Germany’s military, the Bundeswehr, recently got the all-clear for a massive increase in investment after parliament voted to exempt defence spending from strict rules on debt.
The country’s top general has told the BBC the cash boost is urgently needed because he believes Russian aggression won’t stop at Ukraine.
“We are threatened by Russia. We are threatened by Putin. We have to do whatever is needed to deter that,” Gen Carsten Breuer says. He warns that Nato should be braced for a possible attack in as little as four years.
“It’s not about how much time I need, it’s much more about how much time Putin gives us to be prepared,” the defence chief says bluntly. “And the sooner we are prepared the better.”
for the first time, Germany possibly gets to be the “good guys” in a world war! Quite a turnaround.
With the Putin-loving, fascist AfD as the second strongest party in the country? We will see, but I do not have high hopes.
I’d like to believe they’ll kick the Nazis out of the bar before they reach the levers of true power, but I’m American and you see how well having that naive hope went for us.
Having said that, I imagine the Germans are at least slightly more cognizant of the risks involved than we are. Difference between “It can’t happen here!” and “It has already happened here and it was bad.”
Having said that, I imagine the Germans are at least slightly more cognizant of the risks involved than we are.
Yeah one would think so, huh? But nope, right now nothing points to that. The last government declined to start the banning process against the AfD even tho the chances of success would have been really high. And that was a coalition of basically the labor party (as far as they think of themselves at least), the greens and some neo-lib shitheads. With the conservative government of right now? Lmao fat chance.
So my understanding is that they are the second strongest, but still at around 20% the other German parties formed a coalition that froze Afd out of power. So they are still a threat in future elections, but they have limited impact on policy for now.
Is that correct or have I got the wrong idea?
Yes and no. In general you are right, but there are municipalities in East Germany that had over 50% of the votes go to the AfD… which is still absolutely insane to me. I’m sure it’s the same in the USA, but cities tend to lean more left and rural regions tend to heavily favor the AfD (or slightly less/more right parties).
Fuck trump, he made world less safe in so many ways and now in addition to threatening Canada and Greenland he appears to be planning to stay a war with Iran.
And get this, the excuse is because they don’t want to negotiate suspending their nuclear program after he broke previous agreement.
Yes. There are actual letters and memos from german leadership about poking the Austrians into making the situation in Serbia worse in hopes a tiping point would give them an excuse to take swathes of Russia and France in the coming conflict.
Bonus points: methods for the handling of jews and other undesirables in the occupied lands were already being talked about
for the first time, Germany possibly gets to be the “good guys” in a world war! Quite a turnaround.
what is this from I must see this immediately
also, yoink.
That is absolutely gonna be a relevant gif in the near future, I can just see it.
Remember the first persons to be harassed, assassinated, detained, sent to concentration camps were german citizen.
The first who tried to resist Hitler’s power, sabotage infrastructure, retrieve and send confidential informations to the allies were german citizen.
A lot of germans were the good guys in ww2 (and afterwards for that matter).
Whatever the conflict, let’s not forget that [country X leadership] is not the same as [country x as a whole].
Cue Red Alert theme
Because Germany is on your side?
Careful that you don’t draw the wrong conclusion.
They’re literally supporting genocide.
Good article.
I appreciate that this was the photo the bbc chose to express German concern over US Russian relations;
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_God%2C_Help_Me_to_Survive_This_Deadly_Love?wprov=sfla1
I wonder, is it meant to look like the famous graffiti?
Germany, Italy, and Japan go to war against Russia and the US. Only this time the former group is the Good Guys.
Italy has a grotesque far right wave RN, they are not the good guys still. Japan is not progressive enough compared to Germany, but I can believe Germany is far removed from being as much as a bad guy compared to the USA & Russia today.
Japan has never really reckoned with its past. They were just pacified.
I judge the country as a whole for this, since they keep electing politicians who continue to do very little to reckon with their past.
I feel a lot could be gained by apologising to the people and nations for the past, and nothing lost, other than nationalistic pride, bring forced into self reflection, and being genuinely sorry on behalf of the country.
People who think they shouldn’t apologise because it wasn’t them personally are stupid, frankly, and standing in the way of reducing tensions.
Will it fix everything in the region? No. Will it take some of the steam out of the war machine? Probably.
Is that why Japan is the only WW II participant who has not fired a shot in anger since August 1945? Japan learned, the rest of you fucks failed miserably and continue to do so.
Go back to WW1 and you’ll have a hard time pointing to good guys. Even WW2 was heavily sketch. The US was halfway in bed with the Nazis under Hoover and only at odds with Japan because it was encroaching on the British opium trade through Hong Kong and Shanghai.
These wars were, at their hearts, the end consequences of a century of industrial imperialism. The good guys were in Latin America and North Africa and the South Pacific, fighting for their independence and sovereignty.
Lieutenant George: The war started because of the vile Hun and his villainous empire-building.
Captain Blackadder: George, the British Empire at present covers a quarter of the globe, while the German Empire consists of a small sausage factory in Tanganiki. I hardly think that we can be entirely absolved of blame on the imperialistic front.
You’re not suggesting that the Axis powers were the Good Guys in WW2, are you?
It feels a bit weird being on the German side for once, also their track record of succeeding isn’t that great, but I love our neighbors and I fully support them.
I’m just, sad the world is falling into another world war while we also just could be more kind and forgiving towards each other. It would save a lot of lives and leads of pain and agony.
Not just republicans. Democrats in the US are right wing too. The entire country is fucked up, the reps just speed up the process exponentially. But don’t forget the most immigrants who have been thrown out was during Obama and Biden. Biden supported Israel too, with loads of weapons.
I call them the Republicrats and get attacked as being a centrist. That is the perversion of this situation is that I don’t think either part of our one party system give two shits about me. The only thing about the democrat faction is they are not trying to put people in real cages. Just trap them in wage slavery.
Their success rate would have been a lot higher if they had known when to stop ;-). I think if the stated goal of defending Europe from Russia doesn’t change that they have a very good chance of success given the numbers they are talking about.
I also wonder how much farther their war efforts would have gone had they not wasted time, men, and resources on ineffective warfare like that massive train driven cannon. Its a lot of effort and resources to set up double track rails just to miss most of your shots.
The crazy thing that still makes my head spin and that I fail to process properly is that Europe would still be under Nazi regime today had they not attacked Russia … despite all the crimes. How do you deal with that? idk
I’m not sure it would. The Nazi economy was supported by plunder, they had to keep attacking to fund it. They couldn’t get to Britain or America, and they had otherwise more or less run out of Europe.
I don’t want to imagine the kind of atrocities they could have committed in the time that it would take for them to collapse, but I do think the collapse would have come
So yes forgiving and all that. Here are the steps: 1 Putin removes his troops from the occupied territories 2 he apologizes 3 maybe someone forgives him.
Well yeah, but what I wished was that he wouldn’t have invaded in the first place, no totalitarian rulers, no people declaring wars as a dick measuring contest. No Putin in the first place. Putin will never give up and apologize, but hopefully he dies and his replacement would retreat, apologize and help Ukraine fix their country. But the chance of that happening is little to none, the next in line is probably just as bad as Putler.
They are good as long as they don’t have a demented drug user has their leader.
I mean the track record is pretty good as long as you don’t just stop at the 20th century.
There were no world wars pre 20th century. But yeah, Germany, Prussia and the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation were pretty successful pre 20th century.
It feels a bit weird being on the German side for once
It should feel “weird” to support genocide.
That doesn’t feel weird, it feels totally fucked up. The Dutch government is the same, maybe not as bad as Germany but still. There’s a ban on supplying them with weapons, but the Dutch government is finding loopholes to do it anyway. I’m totally disgusted by it. Fuck Israel, bunch of fucking nazis. Out of everyone on this planet, especially them should know better.
I don’t see this as Germany leaving history in the past, but being smart to protect their future so the that the lessons of the past mean something.
