“Deploying a reasonable force” doesn’t sound like what’s needed for defence.
I, too, have heard that France is the only European country currently capable of deploying intervention troops somewhere in Africa, for example. But defending against a hypothetical Russian attack is different, I’d imagine that for the German Bundeswehr to help defend the Baltics is little different from operating on German soil. The distances involved are not that great.
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Send the bill for most of the Syrians to Putin.
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Seen.
Indeededly so! But at least France does have experienced troops, gear that works and a will to use the two. But no, its not enough given said hypothetical.
While the distance may not be great, is there political will to operate outside German soil? Even discounting Ostpolitik? Would such an action be at all effective given that the Budeswehr is completely green and mostly not deployable anyway?
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Only barely. It’s been a major hassle to get parliament approval for the Bundeswehr acting outside the country, even those are mostly supportive roles, not bombing and firing at people. And it’s not really popular at home. Balancing the deeply ingrained do-not-kill-provisions, human rights/dignity provisions in the Basic Law and Realpolitik and the requirements of our alliances is very tricky.
Article 87a)
(2) Außer zur Verteidigung dürfen die Streitkräfte nur eingesetzt werden, soweit dieses Grundgesetz es ausdrücklich zuläßt.
“Apart from defense the armed forces are only allowed to get deployed when the basic law explicitly grants permission.”
(Translations may sound clumsy, but I tried to pick words are closely in their meaning as possible.)
Foreign adventures were not among the permissible acts back when the Basic Law was drafted, but Germany loosened up the restrictions since the 1990s. But it’s a slow and ongoing process. The German armed forces are defensive by design and are badly equipped - including legal provisions and public acceptance - to operate outside out borders.
See 2009 Kunduz airstrike - Wikipedia for how the accidental, if not negligent/reckless killing of civilians in what is basically a war zone shakes up the government over here.
And the other part I already mentioned: If Germany would seriously beef up militarily, our allies and partners in the EU, would become nervous, especially Poland, where there are people who still expect us to come back and reclaim the territory ceded de facto around 1950 and de jure in 1992.
For Americans, World War 2 and German agreesion is a time told by veterans and, to some extent, people who fled from war and prosecution. For Europeans it’s a tale of mass victimization of civilians with regular reminders like huge rows of bunkers, mass graves and, of course, unexploded ordnance to be found when you dig deep enough. In Germany, the daily average of that is 15, most of them aerial bombs.
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Given both current political sentiment in Europe on the eastern shores of the Oder-Neisse line and historical experience, this isn’t even an option.
Personally, I suggest you all should step back a second. Diplomacy still is a virtue, even in a world where manly handshakes and hard-core populism seem to replace subtleties.
NATO members are not just defined by and valued because of their military. Even if the current commander in chief of the largest member doesn’t publicly acknowledge this: NATO was and is, foremost, a community of values. This is the current battleground, and the struggle is within.
Thats as per my understanding. Sounds like Russian tanks could reach the German borders while a committee was still in session to evaluate the situation.
So while yes Germany may make great defense equipment, chances of them using any if Article 5 is invoked are essentially nil.
As for me I’m only discussing situational reality, not advocating action by any means. Diplomacy is important and NATO has a role to play there but by its very nature it isnt only a talking shop, “speak softly & carry a big stick” can be relevant here.
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[quote=“Israel_B, post:125, topic:101628”]
Indeededly so! But at least France does have experienced troops, gear that works and a will to use the two.[/quote]
“Experience” is not something that money can buy. You first need to use money to buy the capability to deploy far away from home, and then you can buy experience with the blood of innocent people in faraway countries.
Expressing the explicit wish to have “experienced troops” is just wishing for war. To defend a country, well-trained troops have to be enough.
It probably depends on whether the hypothetical event gets seen as “defending against an attack on Europe” or as yet another “world police” type engagement. No idea how that would turn out, but if I was a Russian president looking to help the Russian minority in the Baltics while expanding my own power, I wouldn’t know either.
But this is about asking for help in a very hypothetical situation. Sure, Germany will be asked last.
True. But lets take another step back and consider the purposes of military power:
- Playing the Game for the Greater Glory of The Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave.
- Well-intended “humanitarian interventions” elsewhere
- Defending your allies or your own soil from military attack.
- Making a military attack on your allies or your own soil too costly.
All we need is #4 and some diplomacy. And sometimes, #4 is very easy and “too costly” means nothing more than “we can’t pass it off as a police action to help a country that is incapable of keeping order in its own territory”.
A lot of the pro-military-spending arguments are based around European countries’ lack of capability to perform #1 and #2.
And an alleged lack of willingness to perform #3 or even #4 cannot be fixed by increased spending, but can sometimes fix itself very quickly when the need actually arises.
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You realize that Russia is a mere 1.400 km from the German border? And I’m not even counting Kaliningrad here.
Bernd Ulrich from Die Zeit summarized it nicely: “Americans are always 4.000 miles bolder when it’s about Russians.”
About the big stick: There is only one reasonable big stick against Russia, if they chose to invade Central and Western Europe: Nuclear Weapons. That’s why American doctrine in those scenarios was “Let’s bomb Germany and annihilate those Russians troops.”
I guess we could fulfill the 2% easily if we’d develop us some nuclear weapons. It’s not like Germany doesn’t know how to mine uranium or to build nuclear reactors, rockets and stealth submarines which can be used to carry ballistic missiles.
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Aside from whether your comment of “blood of innocent people” applies or not and how peacekeeping assignments figure into this, perhaps I could have used the word “trained” instead of “experienced” to better convey my thoughts.
An untrained force will have trouble doing anything no matter how much money goes into a defense budget. Of course that goes back to “not how much you spend but how you spend it”.
Sorry, I hoped the hyperbole would have been obvious in my previous comment.
Theres lots of schools of thought on that and they’ve evolved over the years. One summary of current thought might be “the nuclear deterrent isnt what it used to be”.
Germany like Japan has immediate “breakout capability”, we have 60tons of weapons grade plutonium stored. Delivery systems aren’t a problem either - we build subs with ballistic capabilities exactly for this purpose for Israel after all.
If Germany wanted nuclear weapons it would be a matter of months.
Months, I don’t know. Not of you let the state of Berlin run things. But yes, it’s not rocket science (well, it is rocket science, but we know some about that, too), but in what peace time scenario could Germany build nuclear weapons w/out freaking the Brits, Poles, and Czechs totally out? France would probably feel a bit more secure: We can’t hurt France without hurting us - badly. And vice versa. Both in the military and economic sense. The economic integration worked really well here, a good reason for German to keep that alive and to listen when our neighbors complain about fiscal policy and trade surpluses. It’s not we, as citizens, would be hurt by a better work-life-balance and higher wages.
I suspected some, but culture and distance to the subject at hand makes it hard to gauge the extent. I have little doubt that in the case of an actual, clear attack directed against Germany a response would be fast. In an obviously unprovoked attack by Russia against Poland or the Baltic states, the response would be probably a bit more muted. The main mindset of the Germans after World War 2 was basically “Shit, we don’t need this again.”, with lots of suspicious neighbors, some of them wanting to dismantle Germany and annex part of the territory. I mean, we literally invaded all of them except Switzerland. Though Austria was a bit special.
It’s not about deterrence, it’s about actually fighting against a full fledged Russian attack against Central Europe. It will take at least another generation before our neighbors would not be alarmed by further German militarization, which would also need social engineering to make Germans feel more favorable towards increased military spending and making soldiering a normal, if not honored, profession.
The only thing that could probably speed this up (IMHO, of course, and apart from an actual attack close at home) would be a clear integration of European forces, to a far bigger extent than the modest Franco-German Brigade we have now. But that’s precisely the thing NATO is more or less opposed to, with both the US and the UK running interference when this thing comes up.
No one I follow has moved away from mutually assured destruction, the idea of tactical battlefield nukes has not been considered sane for decades.
As I understand it, its really more the individual NATO members defense agencies and their (sometimes state owned) contractors who take issue with the idea.
After all, no one wants to take the chance that their weapons/comms/etc systems arent going to get chosen and that their contractors wont get a chance at supplying a Pax Europa Militum.
Not everything in this world is the fault of the US or the UK.
I’m not saying that is. But in this case, the Brits only weeks ago threw grind in the gears even though it won’t concern them after May 2019. Except as outside observers, of course.
It’s a pretty safe bet that the Italian/Spanish/Swedish/Dutch/etc governments are also rapidly reconsidering their diplomatic and military allegiances. The leadership of those countries are not without their flaws, but they are generally neither blind nor stupid.
Fascist America is loudly declaring an intention to disrupt NATO and realign with Russia, while the UK appears to be aiming for US-Quisling status, given the recent behaviour of PM May and the Tory press.
Interesting next steps are likely to be:
- Do the Saudis fall for the trap and attack Iran?
- Does continental Europe hold together, or will the EU shatter with the end of NATO?
- How long until Vlad starts fucking around in northeast Europe?
- What are the Chinese planning to do in response/preparation?
Lost me after the first word there.
Not particularly bothered by that; your determination to refuse to acknowledge reality for as long as possible is pretty obvious.
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