> It looks like the closer you are to a thread, the most willing are you to fight.

I don't think its that simple. The question is "willing to fight a war". German people have learned that when Germany goes to war it is usually not for the best of the country. On the other hand, Germany had "the threat" next door for 40+ years and the willingness to defend was very high. So I think when you ask Germans this question, they will consider the question as if it were "Are you willing to fight an attack war?", not "... to defend your country".

Finland is probably exactly the other way around.

It should also be considered that central Europe has been a very stable place for some time, so somewhat similar reasons will probably apply to other countries as well; wars are not fought in the home countries of central Europeans any more; wars are in the east or south, so when a European country today starts a war, it's difficult to not consider it an attack war along at least one dimension.

Needless to say, "the aggressor in an attack war is practically always the bad guy" has pretty much become kind of a European core tenet.

Right, these percentages show essentially the marginalized likelihood of the question's interpretation and its response. That is to say, it is the weighted sum of the probability of wanting to fight an aggressive/defensive war, weighted by the probability of that interpretation.

What I found interesting is that Sweden, which has had peace for over 200 years, has a really high percentage.

I also think they interpret it this way in Finland (can anyone more familiar comment?). Finland has conscription service in their armed forces, where they focus on a defensive war to protect their country. This might pull them towards the defensive interpretation of 'willing to fight a war'.

You might think of Latvia as a counter argument (41%) but keep in mind that the threat is Russia and only 62% of the population is Latvian. It would be nice to know if they narrowed down what "their" country is (Russia or Latvia). Just because you live in a country doesn't mean you identify with it as "your" country. Assuming that Russians all said no (assuming Latvia was meant) this makes 66% of the Latvians willing to go to war. This is far closer in line with other countries in close proximity to Russia.

For comparison: Ukraine has 77% Ukrainians Finland has 89% Fins

I couldn't find ethnic information by age group or how the question was exactly posed and who exactly was interviewed. Depending on each factor the results of this study might be heavily skewed for Latvia.

For all countries, you seem to be quoting percentages based on (primary) language, not nationality or self-identified ethnicity. Just curious, do you feel it's impossible for a native Russian speaker living in Latvia to identify as Latvian, perhaps both Latvian and Russian?

The number you present for Finland is highly misleading, by the way. We have around 6 % of Swedish-speaking Finns but they almost all speak Finnish, have very deep roots in Finland and certainly identify as Finns just as much as the rest of us -- and definitely not as Swedes. Swedish is even the second official language. As for the rest, I'm sure most of the citizens growing up in an Estonian, Russian, Somali etc. speaking household identify as Finns, too.

In the current Ukranian-Russian conflict, there are a lot of ethnic Russians, speaking Russian, fighting on Ukranian side. While there are plenty of traditional ethnical and cultural conflicts around the world which had the chance to turn violent, the relationship between russian and ukranian people was never even close to this, and it's not the basis for the current conflict.

Germany is closer to Russia than France, and yet less "willing" to go to war.

Japan with 11% is really amazing, and yet it's near real threats with China and North Korea.

It would seem, countries who remember what war is actually like, would rather not fight; that would explain the results of Japan, Germany, France, Spain, the UK. The only exception is Russia, who suffered immensely during WW2 and yet would apparently fight again?

Or does it have something to do with age?

Russian TV has operated in patriotic imperial brainwashing mode for the past 15 years (and their culture in general - for the last 300 years), so no surprise here.

Russia has been invaded every 80-100 years for the last 1000 years. I have understanding for them, it is already some 75 years since the last one.

Russia has waged dozens of aggressive wars during that period, including 2 since 2008

Yes, sure. The first one was their UN peacekeeping units being attacked[1], and that second one was never proved, the only evidence is evidence by repetition, ala Goering.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Responsibility_for_the_Russo-G...

oh really, "there were no Russian troops in Crimea, where's your proof", straight from Russian TV. Now tell us that Boeing wasn't shot by the paramilitaries backed, organized, armed and financed by Russia.

edit: also, your nickname seems very fitting. You a Stalin fan?

Crimea is way more complicated case than "green muzhiks". You could start with Khrushchev and 1954. Or at least the 1992 referendum, which was ignored.

And that Boeing? Really? The evidence for this claim is even worse than for Saddam's WMDs. You didn't even ask yourself cui bono?

Your insight doesn't seem to apply even to the small subset of countries you decided to check it on, which really makes it look more like your preconceived ideal rather than anything you read from this map, no?

I think other explanations (including geographically induced ways of interpreting the question) are rather more likely.

> Japan with 11% is really amazing, and yet it's near real threats with China and North Korea.

And Russia. Japan was the first industrial country to win a war with Russia, so there's some history there as well as with the rest of the Pacific.

Finland participated in the WW2, moreover, also on the side that lost the war.

Of course one should remember that Finland lost WW2 "better" than most countries won it. In fact, many Finns will say that it was a victory. While the war was brutal, Finland is one of the few countries where the casualities were mostly limited to the military. There were only ~2000 civilian deaths. Finland was never occupied[1] and there was no large scale bombing of cities. Finland remained an independent democracy, and prospered after the war. The contrast to the rest of Eastern Europe is pretty stark.

[1]: Only one major Finnish city (Viipuri) was occupied by the USSR (after the civilian population of the city was evacuated).

>lost WW2 "better" than most countries won it

Finland also lost Karelia and other territories in the Winter war. Nominally a different war, but for finns it's a one long conflict with Stalin's Russia.

This reads like Finland was a willing Nazi ally which is unfair. Finland fought a parallel war to the rest of the world. They spent the whole time defending themselves against invasion from Russia. When Russia was invaded by Germany their former allies stopped supporting them and they had to seek what help they could get.

But at the start both France and the UK actually considered sending troops to assist Finland against the Soviets - this was when the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact was in place so the Soviets were effectively Nazi allies at that point.

Almost all European countries had Molotov-Ribbentrop-like pact with Germany, including UK and Poland. MR-pact was just the last one; made after UK and France sabotaged Molotov's effort to make pact with them and after the Austrian Anschluss and breaking of Czechoslovakia. They wanted Germany to attack the USSR and not to be bound to help, just like they looked the other way after Poland was attacked later that year.

Yes, but only the Soviets joined in with the Germans in invading Poland!

Yes, but somehow magically they stopped at Curzon line. I.e. they took back exactly the same lands, that Poles took them 20 years before.

At the dawn of WW2, Poles weren't innocent bystander either. They happily tooks parts of Czechoslovakia.

What "same lands" are you talking about? Poland had same rights as Bolsheviks to parts of Russian Empire.

If you don't know, Lenin proclaimed that Bolsheviks aren't successors to Tsarist Russia.

East of Curzon line. You know, that agreement that was made after WW1 (and therefore after USSR was established) and broken by the 1920-war?

Curzon line was suggested _during_ the war.

Besides, as I said - Poland had the same rights to these territories, so it was a fair game of whoever captured them first.

And if we're talking about broken agreements - Bolsheviks broke that agreement first.

So basically you are saying that it was fair game for Poland to forcibly capture the territory, but when the USSR did the same, it's wrong and despicable?

Nice double standards.

Where did I ever said anything about 'wrong and despicable'?

Sorry, that wasn't you.

It is often used as an argument, that USSR invaded Poland (see above) and therefore they were literally Hitler.

What is forgetten is the B side of the coin, which is the content of this thread.

Yes, they're invaded Poland. And no, Poland didn't captured any USSR territories before that, so you can't justify that invasion.

> Poland didn't captured any USSR territories before that,

Keep telling yourself that. With a sufficient twist, you can rationalize anything!

Please do tell me when Poland captured USSR territories.

Wonderful. This war ENDED in 1921, while USSR was created in 1922.

Please, check your facts better.

Any links for this? It's the first time I hear about it.

For the Polish pact: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German%E2%80%93Polish_Non-Aggr...

Here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJwoygYdTmY is an exchange between Tusk and Putin on the topic. I haven't found a better video.

About the Molotov negotiation, it is in the book by Nikolai Starikov, Who set Hitler against Stalin?, (ISBN 978-5-496-00332-2). It is in Russian, unfortunately. Excerpts have been translated to English, the part I was talking about is here: https://orientalreview.org/2015/04/18/episode-15-poland-betr...

You're confusing non-aggression pacts with MR pact, which in fact DIVIDED Europe between two different dictators and basically lead to WW2.

Also that guy Starikov is nota a historian, but an ultra-right nationalist playing current Kremlin tune. So his "works" should be taken with a truckloads of salt.

Nice ad-hominem and credentialism you have there, do you have anything that refutes his points?

How about common sense?

Or you plan to detail the discussion by switching context to talking about far-right fiction?

Well, if it is a far-right fiction, it will be easy to refute it's point instead of ad-homineming the author, right?

Wrong. That would be derailing.

OK, I take is that you don't have any counterargument, but you refuse it based on ideology.

Have a nice day.

Or maybe the willingness to fight leads to more conflicts?

I agree, I would answer differently to both questions, defend yes, attack no.

> the closer you are to a thread, the most willing are you to fight.

The most close to the threat is being the threat, so I'm not disagreeing.