Martial law/wartime measures - are these realistic/reasonable?

Cafe Society
1

I am writing fiction about a relatively small Westernized (like Belgium, Poland, or Japan-type) country under attack by an enemy and wanted to portray what life would look like - the wartime deprivation, rationing, martial law, etc. Some of the measures are loosely based off of the UK during World War II, but it’s modern-day, 21st century.

Do these measures sound plausible/reasonable? Anything I’m overlooking?

  1. Nobody is allowed to leave the country, to prevent resentment if the wealthy and privileged/elite can leave, but the ‘commoners’ cannot. This applies even to foreigners, with the exception of diplomats.

  2. Government confiscates all major civilian ships and aircraft on its home soil, regardless of which airlines/carriers they belong to, in order to use them in the war effort.

  3. A lot of reservists are called up, not so much to fight on the front lines, but rather to serve as guards and makeshift police within the home country, and also assigned with distributing rations. To prevent conflict of interest, the reservists are all deployed to a district other than their own home district. The other reservists are put on notice, told that they might be summoned up any day. And some reservists are assigned to “educate” their local districts about how to handle a gun, first aid, purify water, various wartime skills, etc.

  4. All vehicle fuel, such as gasoline and diesel, is commandeered for governmental use.

  5. All airports close. All railways are commandeered for military use only, with civilians only allowed to ride the trains with special permission/circumstances.

  6. Schools close nationwide, and their facilities converted to makeshift hospitals, resource centers, etc. Hospitals and clinics are mostly for military use, with citizens not officially banned from usage, but strongly discouraged from seeking medical attention except in cases of serious illness/injury.

  7. Rationing is done by giving every resident a photo ID with a chip that scans/tracks how many meals they get. They get 2 meals per day. This connects into a national database system. (I haven’t figured out yet how exactly this rationing works from the supply perspective; where the food comes from, how the meals are distributed, etc.)

  8. Citizens with useful skills who want to volunteer in the war effort (to work on factory lines, in refineries, as nurses, etc.) sign up for a national database registry with their relevant skills and get assigned accordingly.

  9. The national currency remains legal tender, in order to keep civilian faith in the government and nation’s institutions and have a sense of normalcy, albeit with strict measures taken to prevent inflation. People also cannot purchase more than a certain amount of food, regardless of how rich they may be.

  10. Civilian private vehicles still allowed to operate, but not much use since there is almost no gasoline/diesel for them.

  11. Beaches and other such likely invasion spots closed off to the public.

  12. No curfew imposed, but with much less nightlife, and also only a few hours of electricity a day, people will naturally be less likely to go out during the dark.

  13. People would consume perishable food very quickly; the ones that need refrigeration/freezing. People also encouraged to grow their own WWII Victory Garden-like food gardens as much as possible, even though the war would probably end before their crops ripened (if their country wins, food will still be in short supply for a while after war’s end; if their country is overrun by the enemy, then they have a lot more pressing concerns than the state of their gardens).

  14. Only the government-run media channels and TV networks, etc. still get to continue broadcasting.

  15. Most of the normal peacetime legal code suspended. No time for things like trial by jury, civil litigation etc. People won’t be summarily shot (this is a Westernized country) but they can’t expect much of a legal trial with formalities, either. Most civil rights suspended.

  16. Citizens encouraged “If you see something say something” since the country is known to be rife with enemy saboteurs and spies, however, government wants to discourage people from abusing this system (i.e., reporting on dislikable neighbor or school bully as a “spy”), and also warns that provably malicious false accusations will lead to punishment.

  17. Medical patients who are very elderly, or in terminal condition, or whose conditions demand a lot of resources, will be triaged and essentially left to die (albeit as humane a death as possible.) This happens at the outset of the war, even before shortages become an issue, and is controversial.

  18. Government sets up an Internet website whereby citizens can report complaints, feedback, suggestions, suspicions or anything that’s on their mind, so that this is a useful pressure valve for unrest or tackling any issue that needs attention. (This wouldn’t happen in pre-Internet wars.)

2

Seizing of foreign assets could make later requests for help problematic.

Rationing was managed in the UK with coupons. Citizens were encouraged to grow their own food to supplement the rations.

I don’t recall the courts being shut down during WW2.

3

Right, but how were the grocers compensated? When customers paid in coupons, what did the grocer get out of it?

4

The grocers were not paid in coupons. They were paid as they had always been paid – cash for the most part. They were only permitted to sell certain goods to people who presented coupons for those specific goods.

In the context of rationing, when you read “coupon” think “permit”. One coupon let’s you purchase a pound of meat. Another coupon lets you purchase a quart of milk. You have to pay for what you purchase, but without a coupon you are not permitted make the purchase at all.

Wiki has a good page on it in England Rationing in the United Kingdom - Wikipedia

5

You paid the grocer with cash, but you couldn’t just walk in and buy rationed groceries unless you turned in your coupons too. You needed both the money and the coupon, the coupon alone wasn’t enough.

The problem with your total war scenario is that a war can’t last that long in a small country. Who are they fighting? If it’s a larger power, why isn’t the small country just overrun? If it’s another small country, what exactly is the war about, and why can’t it be resolved in other ways? And why aren’t the neighbors of the two small warring countries getting involved.

Sure, there have been small scale wars between small countries, the breakup of Yugoslavia and the subsequent Balkan Wars are a perfect example. But those countries didn’t have the strong central governments to enforce all your proposed rules. Sure, there is scarcity, but it’s handled in an ad hoc manner, not by regimented rules. And it’s handled by a bunch of local soldiers noticing that you’ve got a car, or some gas, or some food, or a daughter, or a house, and just taking it and there’s nothing you can do about it unless you want to get shot.

And so grinding conflicts like Yugoslavia go on and on because the central governments are weak or non-existent and the various militias and warlords operate as a law unto themselves.

But if you’re talking about something like Poland being invaded by Russia, the war won’t last long enough for all these things to happen. Russia smashes Poland flat in weeks, except if NATO gets involved, and then we’re talking WWIII.

And if Poland and Lithuania are having a war, the only reason the war continues is because neither small country is strong enough to project war-winning force into the other country. But the total mobilization you’re imagining can’t happen, because the governments won’t be strong enough to make it actually happen. It takes years of planning and preparation and a strong central government and a willing population to make the kinds of measures you’re imagining happen. And they don’t come on all of the sudden, even in Nazi Germany.

6

Ah lightbulb finally makes sense, thanks.

7

The schools would be kept open as long as possible; until it’s simply too dangerous or impossible to keep them running. Aside from maintaining a semblance of normalcy the children have to go somewhere during the day while their parents are at work. Keeping the nation’s children at home is going mean a very sizable percentage of the workforce won’t be able to show up to work. Which would be a major problem since you seem to be going for a total war type scenario like the UK during WWII. British schools remained open; thought many schools were evacuated along with their students. Areas where the schools were closed, but children remained had all kinds of problems. There would be changes to the curriculum; especially at the senior secondary level were older students are going to get a lot of first aid & civil defence lessons.

8

Manufacturing infrastructure might be nationalised. So, car manufacturers might be redeployed as military vehicle manufacturers. In Japan, many small home businesses fed components into the larger manufacturing chains (Curtis Le May’s justification for napalming big civilian tracts of Tokyo).

This fascinating article Breaking the law during World War Two - BBC News indicates that crime went up in the Blitz in the UK because of looting, sexual assaults during blackout, and gangs of boys in the countryside, moved there from big cities. Other crimes included breaching black-out laws, and getting into relations with Italian prisoners! Doctors got into trouble for improperly declaring men unfit to serve. The article notes that there was an increase in crime because there were so many new laws to break.

This caught my eye:

9

Some thoughts:

  1. Nobody is allowed to leave the country…
    Undesirables were usually encouraged to leave, as long as they left anything valuable behind. The risk is creating an alternative government that hates your guts, sponsored by your enemies.

  2. A lot of reservists are called up…
    Excellent way to keep one of your main groups of potential trouble-makers and dissenters under control, unless they realise they’ve just been given free guns.

  3. All railways are commandeered for military use only, with civilians only allowed to ride the trains with special permission/circumstances.
    How will all your precious munitions factory workers get to work?

  4. Schools close nationwide…
    Except in vulnerable areas, I think they’d stay open to encourage normality. Kids on the loose cause trouble, get killed, parents waste time worrying when they could be helping war effort.

  5. Rationing is done by giving every resident a photo ID with a chip…
    Phone app? You could have different companies competing to offer different sorts of rationing schemes with their own benefits - ‘Two Potato Tuesday!’ Decentralises work from govt, and removes their direct responsibility, allowing them to focus on war stuff. Private contractors already build jails and detention centres, and don’t they do a bang-up job there.

  6. The national currency remains legal tender…
    Freeze the currency with a fixed exchange rate before it goes down the toilet completely. Remove / ban notes favoured by black-marketeers, issue stored value credit cards [your idea above], issue war bonds.

  7. No curfew imposed…
    When I’m in charge the first thing I will crack down on is people having ‘fun’ when they should be sleeping / working for the war effort. You have been warned.

  8. Only the government-run media channels and TV networks…
    If I was an octagenarian media magnate, I’d be reminding the Big Cheese that he should welcome the support shown by the media for sensible, nationally-affirming policies, putting patriotism back on the front page, and helping make others toil in the underground sugar mines.

  9. Citizens encouraged “If you see something say something”…
    I’d see lots of ‘othering’ going on, much overt patriotism and flag-waving and suspicion falling on anyone who dissents, objects or looks different or has an ‘enemyish sounding name’ and ‘was seen eating foreign food with gusto’ [actual assertions made in WW2 to Australian govt reporting suspicious characters]

  10. Medical patients who are very elderly, or in terminal condition, or whose conditions demand a lot of resources, will be triaged and essentially left to die (albeit as humane a death as possible.) This happens at the outset of the war, even before shortages become an issue, and is controversial.

  11. Government sets up an Internet website…
    Wouldn’t the govt freeze the internet, somehow?

This is all good stuff for a nation under threat, but what if the real game was domestic control, and the enemies all around us, poised to strike scenario was really to achieve that end? North Korea comes to mind. Also, rather than doing it all itself, a capitalist state may expect and encourage big business to let them do a lot of the hard work in servicing and controlling the population rather than wasting its own resources. And business may feel that there is money to be made in that sort of arrangement, and using modern surveillance and data capture to control the population, in the guise of harnessing the human capital of the nation to win the war.

10

If all the trains have been commandeered for military use, how are raw materials getting to the factories? How are goods getting from the factories to where they are needed? How is food getting from the farms to the cities? For that matter, if gas and diesel have also been commandeered, how are the farmers going to run their tractors to grow the food in the first place? How are workers going to get from their homes to the factories? They won’t need to go to market, because there isn’t any food for them to buy.

11

I think a lot of it depends on the tone you want to portray in your story. Do you want to give it a lot of dark fascist overtones? If so, you’ll want things like internment camps to hold dissidents and other undesirables while they are “awaiting trial” (some of which who are “disappeared”. Lots of checkpoints and paramilitary “reservists” in riot gear, often overstepping their bounds. Black markets, corruption and bribery, particularly with local military leaders who become de facto governors of the region they control. Secret police and intrusive surveillance. Random low-intensity terror attacks and rioting.

Or is it a more “we’re all in this together” tone, with the focus being on resisting an external enemy (more like the UK during WWII). Your reservists are actually members of the local community, actually working together with their neighbors. Maybe some of them are wounded veterans or retired military who help lead the occasional air raid drill or humorously admonish Old Aunt Zofia when she forgets to black out her windows, but not too harshly because she often bakes the local civil defense squad pies baked with blackberries from her victory garden. You still have the same security measures and shortages. But the tone is more that this is something people support and tolerate as a necessary sacrifice for a desperate war effort, rather than instruments of control from a corrupt government.

12

Hmm, good point about the schools, **alphaboi867 **and Banksiaman. OK, sorry kids, maybe school isn’t canceled after all!

13

More along these lines, in fact you described it better than I could.

14

Foreign exchange controls would be imposed to stop you sending money out of the country, and to stop foreign [INSERT CURRENCY HERE] deposit holders draining their wealth out of the country’s central bank. If you have gold coins or bullion you must sell it to the government, at the price they deem legal.
Trains would continue, but they would be fewer and always overcrowded and often delayed if the line was damaged. Specials would be laid on to get essential workers to the start of their shifts. “Is Your Journey Really Necessary?” was a well-known poster displayed at stations etc. My mother commented that wartime train travel was so horrendous that nobody would have used them if it wasn’t absolutely necessary.

15

Good point as well; stop the flight of money from the country.

16

The last part is going to cause massive problems with allied & neutral countries; they will not take kindly to their citizens basically being held hostage. Enemy aliens on the other could be subject to interment (things would be really awkward for dual nationals). Also no matter what exit restrictions are formally imposed the wealthy elite will still find ways around them.

17

Right, but as a strategy it might also force those countries to “care” more about the ongoing conflict and intervene or do something about it. Manipulation-by-hostage isn’t nice, but in war you have to pull certain strings.

18

That’s what the “National Control” is for, to prioritize material transport to the desired destination in the most efficient, expeditious manner possible. Now, pull the other finger!

Likely, the railway management and workers are left in charge of day-to-day operations, since they know which buttons to push, what switches to flip, with priority of “what goes where, and when” being assigned by a Regional or District Director of the National War Board.
Overall: the major problem I see is with modern industrial countries, where workers may live dozens of miles from their place of employment (I currently “enjoy” a 17-mile commute to work) and rely upon privately owned automobiles for their commute. Mass transit would have to be ramped up considerably, else forcible relocation of workers to residences more proximate to their place of employment is desirable, perhaps even mandatory for “critical” workers.

Even in say Japan, or Germany, extended commutes via bus or light rail are not uncommon.

For critical industries, it’s not beyond the realm of possibility to see make-shift “Tent Cities” or mobile-home housing springing up adjacent to mills/manufactories, with workers flocking to them.

FTR, my place of employment is a crime-ridden inner-city hell hole, and I wouldn’t (want to) live their unless a Battalion of National Guard lived there as well, with “shoot-on-sight/hang-out-of-hand” orders to combat the violent inner-city gangs of narcotics traffickers. Which raises yet other problems.
Also: alphaboi’s point about schools is spot on; I could easily see schools being turned into part-time, ad hoc Military Academies/Youth Boy/Girl Scout Schools, with additional classes in basic military skills, especially support skills like first aid, nursing, communications, field kitchens/messes, child care, etc.

Older kids would start getting basic tactical training, and perhaps basic rifle marksmanship drill, preparatory to being inducted into the military immediately upon graduation. Older veterans, too old to fight, but still spry enough to be useful (like myself), might be drafted back into service to be instructors for such institutions after a course of refresher training.

A decent read on this is John Ringo’s Legacy of the Aldenata series, in which modern-day Earth/Humanity is contacted by “friendly” alien races, and told that we’re smack-dab in the cross hairs of a pestiferous alien invasion, with about five years to prepare. Unlike your scenario, Velocity, several of the “friendly,” “allied,” alien races do NOT want to see Humanity succeed; or, if we do, they want us so reduced/dispersed/dispirited as to not be a threat to them, afterwards. Hilarity (and the near mass-extinction of Humanity) ensues.

Mr. Ringo himself concentrates much, much more on the techno-military aspects of the preparation(s) and fight than the civilian/logistical aspects, but a few of the “sideline” novels by guest authors touch upon the civilian/logistical aspects much better, specifically, the novels Yellow Eyes and The Watch on the Rhine, set in Panama and Germany, respectively.

19

The OP’s description doesn’t sound like a country that’s fighting a war - it sounds like one that’s days away from *losing *a war.

20

Yes, because we all know how efficient central planning of the economy can be.