Germany's Bundeswehr: Getting ready to defend NATO.
(www.dw.com)
Comments (10)
sorted by:
Decades of budget cuts and force draw downs. A Lack of parts for much needed repairs to Land, Air, and Naval Assets.
Numerous instances of Soldiers being forced to purchase their own training ammo due to lack of supply.
At least one instance of Soldiers in a NATO exercise being issued Broomsticks and painted logs in place of Rifles, Mortars and Artillery.
A shitload of promises and Funds budgeted but even the liberal estimates on rearmament were predicting at minimum a decade before the Bundeswehr were ready for anything beyond the token Photo op deployments they do now.
Longer still before they could go toe to toe with a Conventional Peer Force
I remember reading about Reforger that year, broomsticks and 3 operational Leopard Tanks to stop thye Russians with. So where has all the money really gone for decades ?
Bundeswehrverwaltung (Administration, non-military a petrified bureaucracy https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bundeswehrverwaltung); environmental protection (training grounds and barracks); construction of a combat room suitable for pregnant soldieresses (IFV Puma under von der Leyen NO JOKE); our army since reunification is a playing ground for corrupt and increasingly unskilled politicians; forced vaccinations up to date; increased manpower losses while noone inlists...
NATO is being exposed for everyone to see. About time the whole truth comes out.
They never had much of a budget to begin with. Their budget has consistently hovered between 40-50 Billion. It only surpassed 50 billion within the last 2 years.
The U.S Marines Budget for 2023 in comparison was 53 Billion.
1 Branch of our Military gets the equivalent of their yearly budget.
Their budget is split between 6 branches. Not to mention several joint R&D projects with the French.
Not to mention I’ve been told at least their acquisition/ordnance board is exclusively civilian. And a slow moving bloated bureaucracy on top of it.
I’d imagine there is some obligatory graft/corruption. There always is. But I’d imagine the bulk of their problems are just from being underfunded and Western Europe being violently allergic to anything resembling Militarism/Nationalism following WW2 and the Cold War.
This is what President Trump had always pointed out.
Defend NATO ......
Whut?
Remember Neuremberg? When a country is engaged in an illegal war, it becomes the duty of it' s citizens to stop paying taxes!
Are you Europeans of the EU listening? Are you ready to go it all the way?
NATO is being exposed.
Have fun with that.
From 1958 to 1972, the West German army grew in strength from 249,000 to 493,000 troops.
Until the fall of the Berlin Wall, the number of troops hovered around 480,000. When the Bundeswehr integrated the National People's Army, with the primary aim of phasing out its structures, the number increased again briefly.
Some 20 years later, there were only about 200,000 soldiers left in the Bundeswehr. By 2023, it only had 181,000 members, according to the German Ministry of Defense.
Only a small proportion of these soldiers are trained to be deployed for combat as part of NATO missions.
Only thing are getting ready for is to fail.