Opinionated piece by Stefan Wolff, Professor of International Security, University of Birmingham, UK.
… the EU’s largest and Nato’s second-largest economy, Germany is now also aiming to turn its Bundeswehr (the German army, navy and air force) into the “strongest conventional army in Europe”. Its most senior military officer and chief of defence, Carsten Breuer, has published plans for a rapid and wide-ranging expansion of defence capabilities.
Germany is finally beginning to pull its weight in European defence and security policy. This is absolutely critical to the credibility of the EU in the face of the threat from Russia. Berlin has the financial muscle and the technological and industrial potential to make Europe more of a peer to the US when it comes to defence spending and burden sharing. This will be important to salvage what remains of Nato in light of a highly probable American down-scaling – if not complete abandonment – of its past security commitments to the alliance.
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Some friends of mine who did their mandatory military service about 15 years ago told me their MG42 ehhh. MG3s had swastikas scratched into the body.
There is regular scandals with Neonazi groups in the military and police, including stealing weapons and ammunitions and handing citizen data to Nazi terror groups.
We currently see Germany supporting a genocidial and fascist regime in Israel. One of the coalition partners the CSU has embraced Trump and Orban and had high ranking members go there to learn how to do this style of politics. Germany is providing weapons including fighter jets to “strategic partners” like Saudi Arabia.
There is many reasons to be concerned that Germany will be “weird” about it.