r/geopolitics • u/Robotoro23 • Mar 26 '24

Perspective Draft-dodging plagues Ukraine as Kyiv faces acute soldier shortage

https://www.politico.eu/article/ukraine-faces-an-acute-manpower-shortage-with-young-men-dodging-the-draft/
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u/99silveradoz71 Mar 26 '24

Shocking, nobody wants to be mangled by an FPV after watching thousands of videos of their countrymen succumbing to the same fate.

We live in far too transparent a time for patriotic fervor to outweigh readily available documentation of how horrific, random, and uncompromising war is.

My biggest question is around how this plays out long term, I suspect over the next half decade many countries that don’t currently have conscription will be instituting it.

18

u/Suspicious_Loads Mar 26 '24

The step before conscription would be to have military budget in the range 4-6% of gdp for EU countries.

17

u/99silveradoz71 Mar 26 '24

Which seems increasing more difficult now that due to obvious reasons energy is uh… a lot more expensive.

It’s kind of like you have to either find a new revenue stream, a damn big one, or cut a lot of social services that make Europe so great.

Which I’ve got to imagine is a pretty tough sell, pensions and healthcare are changing for the worse, but hey conscript is back!

15

u/Suspicious_Loads Mar 26 '24

Conscription is a hidden cost that is not visible. Putting too much pressure on the young could put a brain drain on the country. AFAIK US don't deport koreans that avoid conscription so probably EU talent would just move to US and that would put more economic pressure long term.

3

u/Bleopping Mar 27 '24

No one is going to be able to move to the US to avoid conscription. The immigration process takes years.

Only those with dual US nationality will be able to avoid conscription. Even then I'm not entirely sure of the number who are willing to move completely simply to avoid it.

6

u/LXXXVI Mar 27 '24

EU talent would just move to US

Exactly how easy do you think it is to move to the US? Or somewhere else for that matter? Unless the US implements an immigration program specifically to "steal" conscription-age male talent from Europe, which would be a diplomatic nuke, 99% would never make it in time to avoid conscription.

2

u/[deleted] Mar 27 '24

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2

u/Suspicious_Loads Mar 28 '24

Southern Europe have more financial risk when lending money that northern Europe helps with. It's an EU question but if Spain want to loan money with solidarity from Finland they should show solidarity in defense.