Nostr Web Client

I’m actually surprised they’d follow that kind of rule for conscripts. Though perhaps Russian-style conscription is more like “hey, if you value the health of your family, volunteer.”

Peter Todd 1y ago

Russia is a nation of laws. And it's not a strict dictatorship either. Putin needs to follow rules to stay in power. Part of the social deal is that the use of conscripts has limits. That's also one reason why Russia is importing North Koreans to fight in Kursk.

We saw the same kind of thing in WW2 Germany. One of the reasons why Germany lost was the German public was never willing to agree to the level of rationing that, eg, the British public was. Germany was fighting an offensive war by choice. Hitler couldn't stay in power without keeping the German population relatively comfortable.

Reply to this note

Please Login to reply.

Discussion

Autumn Sun ☀️🌘☯️ 1y ago

I'm fairly sure that the last two years of WW2 insofar as Nazi Germany was concerned, any illusion of comfort was if not gone then fast evaporating. By the time the Allies had reached the Ardennes and fuel rationing and hard scarcity was a thing, you'd be back to making deliveries by horse cart and bycicle.

Hitler ruled by brainwashing, fear and secret policing and while Russia technically has a functional representative democracy, let's not kid ourselves that Putin has not clearly set the standards of public discourse irt the "Special Military Operation" that is, establishing a fear of repercussions if you manage to fart in the wrong way in public. (And his Gestapo is just called FSB).

Peter Todd 1y ago

Yes, eventually Germany was fucked. At the end, and post-war, it was to the point where a lot of Germans who couldn't work simply starved to death.

But as I said, earlier on one of the ways they screwed themselves over was not taking the war seriously enough. Hitler, like Putin, had limits to how far he could push the German public.

Now, if Germany hadn't been filled with so many psychopaths convinced of their own superiority, they might have surrendered earlier in the war, before things had gotten to the point where Germans were literally starving to death... But if German society had been better they probably wouldn't have waged war in the first place.