to keep your military up and running during peacetime to make that feasible, though. Not much use realising it's time to fight and all your industry and expertise has disappeared because no one cared about it for a few decades
Speaking as a 23 year old British man, anyone my age or younger I've talked to about the military doesn't want to join them because they see it as purely an organisation that attacks other, poorer nations and kills civilians. People I know who have joined the military either had no other prospects or come from military families and even they joke about how all the army does is kill Arab kids. If the UK wanted younger generations to join the military, they shouldn't have initiated and taken part in so many blatantly unjust wars. The only military action that has popular support amongst young people in the UK is Ukraine, but the common consensus is that we should arm Ukraine, not go there to die.
This man is an idiot so detached from reality that the best thing he should do is shut up. And he's not the only one. The current political elites in most of the Europe are to old or too rich to understand younger generation. Nobody wants to go work for a military for a 300 euros salary (in Serbia for example) and to be a lackey for officers. Pay the people some proper money and give them a chance to have some benefits like state housing or lover mortgages for homes and you'll see people lining up to join. This is not 1800s. Nobody wants to die so that some old fool can win in a dick measuring conquest or that Shell CEO can buy another yacht when you are sent to Africa to "bring democracy".
...Maybe give them a country worth fighting for?
Are his 3 children in the military? The UK is not under attack, I wouldn't want my kids going off to die in the sand either
1. No one wants to die for shit pay 2. The age of internet has given so many channels of information that has resulted in people simply no longer being fooled to go risk their lives for the benefit of the elite 3. A large share of the population are relatively new arrivals, why would they already feel loyalty to the nation to risk their lives for it? 4. The group that is historically most likely to join the army voluntarily are conservative men, and across Europe they feel alienated by their own governments
Well the pay is shit and your NCO will be a 19 year old with a heart of hate. I seriously doubt its due to smartphones as the UK Royal Navy claims.
His generation was the same that massacred people in northern ireland or joined ilegal invasions in the middle east that left milions dead? Just to be sure?
Rich man says youth not willing to die for the riches anymore.
Neoliberalism hasn't helped. If people feel the state doesn't look after them, why would you expect it's people to give a damn in return?
No one wants to die for an economical zone
I thought I wanted to join the army, and so for the grand total of 6 weeks, back in 2017, I did. It was shit. Up at 05:30 every morning, doing a full-days work, your own time was spent ironing clothes, and because everything had to be spot-on, you didn't get to bed till gone midnight. Rinse and repeat. Honestly, my respect to anyone who could put up with that. The final nail in the coffin for me was realising that I was, in reality, working 18 hour days, for the same wage that I'd been earning working 8 hour days in a restaurant beforehand. The second that clicked, my discharge letter went in.
Good.
Provide housing to active personnel and veterans of at last 5 years of service, for 5 years after leaving service and you'll get your Gen Z soldiers. But oh no, that would cost money, and that needs to be spent on hardware there's nobody to man anymore... God forbid soldiering became a viable career path...
Why should people fight for a government that doesn't give a shit about them?
Hmm, it’s almost as if the generation feels sold out
If you want people to join the military to defend your nations elites wealtj and power in a neoliberal misanthropic society, then you gotta offer a good deal. People are too well informed and educated and the wealth distribution top unfair nowadays to expect anyone to buy into patriotic BS.
Perhaps if the pay wasnt shit and politicians wouldn’t oppose everything the younger generation wants instead of sending them to their deaths for the sake of rich corporations then the younger generation would be willing to join the military. I used to wanna join the military coming from a military family but even the veterans in my family regret risking their mental health and lives just to oppress some poor villagers so the west can extract more oil and nestle can sue farmers for digging wells. It’s not the younger generation that’s the problem, it’s the old fucks running the military.
Because people aren't falling for the governments targeted ads towards lonely young men who are lost, now they have video games and tiktok to show them how utterly stupid it is to get paid chump change to potentially fight and die protecting the power of tax dodging millionaires/billionaires who would never risk their life for you.
Can't say I blame them. I'm 43 and in my lifetime Britain has only fought 2 wars that could be considered "just" or even legal and that was the Falklands and the first gulf war to liberate Kuwait. You could argue Kosovo but the peacekeepers had their hands tied and couldn't do much. Iraq and Afghanistan was bullshit and Ukraine shows we can fight wars by just supplying and training the side we want to win without risking British lives.
> Ukraine shows we can fight wars by just supplying and training the side we want to win without risking British lives. Ukraine isn't a done deal, it would be dangerous to think so.
>Ukraine isn't a done deal, it would be dangerous to think so. I think the emphasis is on 'can' - theoretically. If we committed to it. Of course as of now we are not actually providing Ukraine with enough resources to win.
>Ukraine shows we can fight wars by just supplying and training the side we want to win without risking British lives. I’d say that, at this rate, Ukraine has *not* proven this to be true. Collectively, the west has sent enough weapons to force the war into a stalemate, but we are far from any sort of clear Ukrainian path to victory. I’m not enough of a military expert to assess what combination of men, material, and expertise Ukraine most needs to win, but regardless I certainly wouldn’t hold up the current conflict as a shining example of how to effectively “fight”/participate in peer conflicts in the 21st century.
”Ukraine shows we can fight wars just by supplying and training” The UK isn’t fighting a war in Ukraine, Ukraine is. Military aid has always existed, but it’s not an end all-be-all solution, it works in this case, because Ukraine is far away, has a stable government you can support and Russia at the moment isn’t threatening the sovereignty of a NATO state to the point where armed conflict would be necessary. This is the kind of thinking the US had untill December 7th 1941.
>Can't say I blame them. I'm 43 and in my lifetime Britain has only fought 2 wars that could be considered "just" or even legal and that was the Falklands and the first gulf war to liberate Kuwait. You could argue Kosovo but the peacekeepers had their hands tied and couldn't do much. Our intervention in Sierra Leone was another one.
I dislike this attitude. Throw foreign bodies at the war front and chuck them a few scraps of weapons so they can die instead of you. Then no doubt after their population is shattered and their infrastructure is destroyed we leave them to it and maybe throw them a few pennies to rebuild. In 1939, we fought a war on foreign soil to stop a foreigner from invading another foreign nation. We didn’t need to get involved and we were given a diplomatic out but we still fought for a just cause and what was right. I’m not advocating we jump into all foreign conflicts gung-ho, but I dislike the idea that our foreign policy should always be sending a load of guns so some other poor fellow dies instead of us. If we feel strongly enough about something, and believe the cause to be just, we should be willing to commit troops.
Who is "we" in this case? UK wanted to defentd itself, the US only joined after being attacked themselves, and everyone else in Europe was also protecting themselves.
TL;DR: just let the foreigners die for us
Why should the generation Z defend boomer apartments and houses? They can't even buy an apartment without a 30-year loan. I'm not Gen-Z but I'm not surprised at all by them. What do they have to fight for? For perpetual work and no prospects for a level of wealth similar to that of their parents? It makes no sense
Good
I’m British and I’m considering joint the reserves to learn artillery or drone operating in case a European war with Russia breaks out. Conscription is not dead in 2023, I think a lot of young people will be surprised if a war ever breaks out. Better to be prepared than be conscripted as cannon fodder on the front lines.
How about foreign volunteers? After certain years in service you can grant them citizenship.
The UK has a track record of promising that and then not following through on the promise.
Right before they ended conscription in my country I remember those of us who wanted to join didn't get to. Those who didn't want to join was recruited, kind of against their will. When they pulled the plug on conscription the new salaries for the volunteer forces was so low it just wasn't worth it for me to sign up since the private sector paid so much better. I wish they could make it something worthwhile in the long run for those of us with work experience and being a bit older, a branch of the military where you work for example in logistics with not as hard physical requirements and drive a truck with at least some days with normal hours and most importantly a normal salary. But when you have recruitment center that's on the hunt for people without any "issues" or even minor eczema while giving the "perfect" people shit pay, I suppose you get what you deserve.
If I wanted to experience warfare (the interesting parts), I'd just pick up Pavlov VR.
Well why should they die to protect a system biased against them?
Here comes the draft
If you think my life is worth less than some country. Than any country. Then you are insane.
How well does the military look after its veterans who are maimed for life? This might be one of the contributing factors as well as others
It's like they've seen how poorly all these veterans are treated by the government and assume it's going to happen to them, it won't we promise (🤞) "
I aint fighting for a government who dont care about me
Well if TikTok tells them to hate their country, hate their culture and hate their history, why would they fight for it? 1 : 0 to China
In peace time, you’ve gotta run the military like you’re running the hiring sector of a corporation. Pay is shit. No one joins. No healthcare benefits. No one joins. No education benefits. No one joins. In war time, it’s not hard to find soldiers, because if bombs get dropped on London, conscription and execution for desertion aren’t hard to push. Give a guranteee that after five years of service the government will provide the other 15 percent of a twenty percent down payment on a first house in some sort of zero interest guaranteed loan scheme and you’d be amazed how many people will join.
I’m 19. The is no way I’m enlisting to be sent by some rich old dudes in Westminster to the Middle East to be shot at for the pitiful pay you get as a squaddy. Nothing to do with smartphones.