We live in uncertain times , trump may have a point that we as European countries should pull our weight a bit more with our defence , the difficulty is not to be seen as a puppet of the trump administration,
i think Europe has to do as Canada has - take back power from the US. I do wonder how the US military will feel about not being top dog. Only time will tell.
I read an interesting stat this week: one Chinese shipyard has twenty times the productive capacity of all the entire United States. Its total shipbuilding capacity is some 200 times greater. This suggests, that even under a rational government, the US has more than enough on its plate dealing with the threat from the PRC.
We in Europe, all of us, urgently need to take control of our own security if we are to prevent the new Russian Warlord State, backed by that same Chinese productive capacity, from becoming the hegemon of Europe.
Very interesting insight again. This debate, while rooted in a different past , is showing signs of igniting here in Ireland - we too have shunned developing a strong militaristic defence force not least because of the impact of armed conflict with Britain and then between ourselves 100 plus years ago. Ireland has not regarded it necessary or wise to spend on its military strength preferring to be a voice, small but morally significant ,for peace in the world. It is worrying that larger nations now consider it essential to gear up for military conflict - the world peace project I grew up believing in looks set to be cast aside as narcissist male leaders flex muscles and insult each other.
I read this earlier today. Not long after I read your piece I heard discussion on R4 about the British Army. It appears it too is fancy significant problems or recruitment. I had no idea the Heer was, for want of a better expression, so relaxed. Good article Katja.
You wonder if that won t end up as a Be careful what you asked for. As the NATO s inofficial moto is. THe the Sowiet s/ Russian s out, the American s in and the German s down
I am not qualified to comment on the ‘German-side’ of this issue - but I would point out that not all Prussian officers were Nazis/SS. Quite the contrary, most were fine, dedicated professionals.
In general terms, whatever the prize pillocks we have for leaders in Berlin, Paris and London believe, nothing they claim about their respective military policies is realistically achievable.
However much they want to increase ‘defence’ spending it matters not. They can spend whatever they like on the latest hardware - but the fact is, the software is faulty, and, as things stand, it cannot be solved overnight
Being a soldier is hard, very hard, and for two generations at least, masses of our young people have been brought up to be selfish and soft, completely unable to tolerate discomfort our hardship never mind deal in death.
Stories I hear from today’s military and police are quite depressing. In the early-90s, pound-for-pound Britain still had the best military and police in the world.
Now we only have the best special forces. The rest has been ruined by lowered standards, slack discipline and over-feminization.
When it comes to the armed services (and the police), whatever the question, the solution ‘increase the number of females and trans-sexuals’ is seldom correct.
Females in the infantry contravenes nature. In navies, females aboard ship prejudices order and discipline (they should have their own ships) and in police forces, increasing the proportion of females from the traditional (and useful 12% to 33% has been an unmitigated disaster in Britain.
The quality of our young population has been substantially denuded - both physically and emotionally they are not fit for uniformed service.
Yet Merz, Starmer and Macron have said they could be sent to Ukraine - they would not last a week.
If these clowns want stronger military, then they have to toughen their people up - it will not happen of course, but if it did it would take 20yrs……and require some Prussian discipline, not gimmicky recruitment practices.
I entirely agree with the comments of the Dilettante Polymath on your excellent article, Katja. Generations of young Germans have been taught in school that we must learn the lessons of German history. German history was always resumed in “the Nazis; the Third Reich”. There hardly seemed to be any other German history. The former British ambassador to Germany Sir Paul Lever has described how he saw Germany’s break with its past:
Coming to terms with the past (for which the word Vergangenheitsbewältigung has entered the German language) has had wider implications for German public policy. It has led to a rejection not only of the Nazi period, but of the whole of previous German history. Nothing which happened before 1945 is accorded any public value or respect. No event – political, economic or social, let alone military – is commemorated, no achievement lauded, no individual lionised. The country has simply… moved on.
To build up a new conventional army in Europe able to defend Germany and its European allies, the Germans – both East and West Germans - will have to build a new national conscience that includes the positive German – Prussian - military traditions, from Frederick the Great over Carl von Clausewitz and the wars of liberation against Napoleon. A quotation from Robert Graves’ book "Goodbye to All That" shows the respect many British soldiers had at the end of WWI for their German enemies:
The eighteenth Century owed its unpopularity largely to its Frenchness. Anti-French Feeling among most ex-soldiers amounted almost to an obsession. Edmund, shaking with nerves, used to say at this time: ‘No more wars for me at any price! Except against the French. If there’s ever a war with them, I’ll go like a shot.’ Pro-German Feeling had been increasing. With the war over and the German armies beaten, we could give the German soldier credit for being the most efficient fighting-man in Europe. I often heard it said that only the blockade had beaten the Fritzes; that in Haig’s last push they never really broke, and that their machine-gun sections held us up long enough to cover the withdrawal of the main Forces. Some undergraduates even insisted that we had been fighting on the wrong side: our natural enemies were the French.
Such was the reputation of German soldiers, in a similar way like the reputation that German trains ran on time and Made in Germany was a guarantee of quality. It needs more than a debt-financed multi-billion budget to re-build a national German conscience living up to its former reputation that, if something went wrong, the Germans will do something about it.
We live in uncertain times , trump may have a point that we as European countries should pull our weight a bit more with our defence , the difficulty is not to be seen as a puppet of the trump administration,
i think Europe has to do as Canada has - take back power from the US. I do wonder how the US military will feel about not being top dog. Only time will tell.
What on earth are you talking about?
I read an interesting stat this week: one Chinese shipyard has twenty times the productive capacity of all the entire United States. Its total shipbuilding capacity is some 200 times greater. This suggests, that even under a rational government, the US has more than enough on its plate dealing with the threat from the PRC.
We in Europe, all of us, urgently need to take control of our own security if we are to prevent the new Russian Warlord State, backed by that same Chinese productive capacity, from becoming the hegemon of Europe.
Very interesting insight again. This debate, while rooted in a different past , is showing signs of igniting here in Ireland - we too have shunned developing a strong militaristic defence force not least because of the impact of armed conflict with Britain and then between ourselves 100 plus years ago. Ireland has not regarded it necessary or wise to spend on its military strength preferring to be a voice, small but morally significant ,for peace in the world. It is worrying that larger nations now consider it essential to gear up for military conflict - the world peace project I grew up believing in looks set to be cast aside as narcissist male leaders flex muscles and insult each other.
I read this earlier today. Not long after I read your piece I heard discussion on R4 about the British Army. It appears it too is fancy significant problems or recruitment. I had no idea the Heer was, for want of a better expression, so relaxed. Good article Katja.
Excellent summary of a serious and perhaps intractable problem.
You wonder if that won t end up as a Be careful what you asked for. As the NATO s inofficial moto is. THe the Sowiet s/ Russian s out, the American s in and the German s down
I am not qualified to comment on the ‘German-side’ of this issue - but I would point out that not all Prussian officers were Nazis/SS. Quite the contrary, most were fine, dedicated professionals.
In general terms, whatever the prize pillocks we have for leaders in Berlin, Paris and London believe, nothing they claim about their respective military policies is realistically achievable.
However much they want to increase ‘defence’ spending it matters not. They can spend whatever they like on the latest hardware - but the fact is, the software is faulty, and, as things stand, it cannot be solved overnight
Being a soldier is hard, very hard, and for two generations at least, masses of our young people have been brought up to be selfish and soft, completely unable to tolerate discomfort our hardship never mind deal in death.
Stories I hear from today’s military and police are quite depressing. In the early-90s, pound-for-pound Britain still had the best military and police in the world.
Now we only have the best special forces. The rest has been ruined by lowered standards, slack discipline and over-feminization.
When it comes to the armed services (and the police), whatever the question, the solution ‘increase the number of females and trans-sexuals’ is seldom correct.
Females in the infantry contravenes nature. In navies, females aboard ship prejudices order and discipline (they should have their own ships) and in police forces, increasing the proportion of females from the traditional (and useful 12% to 33% has been an unmitigated disaster in Britain.
The quality of our young population has been substantially denuded - both physically and emotionally they are not fit for uniformed service.
Yet Merz, Starmer and Macron have said they could be sent to Ukraine - they would not last a week.
If these clowns want stronger military, then they have to toughen their people up - it will not happen of course, but if it did it would take 20yrs……and require some Prussian discipline, not gimmicky recruitment practices.
I entirely agree with the comments of the Dilettante Polymath on your excellent article, Katja. Generations of young Germans have been taught in school that we must learn the lessons of German history. German history was always resumed in “the Nazis; the Third Reich”. There hardly seemed to be any other German history. The former British ambassador to Germany Sir Paul Lever has described how he saw Germany’s break with its past:
Coming to terms with the past (for which the word Vergangenheitsbewältigung has entered the German language) has had wider implications for German public policy. It has led to a rejection not only of the Nazi period, but of the whole of previous German history. Nothing which happened before 1945 is accorded any public value or respect. No event – political, economic or social, let alone military – is commemorated, no achievement lauded, no individual lionised. The country has simply… moved on.
To build up a new conventional army in Europe able to defend Germany and its European allies, the Germans – both East and West Germans - will have to build a new national conscience that includes the positive German – Prussian - military traditions, from Frederick the Great over Carl von Clausewitz and the wars of liberation against Napoleon. A quotation from Robert Graves’ book "Goodbye to All That" shows the respect many British soldiers had at the end of WWI for their German enemies:
The eighteenth Century owed its unpopularity largely to its Frenchness. Anti-French Feeling among most ex-soldiers amounted almost to an obsession. Edmund, shaking with nerves, used to say at this time: ‘No more wars for me at any price! Except against the French. If there’s ever a war with them, I’ll go like a shot.’ Pro-German Feeling had been increasing. With the war over and the German armies beaten, we could give the German soldier credit for being the most efficient fighting-man in Europe. I often heard it said that only the blockade had beaten the Fritzes; that in Haig’s last push they never really broke, and that their machine-gun sections held us up long enough to cover the withdrawal of the main Forces. Some undergraduates even insisted that we had been fighting on the wrong side: our natural enemies were the French.
Such was the reputation of German soldiers, in a similar way like the reputation that German trains ran on time and Made in Germany was a guarantee of quality. It needs more than a debt-financed multi-billion budget to re-build a national German conscience living up to its former reputation that, if something went wrong, the Germans will do something about it.