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Originally Posted by Marc
Here are some thoughts from one Western European point of view. Here, nationalities inside the legal state must be taken into account. It’s a day to day fact in the normal life of some European countries. Peaceful and non-peaceful tensions between nationalities and legal states exists in peace time. Tensions would grow up with the prewar escalation. And there’s a good chance that some kind of violent conflict would erupt with the war.
This could affect the number of desertions of the soldiers belonging to these nationalities. The use of the forced conscription option by the state can be the critical point. In most cases, nationalities would tend to disagree with the implication of the state in a foreign war. If conflict erupts between a nationality and the state, a good number of conscript and professional soldiers could choose to desert. This could be aggravated due to the reaction of the state against the nationality and the use of the army inside the state’s borders. As an example, in Catalunya, the forced conscription of Catalan soldiers to fight in the Spanish Army in Morocco started an uprising in 1909.
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I think Americans, and non-Europeans in general, tend to forget that even the so-called Nation-states of Western Europe are in fact patchworks of smaller nationalities sewn into a larger political entity. I'm not talking about the now-famous recently added Muslim immigrant minorities in Spain, France and Germany. I'm talking about ethnic minorities that have lived in Europe for centuries. Catalonia is an excellent example. Germany certainly is a patchwork of political states sewn together by Bismark... how much ethnic and national tension is there between Bavarians and Prussians? My friends in Germany were more likely to comment on divisions between "Osties" and the folks who'd grown up in the Federal German Republic.
For that matter, following the creation of the Dead Zone and the occupation of all areas west of the Rhine, where does the Dutch speaking population in Belgium come down on this issue? Are they Pro-France, Pro-Netherlands, or do they just support France's actions by maintaining their silence? Certainly I can see them hiding Flemish deserters from the Belgian Army. Would Flemish deserters join the Dutch resistance?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Marc
Another point is the capacity of administration to identify and act against deserters. After the nukes, few of them will have this capacity. In a lot of countries, people could blame the government for the destruction. “Look what have caused our implication in other’s war”. I’m pretty sure this will be the feeling in Spain or Italy, for example. People will not collaborate in reporting deserters. In some places, one self’s country will end in the borders of one self’s village. The deserters will be needed at home.
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Another excellent point. The tendency for folks to desert will depend on their likelihood of being turned in to the authorities once they get home. In the former Warsaw Pact countries there is a culture of informants that the Communists have nurtured for fifty years. So I imagine that your chances of getting turned in are pretty good... if the informant can find anyone to turn you in to. But I'm not so sure about Western Europe. Unless the newly returned deserter is causing trouble, where's the motivation to turn them in? The reward? Is there a bounty? Will the bounty be enough to offset the enemies the informant would make by turning in the deserter?
A. Scott Glancy, President TCCorp, dba Pagan Publishing