Germany is developing an app to help people locate the nearest bunker in the event of attack. Sweden is distributing a 32-page pamphlet titled If Crisis or War Comes. Half a million Finns have already downloaded an emergency preparedness guide.

If the prospect of a broader conflict in Europe seems remote for many, some countries at least are taking it seriously – and, in the term used by Germany’s defence minister, Boris Pistorius, taking steps to get populations kriegsfähig: war-capable.

Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine has dramatically raised security tensions across the Baltic region, prompting Finland and Sweden to abandon decades of nonalignment and join Nato. Military capability, however, is not all: citizens have to be braced too.

88 points

Smart, since Trump is Putin’s No. 1 fan, America can’t be relied upon anymore to do the right thing

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47 points

As an American, I agree.

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29 points

It’s a disgrace really. He is going to end up pulling a “deal” with his “business Sav” and end up with appeasement for a directly authoritarian regime.

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12 points

It’s why Republicans aren’t concerned about tariffs on Canadian oil-- they’ll just ship it in from Russia instead

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7 points

That makes me want to vomit

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6 points

Birds of feather…

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5 points

I dunno, I think the issue is that Trump wants to do the right thing.

Get it? Eh? I’ll see my way out…

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55 points

Germany: we need to invest in our Army to resist a war

also Germany: let’s spend 835 million Euros in new parade uniforms

https://www.zdf.de/nachrichten/politik/deutschland/bundeswehr-ausgehuniform-ausgaben-100.html

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48 points

History is a closed loop

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7 points

That is fantastic.

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7 points

Then you should check out some other stuff centurii made

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35 points

TBF, the introduction of the new uniforms was already decided in 2018 by the prior government under the MoD Ursula von der Leyen, and the new uniforms will be implemented step by step until 2032.

Er erläuterte, dass die Modernisierung der Dienstbekleidung 2018 entschieden, dann aber zurückgestellt worden sei, um vorher wichtige Kampfbekleidung und -ausrüstung zu erneuern und zu modernisieren. Dies sei in den letzten Jahren geschehen, so dass nun auch das Vorhaben bei der Dienstbekleidung weiter umgesetzt werde.

Zudem erstrecke sich die Finanzierung des Gesamtvorhabens bis 2032.

https://www.tagesschau.de/inland/innenpolitik/bundeswehr-ausgehuniformen-100.html

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15 points

Yeah, it’s just striking how everything has so much inertia. Ukraine has been holding the fort for 3 years now, and we’re looking at those immense budgets for useless stuff.

Same with the bunkers, let’s make an app to see where you can take refuge in one of the bunkers … let’s see… that can hold short of 500 thousand people country wide. That’s fine, 1 citizen in 160.

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10 points

New uniforms aren’t useless. If the Bundeswehr wants to be an attractive employer they need modern uniform. I read online that people who served find the current ones very outdated. We just need to invest more in the military in total

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6 points

it’s not like the money just disappears, it goes into the economy, right?

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1 point

You think uniforms are useless?

I would be interested in hearing why every single military in the world uses them.

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5 points

Yeah, but isn’t part of that always black budget for secret shit?

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3 points
Removed by mod
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7 points
Removed by mod
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3 points

Today to 2032 is eight years. 180k people in uniform, currently. The Ausgehuniform is the service dress uniform, not the parade uniform (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Service_dress_uniform ), so more an everyday uniform outside of combat and… Ah, hell, someone else put it maybe better: https://augengeradeaus.net/2024/11/neue-dienstanzuege-erlaeuterung-vom-verteidigungsministerium/

Stop reading Bildzeitung.

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1 point

alright fair enough, thank you for clearing that up. i’m not reading that piece of shit of a rag btw.

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2 points

Yeah turns out even tagesschau copied these Bild word emissions. :/

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1 point

Germany is also adding reliance of China, which is basically the proxy war handler of Russia

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4 points

Clearly as German imports from China peaked in 2022.

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43 points

Important context: Sweden and especially Finland have long had a defense model based around literally everyone contributing to defending against an occupation. The real change is they don’t consider that enough of a deterrent anymore, hence joining NATO, after seeing Russia bloody itself against Ukraine for several years.

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23 points

Germany is developing an app to help people locate the nearest bunker in the event of attack.

Why would you develop an app for bunkers that do not exist? Peak German

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43 points

Because it’s not about bunkers in the traditional sense, but shelters. Subway stations, parking garages, etc. can be used as shelters, but are not bunkers.

Nobody prepares for a thermonuclear war, but having bombs rain on our cities is unfortunately not impossible.

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8 points

Had the same thoughts on this. Other countries in Europe take this responsibility a bit more serious, for instance Finland.

Also why an App? I’m sure checking my phone is very far down in my priorities list in such a case. I prefer Swedens approach, better to have info material printed out and ready with a bunch of other important documents.

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10 points

Because the German federal administration thinks they can simultaneously address the issue of missing digitalization with an app

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1 point
*

Too true. In case of war, this is pretty much counter-intuitive.

Next they implement a paid version, where the more privileged people will get notified of the even better shelters.

If there’s one thing I want in my life it’s fewer Apps.

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1 point
*

Because you can send an alert on the phone, get the coordinates and the person to the next shelter. There are early warning systems, so that is somewhat possible. Ukraine and Israel use such apps very successfully.

EDIT: Obviously it should not be the only option.

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4 points

I’m more worried about the app being hacked and sending people en masse to the next target of bombs.

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5 points

Im wondering why no one realizes they could just make a map.

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22 points

The netherlands have decided to ignore the problem of civil defence till it goes away. But at least we’re investing in the military again, and we won the allied-military geographic lottery, so I do see the logic.

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