Chancellor Olaf Scholz said on Sunday Germany would sharply increase its spending on defence to more than 2% of its economic output in one of a series of policy shifts prompted by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
…”We will have to invest more in the security of our country to protect out freedom and democracy,” Scholz told an extraordinary session of the Bundestag lower house of parliament on Sunday.
Germany has long resisted pressure from the United States and others to raise its defence spending to 2% of economic output in the light of its 20th century history and resulting strong pacifism among its population.
… and then you don’t.
DECEMBER 5, 2022
Germany on Monday walked back its promise to swiftly raise defense spending to at least 2 percent of its economic output — breaching the key commitment made days after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to become a more serious military force.
…During a government press conference, Chief Spokesperson Steffen Hebestreit scaled down expectations for Germany’s defense spending, telling journalists that the 2 percent target would be missed not only this year, but also likely next year...
But then Fräulein Lucy puts the football on point again – “I promise, Charlie Brown” – and you are once again filled with faith, such naïve, innocent faith, that this time is THE time, you believe her. So your legs start to rumble on towards the ball, a rock solid, alluring target under her fingertip…
MARCH 16, 2023
Germany will soon commit itself for the first time in writing to hitting NATO’s 2 percent defense spending target, according to several people familiar with the plan.
…The group has now agreed, however, to enshrine a vow to spend 2 percent of Germany’s economic output on defense, according to the people who have seen the 40-plus-page document and spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive negotiations. That would put the country in line with a long-standing NATO goal that many allies, including Germany, have struggled to meet.
…and then she yanks the mother up at the last second.
You’re laid out flat on your back in the dirt. Again.
The German government has retreated from a plan to legally commit itself to meeting NATO’s 2% military spending target on an annual basis, a government source told Reuters on Wednesday.
A corresponding clause in a draft of the budget financing law passed by the cabinet of Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Wednesday was deleted at short notice, the source said.
Say it with me: Never trust the Germans when they make reform promises on military or foreign policy.https://t.co/2lXpvDRufv
— Patrick Fox (@RealCynicalFox) August 16, 2023
It’s so great being the world’s piggy bank, is it not? We can shovel money out the door to Europe faster than anything I’ve ever seen, and the coolest part about it is how the Europeans don’t even blink an eye.
They expect it. They’re used to it. Europeans get kinda pissed if we don’t fork over the cash when they whine, or when we whine that they don’t do enough to support us as we support their own self interests.
Germany is particularly irksome as it has been the financial juggernaut of Europe for decades, yet the perpetual laggard in defense spending – especially as far as picking up their NATO share.
The Germans have made bank over the decades on manipulating their own national narcissistic personality disorder. They love being the center of attention and dictating the terms everyone else must march to, but when the principles of equality of burden come into play, they fall back on the implied menace of their imperial past. They have to remain economic pacifists, you realize, because no one likes the Germans when they spend military money, and they can barely trust themselves.
It burnishes the German sense of moral superiority while leaving billions of euros free to fribble away as they see fit, as opposed to meeting arbitrary obligations set by countries whose existence they barely tolerate.
This insouciance was nowhere as visible as in the “Defense Ministry” itself, which the Ukraine conflict has completely exposed to be a paper tiger. The current Defense Minister Boris Pistorius took over the position from a woman who had repeatedly embarrassed herself, and was ultimately torpedoed by her own ineptitude and disgruntled leaks out of the active duty ranks themselves.
…Since his first day in office, the new defense minister, who served as a conscript in an air defense regiment in the early 1980s, has felt visibly comfortable managing the military — in contrast to his predecessor, who was still struggling to read service grades one year into the job.
The few troops the Germans had managed to hang on to were ready to mutiny. She had to go.
The Defense Minister prior to that sterling appointee was also female, and an unqualified disaster.
German Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen can keep her doctorate despite “obvious flaws” in her dissertation, a university panel investigating plagiarism allegations said Wednesday.
The decision by the Medical University of Hanover removes a threat to von der Leyen’s job — a fate previously suffered by two of Angela Merkel’s cabinet ministers, who had faced the same accusations.
Vroniplag Wiki, a blog dedicated to uncovering plagiarism in academic publications, last year put out an analysis of von der Leyen’s 1991 dissertation, alleging that up to 12 percent was plagiarized.
…In Germany — which likes its politicians to have an academic “Dr.” before their name — the accusation of academic fraudulence can be enough to undo a career.
Who says there’s no advantages to being a woman? Von der Leyden survived that scandal thanks to being one of Angela Merkel’s besties, and wound up working her way to being President of the European Commission in spite of her shortcomings and borrowed resume enhancements.
She’s doing a great job there, too.
Boris Pistorius is picking up the defense pieces, or trying to.
Germany’s armed forces desperately need more personnel.
Defense Minister Boris Pistorius has declared recruitment a central issue and even conducted job interviews himself.
He wants more speed – and less 'Hollywood'. pic.twitter.com/ff8Pk9gvov
— DW Politics (@dw_politics) August 5, 2023
…German army is not capable of protecting the country against any offensive, said Defence Minister Boris Pistorius. He further alleged that the Bundeswehr is understaffed and under-equipped after being left neglected from the federal government for decades.
“We have no armed forces that are capable of defending [Germany] that is, capable of defending [it] against an offensive, brutally waged aggressive war,” German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius said during a meeting with fellow members of the Social Democratic Party.
…who was supposed to have gotten €100 billion to spend on an upgrade jumpstart. It was approved over a year ago.
On June 3, the center-right opposition in the Bundestag joined forces with the ruling parties to change the constitution and allow the additional debt — an unprecedented occurrence in the history of the Federal Republic.
Since then, Scholz’s center-left coalition has been dogged by broadsides from the conservative opposition and critics who say Germany’s troops have not benefited from this windfall. “The Bundeswehr has tremendous deficits, and the Zeitenwende hasn’t even started in it,” Roderich Kiesewetter, foreign policy spokesman for the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) told the Augsburger Allgemeine newspaper on Monday. “The military has lost a year and is barer than it was at the start of 2022.”
Inflation and interest payments are eating away at the unspent funds, which might, right now, realistically only have €60-70B to spend on actual stuff.
Currently, the Scholz government is facing the very real, imminent threat of deindustrialization, thanks primarily to, again, Merkel’s and subsequent German governments’ insistence on transitioning to renewable energy sources. The German economy is looking at predicted negative GDP growth – the worst in all of the G7 countries. Most of the other EU members look as of they may just squeak by in positive territory and they are nowhere near the mighty German economy’s size.
That has to be absolutely galling. But it is absolutely self-inflicted.
Betting on the back step in the perpetual German NATO two-step was solid money right now.
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