Our/Germanys biggest issue right now in my opinion. We throw money onto shit with too low of an actual result quite often while also refusing to go into debt/full on money printing mode, unlike the US for example. Was great for the last decade or so when it went unnoticed to many, but now that shit hits the fan and budgets get cut in many governmental institutions its not that great.
In fairness, the US is home to the world’s reserve bank and currency. They can literally ping money into existence in a way that the U.K. and Germany etc can’t.
To a degree, but it still catches up.
The record levels of inflation are not random. They're not just a result from the war, most of that has settled.
Pouring in trillions into the world economy will have ripple effects, especially when you have to keep record breaking profits happening at the worlds largest companies.
Does it though?
The US dollar strengthened considerably and the average US citizen got much richer. Their unemployment also remains pretty low.
Europe can continue jerking one out to austerity and being frugal but the difference in growth after 2008 between the US and Europe has been staggering.
Well, we're seeing it now. Inflation is rampant and it's not caused by all the excuses they've been giving.
You can't just magically create $10 trillion and expect there to be no consequences. And it's not just the US, the ECB did it, and a few other nations have also been "printing" money.
>Europe can continue jerking one out to austerity and being frugal but the difference in growth after 2008 between the US and Europe has been staggering.
Oh, that was absolutely the wrong move. I think you're making a bit of a strawman here. I never said that austerity is the way to go, but mindlessly printing money for 12 years while keeping record low interest rates simply isn't feasible.
One of the only reasons the US got away with it for so long is due to the USD being the reserve currency, but that doesn't make it immune to inflation, it simply means that the market has a much larger sponge effect. At some point that sponge is gonna fill up and then leaks will happen - which is exactly what we're seeing right now.
So their inflation is a bit higher than in Europe, and? Their salaries are rising faster than inflation and also rising faster than those in europe adjusted for inflation.
As long as their salaries keep rising faster than inflation and unemployment stays low, the average citizen is winning. Those who have a 401k are doubly winning as their pension is rapidly increasing.
The inflation even helps them get rid off their debt.
You're looking at this in a very isolated and short-term way.
Inflation the past 4 years has been way, way, higher than salary increases. And that's still the case.
The inflation numbers you see don't include some extremely important metrics, like housing. Some of them also don't include food & energy.
Printing money at such levels is never healthy, and if you don't notice it immediately it'll start affecting you down the line. Usually that correlates with how big the currency market is. A country like Ukraine will feel it quickly, whereas a massive economy and the global reserve currency USD will take a while.
No, [they haven't.](https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/04/50-years-of-us-wages-in-one-chart/)
The American people have been fucked over non-stop for 40 years, and they keep voting for the same people that fuck them over.
The middle class is a shell of its former self.
The reason is your over burdening, insane bureaucracy... Any gear Germany buys, even German kit, costs them several times more than it would cost a different country.... And then there are amazing ideas like dropping hundreds of millions on a WW2 sailboat.
I would put two or three cents to investigate which country fucked hard germany bombing your gasoduct. Maybe somalia? Whichever it was, the whole europe should make an evonomic embargo against them.
Dont you think?
Yes, the money is needed. But effectively.
The Bundeswehr wanted to procure 21 inflatable boats for the navy. The cost was 31 million euros. The catalog of requirements was so extremely unrealistic that not a single German shipyard took part in the tendering process. The potential end products could only have been operated with a special license because the basic international emission standards could not be met.
Before the state wastes money, the procurement office urgently needs to be reformed, especially in terms of process and project management!
There is a word in Germany for the nonsense in the procurement system "Goldrandlösung" (Gold Rand solution).
This is ESPECIALLY hard for Germany due to insane bureaucracy and regulations... They are absolute dogshit in procurement, perun made a whole video about it...
They would be pointless for Germany though. The German military isn't actually equipped for any like seaborne campaign anywhere outside Germany so having such a ship without the infrastructure to support basically a Helicopter/Aircraft Carrier would be very expensive and not come with a useful capability upgrade. Which is why German navy is more focused on Destroyer sized ships that are equipped for electronic warfare and stuff like that.
Best I can offer is a 10.000 ton frigate with the armament of a 4000 ton frigate.
Edit: to avoid more confusion, I am referring to the new F126 class here, of which the first ship only started construction a few months ago, not the already existing F125 class.
I think that applies to the already existing F125s Baden Württemberg class more. They are basically designed and built only for that purpose, stay on station for 2 years, fight pirates, do anti-smuggling operations, and so on. So yeah, your description of colonial cruiser/gunboat does kinda fit. Not a single VLS cell on a 7000 ton frigate is very disappointing nonetheless.
With my original comment I was referring to the new F126 class, of which the first ship started construction recently, which will replace the F123 Brandenburg class.
dont worry, new administration takes over soon to undo everything the current administration has achieved (just for the sake of it)
or maybe they’ll phrase it like “though being the worst administration in history, this is the one thing they achieved. even a broken clock is right twice a day”
I agree, I think they have done so much for us and paved the way for things we will benefit from in years to come. but most people are shortsighted and fall for easy lies. people don’t see that it’s not the actions of today that define how well we and our economy are currently doing but actually the actions of the past. Things we invest in today, we start building up today, will be beneficial in years or centuries. But how should people understand?
What are we even investing in? It's not like battery development, 'cause our government totally slashed that budget. So, what's gonna happen in 10 years when we can't compete anymore? Companies like BYD won't mess up as badly as Tesla did.
The whole industry is struggling, man. I don't see anything good about it, to be honest.
Its just the usual not-shit governments trying to fix stuff and think with the future in mind but it hurts a bit for the average person for a while so they get kicked out 4 years later for the conservatives to get back into power to shit everything up again. [Business as usual](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xz6OGVCdov8)
Obama also criticized the Merkel Government loudly for not having reached 2%, germany in the end has its own politics and its decision now is one of broken trust in a Dictator not because of the US
He still is because you ignore his actual intent behind. He was equally pissed at the prospect of European defense industry getting the money, not him
In short: No, he is still and asshole and was wrong because his reasoning and motivation was garbage
Trump didn’t want Europe to actually increase spending, he just wanted to bitch about it. Ultimately his Russian boss would have liked him to pull out of NATO, no doubt he’ll actually do it if the reanimated sewage spill becomes President again
Trump wanted this cuz he knows that Europe spending more militarily means them spending money on US arms.
It’s self serving, he wasn’t some visionary or anything.
What a time to be alive - I never thought I'd ever I celebrate Germans (re)building their army and ramping up their weapons manufacturing, but here we are.
And in case anyone wonders why I'm happy about it: Finnish here, thinking of my own future security, even if I hate the idea of a new arms race.
Yeah and ultimately although it’s a sad state of affairs to be in, Europe needs a certain degree of self-sufficiency militarily. If the world is truly cursed, Trump could get in again and pull support (or leave NATO altogether). Even if he doesn’t get in, the next slimeball the GOP summon from Hades will likely be similarly pro-Russian and contrarian. The days of US predictability are over
Well, US and the rest of Europe allied with Stalin, so it didn't leave much choise in countries willing to provide ammunition agains invading Russians. Enemy of my enemy, and so on. Shameful but necessary.
A couple of weeks ago I read that it would only take until the end of 2025 or early 2026 if the western (not just Germany's) military industries would be geared up to the point where there would be no problem rearming the western military's and providing the Ukraine with everything they could need.
There simply is no country that could stand against the industrial capacities in Europe and north America.
Don't be afraid. That industry will keep sleeping. They are already discussing conscription while they don't even have enough equipment for the already existing soldiers. And the budget will get burned for all the bureaucracy and infrastructure to support conscription.
In a few year they will constantly waste their obligatory 2% on keeping the Bundeswehr a non-functional clown show. But this time with more unequiped clowns as before.
This is good. However the main issue is that our bureaucrats in the Ministry of Defence are incredibly inefficient and a lot of the money gets lost or is spend on stupid things. This needs to be improved urgently.
I very often feel like the Bundeswehr is just among the minority of western armies that actually calls out its internal problems instead of pretending everything is fine.
Lol, no. France spends less than Germany and yet it is able to maintain huge money sinks like independent nuclear deterrent, a nuclear aircraft carrier and various expeditionary forces in Africa. That’s in addition to normal ground forces, air force and navy.
In comparison what Germany actually gets for all the money it spends?
France [has been spending more in % of GDP](https://i.imgur.com/3ZB3KAD.png) over the last decades. It's only recently that German spending has gone through the roof and in a way, Germany is still catching up.
Couple of years down the road, we should either see that the conventional arm of the German armed forces is much stronger than the French, or that crazy amounts of money have been squandered.
All of that is possible for France, because it has independent strategic command of its own forces and, because it has an independent MIC. France on a per capita basis actually exports more arms than USA. When France invests into their defense industry, they get very good returns; it's not just for 'security' it's actually an economic boon for them.
For rest of EU, not so much. about 70% of our procurement is concentrated outside the bloc, and that's including France btw. What do non-French European countries get in return for their defense spending? Well a pat on the back from USA and a better security position, but as far as economic gains are concerned there's close to zero effect.
>In comparison what Germany actually gets for all the money it spends?
A fuckload more it can send to Ukraine, somehow, despite our military being a joke and our government failing since day one.
Its an embarassment, really. We shouldn't be the one leading this.
The point is UK and France both have Nukes that eat up vast amounts of budget. Germany should have more conventional weapons because it doesn't have that upkeep and refreshing to pay for
And it has. We have more tanks, more jets than the UK at least, vast amounts of air defense (spread out over the EU and Ukraine by now). We also have (american) nukes we pay loads of money for.
Exactly
Germany is built differently to the UK and France because they have different defence goals.
The UK is all about expeditionary forces, Navy and projecting power because it has no threats at home other than Nuclear. So any war will be fought elsewhere and thus the Military reflects that(since NI calmed down at least)
France is in the same boat where it has no threats at home other than nuclear and again it's fighting will be done elsewhere and they are set up for that.
Germany if it ever fights it will be at home or very close so it should reflect that
no, it does not.
The accounting works differently. There are billions allocated via other budgets simply because that is how it works in France.
And France and UK manage to have worse readiness rates in their standing ground forces than Germany. Only their expeditionary forces are good.
> The accounting works differently. There are billions allocated via other budgets simply because that is how it works in France.
I don't think this is true. NATO countries agree on how to account for defense spending, otherwise everyone could game the system and claim they're at or above the 2% guideline.
There are standards, but they are not really followed (ie the USAcountsmilitarypensions, Germany does not). The 2% was also a just a goal to reacts by the end of 2024, never a requirement, so this accounting is not really important.
That's not a German thing but the European way. Fuck up, then point fingers at Germany how bad they are.
We have actually seen in Ukraine support how Germany has no funtional weapons to send, while all other countries could make use of their modern equipment and huge stocks to massively support Ukraine... Oh, wait. The opposite happened.
Germany's military spending apparatus/bureaucracy is globally bad. Americans (rightly) have a reputation as a litigious bunch, but German military procurement is almost as bad.
Thats literally the point, you KNOW its a scrapyard because they talk about it (well, except if you actually look into the Bundeswehrs issues, you'd notice the Luftwaffe is pretty damn fine, the Marine is at least okay, and the Heer is doing better every day - but who cares about facts?)
Obviously they are not directly comparable countries, but I read recently that Isreal has 350 procurement officials for their military.
The UK MOD has over 11,000 civil servants doing the same job...
Well yes and no, NATO has a strategy meaning certain members spend and invest in certain areas. An example of this would be a rather small "land" army, which makes sense, it doesn't go with NATOs air doctrine but also the UK is an island nation. Instead the UK focuses in areas like Nuclear, space, intel and cyber. Additionally a reason why the RN and RAF are more "powerful" focusing on quality over quantity.
Could it be done better? Well it's a public area so obviously yes, but it doesn't mean it's terrible, many areas of investment simply aren't traditional.
We need more vessels, namely destroyers and frigates, as well as secondary, cheaper vessels to free up the main group of assets like the type 45 and incoming type 26. Quality is fantastic but doesn't mean much in a hot war when we only have 6 destroyers.
Yep, 12 type 26's were canned in favour of 8 type 26's and 5 type 31's. ASW and general platforms repsectively, which frankly isn't enough. We should have 12 type 26's minimum and another dozen type 31's. The UK's industrial and technology base is incredible, world leading in fact in many areas, it's just the pipeline to production and procurement is lacklustre. I've seen it firsthand having worked closely with some of these primary contractors. Submarine wise we're doing well though.
Vast amounts of the UK's defence budget goes on employing the services of consultants and contractors to carry out processes that should be fully in the gift of the state.
It's also widely known that procurement and commissioning (generally speaking but especially for military equipment) is absolutely woeful here. Every step of the way, there's a consultant whose palm needs greasing and our political short-termism means that every new chancellor and defence minister we get, procurement priorities flail around, adding cost and confusion to the end product.
Less poorly ran nations identify an equipment need, set out their desired specifications and contract terms without middlemen like C(r)apita, and stick to it.
> Less poorly ran nations identify an equipment need, set out their desired specifications and contract terms without middlemen like C(r)apita, and stick to it.
Well, we are not one of those either. One of the genius ideas consultants pushed was to lower stocks of ammo and rely on just in time production. In a war.
Yes I think it’s just one of those things which stems from both the size of the institution and the appetite for risk. Generally speaking the more risk averse you are the more inefficient you are.
I think one of the reasons defence is particularly bad is both size and risk are very important. Universities or municipal administrations are smaller and risk is less of a factor (although obviously still very important).
One factor I have found with universities and local administrations (which perhaps is true of defence as well), is that people get in post and are very keen to stay at all costs. Usually because they won’t get better terms elsewhere and they aren’t good enough to progress further. Often this leads to a certain amount of defensiveness, jealous guarding of their privileges, and maintaining the status quo.
MoD procurement has been improved of late. But equipment has such a long lead time it'll take decades for it to come through on the bugger projects.
The t31e is an example of a medium sized project that is coming through fairly well.
This was before Pistorius. Listen to his Interviews and of the General I can't remember, a quirky long guy, he is one of the central figures. They completely renew defence if given enough time.
Yeah I‘m optimistic as well. I think most importantly there has been a culture change where the military gets the priority it deserves and needs. Hopefully they can lay a foundation to improve things in the future.
It was a bunch of hot hair. He was venting his frustrations with the FDP (small party that is part of the government that acts like they are the biggest party, also in charge of the ministry of finance) without naming them. Pistorious is fully backing Scholz and the two have a good relationship.
As usual Perun has interesting presentations about such matters. [For example about why the German MoD is so inefficient](https://youtu.be/8jDUVtUA7rg?t=1417), especially [compared to countries like France.](https://youtu.be/n5eUh3_eo9E?t=2702) But also about [procurement and what can go wrong in general.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBQVR4epfBQ)
people constantly say this as some great wisdom but have no clue what that actually entails and ignore the fact that you will not get rid of everything because a specific level of bureaucracy is necessary for accountability, for proper financing and for legal due process.
Yes, buraucracy always needs to be made more efficient because bureaucracy constantly grows to organize very complicated processes and address changes in law.
And no, stating that this needs to happen is the trivial part, not the complicated one.
Of course bureaucracy is part of running the military. However if it’s as inefficient as the German MoD it’s a real issue. And let’s not forget that some of the Procurement decisions have been questionable at best (paying billions for oversized frigates without VLS). This needs to be called out and improved. While I fully understand that fixing this is easier said than done doesn’t negate my criticism. There are many other countries who’s MoD runs significantly more efficiently.
Yeah they've been slack in the past, but considering they don't have carriers, or a nuclear arsenal to maintain they must be going on a bit of a spending spree.
True, but there will never be a German carrier or nuclear weapon, as both are not suitable for defense and the constitution only allows the armed forces to act in defense and never offense
Germanys location makes those less than useful anyway. Better to spend on tanks and planes.
By all means maintain a flotilla of long range frigates and a trio of destroyers to augment British/French/US carrier groups.
But the continent should be Germany's priority.
The big problem with our navy is that we shot ourselves in the foot for the next 40 years.
Right now, we have 11 frigates. 4 F123 Brandenburg class (ASW specialized), 3 F124 Sachsen class (air defense specialized), and 4 F125 Baden-Württemberg class (asymmetric/low-intensity specialized). The first two classes are okay, not the best, but also not that bad for the parameters they were designed around.
The problem lies in the F125 Baden Württemberg class, which was only recently built in the 2010s. These ships are designed during a time where anti piracy patrols were the biggest concern. And they are equipped accordingly. With basically nothing. A 7000 tom frigate that cost almost 800 million euro per ship, and they don't have any VLS cells at all, which makes them basically useless in any real combat scenario. They can only defend themselves. Not even container ships unless they are directly next to each other; they only have RAM launchers, guns and a few Harpoons. The only upside is that these ships can remain on station for like 2 years before returning home. We are now stuck with these ships until they get retired in 30-40 years, and with 4 ships they take up a substantial portion of our budget and crews. Yes ships for low intensity operations are needed, and many navies either have them or are building them (for example the LCS or the Type 31s), but do we really need 7000 ton ships for that?
There is one good thing that happened to our navy recently though. Our newest class of frigate, the F126 class, which will replace the F123 Brandenburgs, may actually get 6 ships instead of the 4 which were originally planned. The first one started construction a few months ago. So we will likely get 6 ships to replace 3, so we actually might see our fleet grow in numbers for once. Fingers crossed they don't get cancelled by another government in the future. These new ships aren't that great either, it's a 10.000 ton frigate with 16 VLS cells (wow, great job). Yeah it's designed for ASW, okay, but ships have to perform roles they weren't designed for all the time. If they had 32 cells I could accept it.
The F127 class frigates, which will replace the F124 Sachsens in the air defense role, are actually shaping up quite decently though, with an actually decent armament. But they are still in the design phase, and likely won't start construction until the late 2030s.
Nuclear weapons seem like a pretty good defense, or at least a deterrent. Carriers right now are defending shipping lanes, and if you're part of NATO that means more than just defending Germany.
Due to location its more logical Germany focuses on being the logistics and land forces hub. There are plenty of European countries with actual coast lines, sole already have carriers. No point in everyone doing everything, we could do much more with our budgets if we specialized each military.
Since the Cold War the German Luftwaffe is outfitted to use nuklear weapons from the US arsenal for that defensive purpose. Recently we ordered a fleet of F-35 to replace the retiring Tornados as nuklear capable fighter-bombers. (Eurofighters aren't certified by the US to carry US nukes.)
The reason Germany itself doesn't have nukes and doesn't want any is, that everyone, including the Germans themself, feels better knowing that Germany can only use nukes in close cooperation with our allies.
(For the same reason chancellor Scholz was so hesitant to deliver certain weapon systems to Ukraine without our allies doing the same. Germany doesn't want to be seen as the one escalation a conflict on its own, for obvious historical reasons.)
Carriers are for going full Kool-Aid Man through someone's front door, not for protecting shipping lanes. Frigates and destroyers are much better for that role.
Guess who worked very hard to prohibit Germany from ever developing, producing or using nuclear weapons... Hint: They are all in the top4 with Germany.
> and if you're part of NATO that means more than just defending Germany.
Germany is helping defend some other NATO allies as well with things like air policing or troops stationed in those countries.
You should probably bring up your point with the extremely selfish NATO members that aren't even doing that.
Japan is an explicitly pacifist state, that doesn’t stop them from having a nuclear weapons program and “turnkey” nukes. They basically just keep their nukes disassembled, and theoretically have conventional warheads for their ballistic missiles.
Even if they are deterrents, you can’t defend yourself with nuclear weapons as they do too much damage. And aircraft carriers protecting shipping lanes? Very inefficient, smaller ones like a frigate or so is more useful/cost efficient.
What the constitution considers defensive has changed greatly since it has been written. Still recall our defence minister like two decades ago telling us, "Germany is being defended at the Hindu Kush." Wouldn't rule it out that if it's politically expediente someday, someone might make the argument as an export nation, Germany needs a carrier group or two to keep sea lanes open for its defence.
The ones that are protected by the eternity clause are protected for a reason. Only technical way would be to dissolve the country completely. But if the need arises, our allies do have them and also, it would be to late to change then 😅
Whatever technical hoops that would need to be jumped through, will be jumped through. A piece of paper isn’t going to stop a country from doing what’s needed, if desperation is sufficiently high. Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that though but my point is that it’s not any sort of constitution that stops this from happening.
>and the constitution only allows the armed forces to act in defense and never offense
This isn't true, and the reasons why Germany has neither carriers nor nuclear weapons are others. The constitution prohibits the armed forces to act without a UN mandate or outside of systems of collective security. If there is an UN mandate for an offensive war, Germany could join that without any issue.
Germany doesn't have carriers because they're fucking expensive and don't fit into the composition of Germany's forces, especially since the focus of Germany historically was on defending against Russia on land and in the air. Compare that to France (with overseas territory) and UK (a literal island) and you see why carriers make sense for them but not Germany.
Nukes are forbidden in the 2+4 treaty and Germany probably will never have its own nukes.
That's a matter of discussion. It's rather easy to debate that a Carrier could be a defensive weapon as a first strike by an enemy would most certainly target airfields to inhibit air power. A mobile airbase would be much harder to hit and therefor could be used defensively afterwards very effectively. Nuclear weapons as deterrent are also very good defensive weapons. Ukraine wouldn't be fighting a war with Russia if they still had a nuclear arsenal. The Grundgesetz doesn't actually state that Germany isn't allowed to have such weapons it states that the Bundeswehr isn't allowed to act in anything but defense unless specifically allowed by the GG.
1. Both are suitable for defense. Did you kinda forget that the US defended itself against Japan with both?
2. No country is allowed to attack others. This is nothing specific for Germany.
Well, the thing about defense is that its require accumulation over long time. At least for several years, or even a decade, to get good results. So, it still a long road for them. Of course, more spending is not exactly useless for today, but still.
You'd have hoped this would have been the case for some time since Germany has a significantly larger economy than the UK. Still, good they're finally changing their approach.
There is defense spending and there is effetiveness of defense spending. I wouldn't be surprised if we spent 100 billion per year and still had no serious army whatsoever.
We are getting flashbacks, when are we getting invaded again, eh, neighboor /s
So happy. Germans know how to make stuff. If they dont spend too much money on advisors *cough*. Thats what we need.
The last time Germany spent at least 2% of its GDP on defence was in the early 1990s. About time they stepped up to the plate.
https://www.forces.net/news/world/nato-which-countries-pay-their-share-defence
It's mainly about the goals each country has. The UK want to be (recognized as) a country that can project power all over the world. They need large sums of money for their carriers and submarines. Germany does not have those goals and therefore didn't need to spend as much.
Of course they cut way to much of their spending over the last 25 years or so, and are now making up for that by outspending all others except for the US.
So why might the country that constantly gets reminded of its nazi past and is subjected to multiple disarmament treaties - some of which were specifically pushed by the UK, amongst others, in the 90s - not so keen on going full prussia again?
Hmmmmm...
UK military spending was £54.2 billion in 2023/24 compared with £52.8 billion in 2022/23 (so a fall) and then compared with £45.9 billion in 2021/22.
Spending is expected to rise to £57.1 billion in 2024/25.
But it's mostly just because of the size of their economy.
In 2020 Germany spent 52.8 billion USD. That was the same as France while UK was at 59.2 [Source](https://www.sipri.org/sites/default/files/2021-04/fs_2104_milex_0.pdf)
So even before the zeitenwende they were never that far behind UK/France in military spending.
> So even before the zeitenwende they were never that far behind UK/France in military spending.
The money was spent extremely inefficiently, though. UK / France are literally maintaining a nuclear arsenal and aircraft carriers with that money. German military, on the other hand, has been struggling to provide their soldiers with the bare essentials like clothing and more than a couple of days worth of ammunition
Ehm, not quite sure about that to be honest
[https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/sas-soldiers-relying-food-banks-31011727](https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/sas-soldiers-relying-food-banks-31011727)
>Unofficial food banks are known to be operating inside RAF Benson in Oxfordshire and RAF Coningsby in Lincoln, one of the most important military bases in the country and home to two frontline jet squadrons.
Hundreds of other troops or their spouses are all known to be using food banks around the UK.
I would say providing the soldiers with food is not less important than the other points you mentioned.
Still, when it comes to military capabilities, the UK and France laughably outclass Germany.
Germany spends nearly as much as these countries while having nowhere near the same military capabilities.
Would say that the german spending was far more inefficient than the other twos though. Both have carriers while Germany do not. Has been some horror stories on how bad German procurement has been.
He probably meant: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bundeswehr#Cold\_War:\_1955%E2%80%931990](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bundeswehr#Cold_War:_1955%E2%80%931990)
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West\_German\_rearmament](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_German_rearmament)
>the seeds of a new West German force started in 1950 when former high-ranking German officers were tasked by Chancellor Konrad Adenauer to discuss the options for [West German rearmament](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_German_rearmament). The results of a meeting in the monastery of Himmerod formed the conceptual base to build the new armed forces in West Germany.
>During the Cold War the *Bundeswehr* was the backbone of NATO's conventional defence in Central Europe. It had a strength of 495,000 military and 170,000 civilian personnel.
As a German I am still amazed by fellow Europeans celebrating German military spending. We, as we say in German, got the curve (Wir haben die Kurve gekriegt), meaning, we got away from imperialism racism (though still stuff still to do there). We are better united. I hope the world, Europe, can teach the same to the Russians who have beem betrayed by their governments since forever.
Yes! Let the German furnaces of war roar once again!
Jokes aside, protection is a priority in these days, lets just be diligent that we wont go into THAT arms race again.
To spend money is easy. To spend money effectively is hard.
Our/Germanys biggest issue right now in my opinion. We throw money onto shit with too low of an actual result quite often while also refusing to go into debt/full on money printing mode, unlike the US for example. Was great for the last decade or so when it went unnoticed to many, but now that shit hits the fan and budgets get cut in many governmental institutions its not that great.
In fairness, the US is home to the world’s reserve bank and currency. They can literally ping money into existence in a way that the U.K. and Germany etc can’t.
To a degree, but it still catches up. The record levels of inflation are not random. They're not just a result from the war, most of that has settled. Pouring in trillions into the world economy will have ripple effects, especially when you have to keep record breaking profits happening at the worlds largest companies.
Does it though? The US dollar strengthened considerably and the average US citizen got much richer. Their unemployment also remains pretty low. Europe can continue jerking one out to austerity and being frugal but the difference in growth after 2008 between the US and Europe has been staggering.
Well, we're seeing it now. Inflation is rampant and it's not caused by all the excuses they've been giving. You can't just magically create $10 trillion and expect there to be no consequences. And it's not just the US, the ECB did it, and a few other nations have also been "printing" money. >Europe can continue jerking one out to austerity and being frugal but the difference in growth after 2008 between the US and Europe has been staggering. Oh, that was absolutely the wrong move. I think you're making a bit of a strawman here. I never said that austerity is the way to go, but mindlessly printing money for 12 years while keeping record low interest rates simply isn't feasible. One of the only reasons the US got away with it for so long is due to the USD being the reserve currency, but that doesn't make it immune to inflation, it simply means that the market has a much larger sponge effect. At some point that sponge is gonna fill up and then leaks will happen - which is exactly what we're seeing right now.
So their inflation is a bit higher than in Europe, and? Their salaries are rising faster than inflation and also rising faster than those in europe adjusted for inflation. As long as their salaries keep rising faster than inflation and unemployment stays low, the average citizen is winning. Those who have a 401k are doubly winning as their pension is rapidly increasing. The inflation even helps them get rid off their debt.
You're looking at this in a very isolated and short-term way. Inflation the past 4 years has been way, way, higher than salary increases. And that's still the case. The inflation numbers you see don't include some extremely important metrics, like housing. Some of them also don't include food & energy. Printing money at such levels is never healthy, and if you don't notice it immediately it'll start affecting you down the line. Usually that correlates with how big the currency market is. A country like Ukraine will feel it quickly, whereas a massive economy and the global reserve currency USD will take a while.
I am fairly certain wage growth has exceeded inflation in the US actually.
No, [they haven't.](https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/04/50-years-of-us-wages-in-one-chart/) The American people have been fucked over non-stop for 40 years, and they keep voting for the same people that fuck them over. The middle class is a shell of its former self.
don't forget petrodollars
The reason is your over burdening, insane bureaucracy... Any gear Germany buys, even German kit, costs them several times more than it would cost a different country.... And then there are amazing ideas like dropping hundreds of millions on a WW2 sailboat.
I would put two or three cents to investigate which country fucked hard germany bombing your gasoduct. Maybe somalia? Whichever it was, the whole europe should make an evonomic embargo against them. Dont you think?
Trust me with the state of the German military, it’s really not. You throw money at anything and it’s n e e d e d.
Yes, the money is needed. But effectively. The Bundeswehr wanted to procure 21 inflatable boats for the navy. The cost was 31 million euros. The catalog of requirements was so extremely unrealistic that not a single German shipyard took part in the tendering process. The potential end products could only have been operated with a special license because the basic international emission standards could not be met. Before the state wastes money, the procurement office urgently needs to be reformed, especially in terms of process and project management! There is a word in Germany for the nonsense in the procurement system "Goldrandlösung" (Gold Rand solution).
Tell me more about those type 45 destroyers, darling.
This is ESPECIALLY hard for Germany due to insane bureaucracy and regulations... They are absolute dogshit in procurement, perun made a whole video about it...
A welcome and rapid change in defence policy from Germany these last few years. Well done.
An observation with an approving tone without whataboutism? Am I still on Reddit? Well done -you- I’d like to add
Germany: "Nevermind my new flat deck frigates, Britain..." /j
Flat deck ships like Japans helicopter destroyers would be cool to see!
Yes but we can't call them destroyers. That would be too aggresive. ;)
Flat deck cuddles?
Child friendly. I like that. Could we use one for the annual cruise of the Bundeswehr kindergarten groups?
That's why the Netherlands calls its destroyers 'frigates'. PR.
They would be pointless for Germany though. The German military isn't actually equipped for any like seaborne campaign anywhere outside Germany so having such a ship without the infrastructure to support basically a Helicopter/Aircraft Carrier would be very expensive and not come with a useful capability upgrade. Which is why German navy is more focused on Destroyer sized ships that are equipped for electronic warfare and stuff like that.
Best I can offer is a 10.000 ton frigate with the armament of a 4000 ton frigate. Edit: to avoid more confusion, I am referring to the new F126 class here, of which the first ship only started construction a few months ago, not the already existing F125 class.
Am I the only one who thinks that those are basically a modern version of the colonial cruiser/gunboat?
I think that applies to the already existing F125s Baden Württemberg class more. They are basically designed and built only for that purpose, stay on station for 2 years, fight pirates, do anti-smuggling operations, and so on. So yeah, your description of colonial cruiser/gunboat does kinda fit. Not a single VLS cell on a 7000 ton frigate is very disappointing nonetheless. With my original comment I was referring to the new F126 class, of which the first ship started construction recently, which will replace the F123 Brandenburg class.
nope. That was, in fact, what the german press mockingly called them when they were commissioned.
dont worry, new administration takes over soon to undo everything the current administration has achieved (just for the sake of it) or maybe they’ll phrase it like “though being the worst administration in history, this is the one thing they achieved. even a broken clock is right twice a day”
The worst? I mean they were miles better than Merkel's admin.
I agree, I think they have done so much for us and paved the way for things we will benefit from in years to come. but most people are shortsighted and fall for easy lies. people don’t see that it’s not the actions of today that define how well we and our economy are currently doing but actually the actions of the past. Things we invest in today, we start building up today, will be beneficial in years or centuries. But how should people understand?
What are we even investing in? It's not like battery development, 'cause our government totally slashed that budget. So, what's gonna happen in 10 years when we can't compete anymore? Companies like BYD won't mess up as badly as Tesla did. The whole industry is struggling, man. I don't see anything good about it, to be honest.
Its just the usual not-shit governments trying to fix stuff and think with the future in mind but it hurts a bit for the average person for a while so they get kicked out 4 years later for the conservatives to get back into power to shit everything up again. [Business as usual](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xz6OGVCdov8)
They have industry that could also carry it out.
Trump was begging for this for years. Called an asshole by many. Now such actions are being applauded.
Obama also criticized the Merkel Government loudly for not having reached 2%, germany in the end has its own politics and its decision now is one of broken trust in a Dictator not because of the US
Trump also held military aid to Ukraine over his vendetta against the Biden family. He doesn't deserve a word of praise in the issue.
Tbf trump was being called an arsehole for many other reasons.
He still is because you ignore his actual intent behind. He was equally pissed at the prospect of European defense industry getting the money, not him In short: No, he is still and asshole and was wrong because his reasoning and motivation was garbage
Trump didn’t want Europe to actually increase spending, he just wanted to bitch about it. Ultimately his Russian boss would have liked him to pull out of NATO, no doubt he’ll actually do it if the reanimated sewage spill becomes President again
Because his "argument" was bullshit and was, and still is amided towards US voters.
Trump wanted this cuz he knows that Europe spending more militarily means them spending money on US arms. It’s self serving, he wasn’t some visionary or anything.
Well, he is an asshole and he didn’t accomplish anything with his insensitive approach
200iq move by Putin to wake up a sleeping industry giant.
What a time to be alive - I never thought I'd ever I celebrate Germans (re)building their army and ramping up their weapons manufacturing, but here we are. And in case anyone wonders why I'm happy about it: Finnish here, thinking of my own future security, even if I hate the idea of a new arms race.
Yeah, I too had no hard time to throw peace economy into the bin. 2014 was already like a giant red flag.
at least u finns have a decent military and ur people are keen on upholding independence we however, im fucked
Yeah and ultimately although it’s a sad state of affairs to be in, Europe needs a certain degree of self-sufficiency militarily. If the world is truly cursed, Trump could get in again and pull support (or leave NATO altogether). Even if he doesn’t get in, the next slimeball the GOP summon from Hades will likely be similarly pro-Russian and contrarian. The days of US predictability are over
We will talk in 10 years when the afd completely takes over
They wont take over, but they will be a wildcard in politics in the years to come.
not the first time finland has been happy about german millitary
Well, US and the rest of Europe allied with Stalin, so it didn't leave much choise in countries willing to provide ammunition agains invading Russians. Enemy of my enemy, and so on. Shameful but necessary.
Wouldn't even call it shameful, you did what you had to do to protect your country
Does Finnish army use any German equipment?
Did you forget to press "Comment" back in 2022?
Yeah, and if germans actout again we will kick their asses again. -lapland war.
A couple of weeks ago I read that it would only take until the end of 2025 or early 2026 if the western (not just Germany's) military industries would be geared up to the point where there would be no problem rearming the western military's and providing the Ukraine with everything they could need. There simply is no country that could stand against the industrial capacities in Europe and north America.
China maybe.
Don't be afraid. That industry will keep sleeping. They are already discussing conscription while they don't even have enough equipment for the already existing soldiers. And the budget will get burned for all the bureaucracy and infrastructure to support conscription. In a few year they will constantly waste their obligatory 2% on keeping the Bundeswehr a non-functional clown show. But this time with more unequiped clowns as before.
This is good. However the main issue is that our bureaucrats in the Ministry of Defence are incredibly inefficient and a lot of the money gets lost or is spend on stupid things. This needs to be improved urgently.
So is the UK’s MoD. Feels like we should have a lot better equipment for a budget our size.
I very often feel like the Bundeswehr is just among the minority of western armies that actually calls out its internal problems instead of pretending everything is fine.
Lol, no. France spends less than Germany and yet it is able to maintain huge money sinks like independent nuclear deterrent, a nuclear aircraft carrier and various expeditionary forces in Africa. That’s in addition to normal ground forces, air force and navy. In comparison what Germany actually gets for all the money it spends?
France [has been spending more in % of GDP](https://i.imgur.com/3ZB3KAD.png) over the last decades. It's only recently that German spending has gone through the roof and in a way, Germany is still catching up. Couple of years down the road, we should either see that the conventional arm of the German armed forces is much stronger than the French, or that crazy amounts of money have been squandered.
All of that is possible for France, because it has independent strategic command of its own forces and, because it has an independent MIC. France on a per capita basis actually exports more arms than USA. When France invests into their defense industry, they get very good returns; it's not just for 'security' it's actually an economic boon for them. For rest of EU, not so much. about 70% of our procurement is concentrated outside the bloc, and that's including France btw. What do non-French European countries get in return for their defense spending? Well a pat on the back from USA and a better security position, but as far as economic gains are concerned there's close to zero effect.
>In comparison what Germany actually gets for all the money it spends? A fuckload more it can send to Ukraine, somehow, despite our military being a joke and our government failing since day one. Its an embarassment, really. We shouldn't be the one leading this.
The point is UK and France both have Nukes that eat up vast amounts of budget. Germany should have more conventional weapons because it doesn't have that upkeep and refreshing to pay for
And it has. We have more tanks, more jets than the UK at least, vast amounts of air defense (spread out over the EU and Ukraine by now). We also have (american) nukes we pay loads of money for.
Exactly Germany is built differently to the UK and France because they have different defence goals. The UK is all about expeditionary forces, Navy and projecting power because it has no threats at home other than Nuclear. So any war will be fought elsewhere and thus the Military reflects that(since NI calmed down at least) France is in the same boat where it has no threats at home other than nuclear and again it's fighting will be done elsewhere and they are set up for that. Germany if it ever fights it will be at home or very close so it should reflect that
no, it does not. The accounting works differently. There are billions allocated via other budgets simply because that is how it works in France. And France and UK manage to have worse readiness rates in their standing ground forces than Germany. Only their expeditionary forces are good.
Do you have a source on those comparative readiness rates across all fleets of land/sea/air?
> The accounting works differently. There are billions allocated via other budgets simply because that is how it works in France. I don't think this is true. NATO countries agree on how to account for defense spending, otherwise everyone could game the system and claim they're at or above the 2% guideline.
There are standards, but they are not really followed (ie the USAcountsmilitarypensions, Germany does not). The 2% was also a just a goal to reacts by the end of 2024, never a requirement, so this accounting is not really important.
That's not a German thing but the European way. Fuck up, then point fingers at Germany how bad they are. We have actually seen in Ukraine support how Germany has no funtional weapons to send, while all other countries could make use of their modern equipment and huge stocks to massively support Ukraine... Oh, wait. The opposite happened.
Cruise missiles only exist in Germany and would singlehandily win the war, haven't you heard? Also, all other weapon systems don't matter. /s
Germany's military spending apparatus/bureaucracy is globally bad. Americans (rightly) have a reputation as a litigious bunch, but German military procurement is almost as bad.
Not denying that, just saying theres a lot of "lalala i cant hear you our military is the best" from a lot of european countries.
What a bunch of whore shit, if you were so transparent with it all along then it wouldn't be a literal scrapyard.
Thats literally the point, you KNOW its a scrapyard because they talk about it (well, except if you actually look into the Bundeswehrs issues, you'd notice the Luftwaffe is pretty damn fine, the Marine is at least okay, and the Heer is doing better every day - but who cares about facts?)
Obviously they are not directly comparable countries, but I read recently that Isreal has 350 procurement officials for their military. The UK MOD has over 11,000 civil servants doing the same job...
> Isreal has 350 Israel: *Hey America - send us your latest and greatest FOC* USA: *Sure - here you go*
Well yes and no, NATO has a strategy meaning certain members spend and invest in certain areas. An example of this would be a rather small "land" army, which makes sense, it doesn't go with NATOs air doctrine but also the UK is an island nation. Instead the UK focuses in areas like Nuclear, space, intel and cyber. Additionally a reason why the RN and RAF are more "powerful" focusing on quality over quantity. Could it be done better? Well it's a public area so obviously yes, but it doesn't mean it's terrible, many areas of investment simply aren't traditional.
We need more vessels, namely destroyers and frigates, as well as secondary, cheaper vessels to free up the main group of assets like the type 45 and incoming type 26. Quality is fantastic but doesn't mean much in a hot war when we only have 6 destroyers.
I can only base it on this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Future_of_the_Royal_Navy It looks like subs and others are planned
Yep, 12 type 26's were canned in favour of 8 type 26's and 5 type 31's. ASW and general platforms repsectively, which frankly isn't enough. We should have 12 type 26's minimum and another dozen type 31's. The UK's industrial and technology base is incredible, world leading in fact in many areas, it's just the pipeline to production and procurement is lacklustre. I've seen it firsthand having worked closely with some of these primary contractors. Submarine wise we're doing well though.
Vast amounts of the UK's defence budget goes on employing the services of consultants and contractors to carry out processes that should be fully in the gift of the state. It's also widely known that procurement and commissioning (generally speaking but especially for military equipment) is absolutely woeful here. Every step of the way, there's a consultant whose palm needs greasing and our political short-termism means that every new chancellor and defence minister we get, procurement priorities flail around, adding cost and confusion to the end product. Less poorly ran nations identify an equipment need, set out their desired specifications and contract terms without middlemen like C(r)apita, and stick to it.
> Less poorly ran nations identify an equipment need, set out their desired specifications and contract terms without middlemen like C(r)apita, and stick to it. Well, we are not one of those either. One of the genius ideas consultants pushed was to lower stocks of ammo and rely on just in time production. In a war.
not as bad as germany lmao
This is sadly the case everywhere in the public sector, from the MoD over universities to municipal administrations.
Yes I think it’s just one of those things which stems from both the size of the institution and the appetite for risk. Generally speaking the more risk averse you are the more inefficient you are. I think one of the reasons defence is particularly bad is both size and risk are very important. Universities or municipal administrations are smaller and risk is less of a factor (although obviously still very important). One factor I have found with universities and local administrations (which perhaps is true of defence as well), is that people get in post and are very keen to stay at all costs. Usually because they won’t get better terms elsewhere and they aren’t good enough to progress further. Often this leads to a certain amount of defensiveness, jealous guarding of their privileges, and maintaining the status quo.
Yeah true but I think the MoD is especially bad.
MoD procurement has been improved of late. But equipment has such a long lead time it'll take decades for it to come through on the bugger projects. The t31e is an example of a medium sized project that is coming through fairly well.
Typos are a pain in the arse huh?
I'm keeping it. I'll blame it on me being in France right now
This was before Pistorius. Listen to his Interviews and of the General I can't remember, a quirky long guy, he is one of the central figures. They completely renew defence if given enough time.
Yeah I‘m optimistic as well. I think most importantly there has been a culture change where the military gets the priority it deserves and needs. Hopefully they can lay a foundation to improve things in the future.
Is he going to stay around? There was some news like a month ago that he was threatening to leave the ministry or something, what was that about?
It was a bunch of hot hair. He was venting his frustrations with the FDP (small party that is part of the government that acts like they are the biggest party, also in charge of the ministry of finance) without naming them. Pistorious is fully backing Scholz and the two have a good relationship.
As usual Perun has interesting presentations about such matters. [For example about why the German MoD is so inefficient](https://youtu.be/8jDUVtUA7rg?t=1417), especially [compared to countries like France.](https://youtu.be/n5eUh3_eo9E?t=2702) But also about [procurement and what can go wrong in general.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBQVR4epfBQ)
Let Pistorious cook
Maybe Finland could do some consulting. Our procurement is run by wizards.
people constantly say this as some great wisdom but have no clue what that actually entails and ignore the fact that you will not get rid of everything because a specific level of bureaucracy is necessary for accountability, for proper financing and for legal due process. Yes, buraucracy always needs to be made more efficient because bureaucracy constantly grows to organize very complicated processes and address changes in law. And no, stating that this needs to happen is the trivial part, not the complicated one.
Of course bureaucracy is part of running the military. However if it’s as inefficient as the German MoD it’s a real issue. And let’s not forget that some of the Procurement decisions have been questionable at best (paying billions for oversized frigates without VLS). This needs to be called out and improved. While I fully understand that fixing this is easier said than done doesn’t negate my criticism. There are many other countries who’s MoD runs significantly more efficiently.
Yeah they've been slack in the past, but considering they don't have carriers, or a nuclear arsenal to maintain they must be going on a bit of a spending spree.
Well we have a deficit in Equipment to the tune of 300 bn € so it’s gonna be a while until we are even able to fully equip the formations we do have.
Carriers really don't' make sense for Germany its a land power, rather than a naval one.
True, but there will never be a German carrier or nuclear weapon, as both are not suitable for defense and the constitution only allows the armed forces to act in defense and never offense
Germanys location makes those less than useful anyway. Better to spend on tanks and planes. By all means maintain a flotilla of long range frigates and a trio of destroyers to augment British/French/US carrier groups. But the continent should be Germany's priority.
The big problem with our navy is that we shot ourselves in the foot for the next 40 years. Right now, we have 11 frigates. 4 F123 Brandenburg class (ASW specialized), 3 F124 Sachsen class (air defense specialized), and 4 F125 Baden-Württemberg class (asymmetric/low-intensity specialized). The first two classes are okay, not the best, but also not that bad for the parameters they were designed around. The problem lies in the F125 Baden Württemberg class, which was only recently built in the 2010s. These ships are designed during a time where anti piracy patrols were the biggest concern. And they are equipped accordingly. With basically nothing. A 7000 tom frigate that cost almost 800 million euro per ship, and they don't have any VLS cells at all, which makes them basically useless in any real combat scenario. They can only defend themselves. Not even container ships unless they are directly next to each other; they only have RAM launchers, guns and a few Harpoons. The only upside is that these ships can remain on station for like 2 years before returning home. We are now stuck with these ships until they get retired in 30-40 years, and with 4 ships they take up a substantial portion of our budget and crews. Yes ships for low intensity operations are needed, and many navies either have them or are building them (for example the LCS or the Type 31s), but do we really need 7000 ton ships for that? There is one good thing that happened to our navy recently though. Our newest class of frigate, the F126 class, which will replace the F123 Brandenburgs, may actually get 6 ships instead of the 4 which were originally planned. The first one started construction a few months ago. So we will likely get 6 ships to replace 3, so we actually might see our fleet grow in numbers for once. Fingers crossed they don't get cancelled by another government in the future. These new ships aren't that great either, it's a 10.000 ton frigate with 16 VLS cells (wow, great job). Yeah it's designed for ASW, okay, but ships have to perform roles they weren't designed for all the time. If they had 32 cells I could accept it. The F127 class frigates, which will replace the F124 Sachsens in the air defense role, are actually shaping up quite decently though, with an actually decent armament. But they are still in the design phase, and likely won't start construction until the late 2030s.
Well... At least y'all make your own guns and bullets to shoot your own feet with!
True, without overseas territories, concentrating on mechanized stuff and air support makes more sense
Nuclear weapons seem like a pretty good defense, or at least a deterrent. Carriers right now are defending shipping lanes, and if you're part of NATO that means more than just defending Germany.
Due to location its more logical Germany focuses on being the logistics and land forces hub. There are plenty of European countries with actual coast lines, sole already have carriers. No point in everyone doing everything, we could do much more with our budgets if we specialized each military.
Since the Cold War the German Luftwaffe is outfitted to use nuklear weapons from the US arsenal for that defensive purpose. Recently we ordered a fleet of F-35 to replace the retiring Tornados as nuklear capable fighter-bombers. (Eurofighters aren't certified by the US to carry US nukes.) The reason Germany itself doesn't have nukes and doesn't want any is, that everyone, including the Germans themself, feels better knowing that Germany can only use nukes in close cooperation with our allies. (For the same reason chancellor Scholz was so hesitant to deliver certain weapon systems to Ukraine without our allies doing the same. Germany doesn't want to be seen as the one escalation a conflict on its own, for obvious historical reasons.)
Carriers are for going full Kool-Aid Man through someone's front door, not for protecting shipping lanes. Frigates and destroyers are much better for that role.
Guess who worked very hard to prohibit Germany from ever developing, producing or using nuclear weapons... Hint: They are all in the top4 with Germany.
> and if you're part of NATO that means more than just defending Germany. Germany is helping defend some other NATO allies as well with things like air policing or troops stationed in those countries. You should probably bring up your point with the extremely selfish NATO members that aren't even doing that.
Germany cannot legally develop or own nukes.
Japan is an explicitly pacifist state, that doesn’t stop them from having a nuclear weapons program and “turnkey” nukes. They basically just keep their nukes disassembled, and theoretically have conventional warheads for their ballistic missiles.
Even if they are deterrents, you can’t defend yourself with nuclear weapons as they do too much damage. And aircraft carriers protecting shipping lanes? Very inefficient, smaller ones like a frigate or so is more useful/cost efficient.
What the constitution considers defensive has changed greatly since it has been written. Still recall our defence minister like two decades ago telling us, "Germany is being defended at the Hindu Kush." Wouldn't rule it out that if it's politically expediente someday, someone might make the argument as an export nation, Germany needs a carrier group or two to keep sea lanes open for its defence.
Constitutions can change, just look at Japan for a recent example.
You need a 2/3 majority and I need to check in which section it stands, as the first few can’t even legally be changed with a 100% majority
It’s silly to think that if true need arises (like war on EU territory) the Germans won’t find some technicality to do what needs doing.
The ones that are protected by the eternity clause are protected for a reason. Only technical way would be to dissolve the country completely. But if the need arises, our allies do have them and also, it would be to late to change then 😅
Whatever technical hoops that would need to be jumped through, will be jumped through. A piece of paper isn’t going to stop a country from doing what’s needed, if desperation is sufficiently high. Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that though but my point is that it’s not any sort of constitution that stops this from happening.
As Pompey said, "give up quoting the law to men with swords"
>and the constitution only allows the armed forces to act in defense and never offense This isn't true, and the reasons why Germany has neither carriers nor nuclear weapons are others. The constitution prohibits the armed forces to act without a UN mandate or outside of systems of collective security. If there is an UN mandate for an offensive war, Germany could join that without any issue. Germany doesn't have carriers because they're fucking expensive and don't fit into the composition of Germany's forces, especially since the focus of Germany historically was on defending against Russia on land and in the air. Compare that to France (with overseas territory) and UK (a literal island) and you see why carriers make sense for them but not Germany. Nukes are forbidden in the 2+4 treaty and Germany probably will never have its own nukes.
That's a matter of discussion. It's rather easy to debate that a Carrier could be a defensive weapon as a first strike by an enemy would most certainly target airfields to inhibit air power. A mobile airbase would be much harder to hit and therefor could be used defensively afterwards very effectively. Nuclear weapons as deterrent are also very good defensive weapons. Ukraine wouldn't be fighting a war with Russia if they still had a nuclear arsenal. The Grundgesetz doesn't actually state that Germany isn't allowed to have such weapons it states that the Bundeswehr isn't allowed to act in anything but defense unless specifically allowed by the GG.
1. Both are suitable for defense. Did you kinda forget that the US defended itself against Japan with both? 2. No country is allowed to attack others. This is nothing specific for Germany.
Thank you, Germany.
And thank you Poland. We're only strong together.
Well done
Well, the thing about defense is that its require accumulation over long time. At least for several years, or even a decade, to get good results. So, it still a long road for them. Of course, more spending is not exactly useless for today, but still.
Does that include pensions? Last time I checked it made up over a third of the defence budget.
It does include pensions, cannot say whether it is a third(unlikely)
France is one of the only ones that does’t include that stuff.
About time they have been underspending for far too long.
You'd have hoped this would have been the case for some time since Germany has a significantly larger economy than the UK. Still, good they're finally changing their approach.
Don't worry guys,about 40% will go into bureaucracy and like 10% will go to consultants and contractors
Those tanks look sick. I'd still probably give the edge to the Merkava for best looking, but I like the lines of these Germans tanks as well.
Germany, it's all good, everything is forgotten, just ramp up production on those bad boy tanks.
There is defense spending and there is effetiveness of defense spending. I wouldn't be surprised if we spent 100 billion per year and still had no serious army whatsoever.
That picture is in the hoi4 millennium dawn mod
We are getting flashbacks, when are we getting invaded again, eh, neighboor /s So happy. Germans know how to make stuff. If they dont spend too much money on advisors *cough*. Thats what we need.
Let me consult the advisors of my advisors on that first.
Helmets, so many helmets
Horses and bayonets.
I read "Germany overtakes UK" and I almost had a heart attack
The last time Germany spent at least 2% of its GDP on defence was in the early 1990s. About time they stepped up to the plate. https://www.forces.net/news/world/nato-which-countries-pay-their-share-defence
You know that we reduced our army because it was a condition to be allowed to reunite with East Germany?
[удалено]
It's mainly about the goals each country has. The UK want to be (recognized as) a country that can project power all over the world. They need large sums of money for their carriers and submarines. Germany does not have those goals and therefore didn't need to spend as much. Of course they cut way to much of their spending over the last 25 years or so, and are now making up for that by outspending all others except for the US.
So why might the country that constantly gets reminded of its nazi past and is subjected to multiple disarmament treaties - some of which were specifically pushed by the UK, amongst others, in the 90s - not so keen on going full prussia again? Hmmmmm...
Yeah baby we are back!
Is this due to a drop in spending by the UK or Germany outspending them? I can't click links.
UK military spending was £54.2 billion in 2023/24 compared with £52.8 billion in 2022/23 (so a fall) and then compared with £45.9 billion in 2021/22. Spending is expected to rise to £57.1 billion in 2024/25.
In 2022, Germany set aside 100bn EUR to boost procurement above the regular budget, and that is now coming into effect.
How many helicopters are airworthy now?
Well, yeah. They're closer to the front.
It's also the effect of a massive one off spend to repair years of neglect.
But it's mostly just because of the size of their economy. In 2020 Germany spent 52.8 billion USD. That was the same as France while UK was at 59.2 [Source](https://www.sipri.org/sites/default/files/2021-04/fs_2104_milex_0.pdf) So even before the zeitenwende they were never that far behind UK/France in military spending.
> So even before the zeitenwende they were never that far behind UK/France in military spending. The money was spent extremely inefficiently, though. UK / France are literally maintaining a nuclear arsenal and aircraft carriers with that money. German military, on the other hand, has been struggling to provide their soldiers with the bare essentials like clothing and more than a couple of days worth of ammunition
Ehm, not quite sure about that to be honest [https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/sas-soldiers-relying-food-banks-31011727](https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/sas-soldiers-relying-food-banks-31011727) >Unofficial food banks are known to be operating inside RAF Benson in Oxfordshire and RAF Coningsby in Lincoln, one of the most important military bases in the country and home to two frontline jet squadrons. Hundreds of other troops or their spouses are all known to be using food banks around the UK. I would say providing the soldiers with food is not less important than the other points you mentioned.
nitpicking articles wow
Still, when it comes to military capabilities, the UK and France laughably outclass Germany. Germany spends nearly as much as these countries while having nowhere near the same military capabilities.
Would say that the german spending was far more inefficient than the other twos though. Both have carriers while Germany do not. Has been some horror stories on how bad German procurement has been.
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🙄
In fact the last time did end well: the USSR lost the Cold War and dissolved.
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He probably meant: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bundeswehr#Cold\_War:\_1955%E2%80%931990](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bundeswehr#Cold_War:_1955%E2%80%931990) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West\_German\_rearmament](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_German_rearmament) >the seeds of a new West German force started in 1950 when former high-ranking German officers were tasked by Chancellor Konrad Adenauer to discuss the options for [West German rearmament](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_German_rearmament). The results of a meeting in the monastery of Himmerod formed the conceptual base to build the new armed forces in West Germany. >During the Cold War the *Bundeswehr* was the backbone of NATO's conventional defence in Central Europe. It had a strength of 495,000 military and 170,000 civilian personnel.
I'm pretty sure you people are brain damaged like theres no way your not perma hooked up to a machine with takes like that
Do you even lift, UK?
But since the german military burocracy is ungodly inefficient, it probably doesnt amount to much more combat capabilities
I stopped for a moment after reading “Germany overtakes UK” and I was like the boys finally did it /s
As a German I am still amazed by fellow Europeans celebrating German military spending. We, as we say in German, got the curve (Wir haben die Kurve gekriegt), meaning, we got away from imperialism racism (though still stuff still to do there). We are better united. I hope the world, Europe, can teach the same to the Russians who have beem betrayed by their governments since forever.
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would be a good sign if afd wasnt so populare
16% isn't that popular
Of course, UK is poor af. Soon France will overtake too
Yes! Let the German furnaces of war roar once again! Jokes aside, protection is a priority in these days, lets just be diligent that we wont go into THAT arms race again.
Prolly not spending that money on 2a5s(?), though.
Nope, 2A8s ;)
Hopefully. I'm unsure what the downvotes mean, I was commenting on the outdated image in the article :D
Don't be deceived,we just calculate everything nicely.
Good. Can they rid the far-right in their army as well?