Quote:
Originally Posted by Itse
One was that if the war in Ukraine was really as popular in Russia as many are claiming, there really shouldn't be a shortage in volunteers on the Russian side. After all, Russia is still a huge country by population, and they're offering really good money for anyone who's willing to sign up. So when the Russian army is filling it's ranks from among the homeless and the prison population, that raises some questions about the lack of actual volunteers.
|
Regardless of how popular a war is, how many people are going to volunteer to risk being killed or seriously maimed in the modern world. Even if many people in Russia feel the war is justified, how many want to die via American drone.
In a modern world, where people have a lot more freedoms (even in Russia, everything is after all relative) and access to education, I just don't see a large desire for huge amounts of people to enlist, generally, and not just in Russia. How many accountants, computer programmers, etc... are just going to up and join the Russian military. Russia has the second highest level of tertiary education in the world. I just don't see a situation where people living in a relatively modern country are signing up on mass to fight in a war, unless it's their country being invaded.
Honestly, that's probably a good thing. It stops modern countries from raising huge armies and then invading their neighbours.