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Oh no, big country at war has more active soldiers than small countries at peace! Who would have thought?
Oh, and those small EU countries combined already have a bigger army than Russia, massive reserves obviously not counted because ... again ... they are not at war. And yes, we are also speaking about actually well trained and equiped soldiers, not Russian standards.
Chechnya
Georgia
Moldova
Crimea
Russia has this pattern of supporting "separatist" movements in nations where it wants to carve out some territory. Russia's neighbors should consider that they are not really at peace, but merely waiting for Russia to look in their direction.
Wartime manufacturing capacity is needed though.
No, proper storage amounts and planable long-term contracts are needed, so there is enough to sustain while existing manufacturing capacities are upscaled.
Instead we get bullshit actionism.
And in a few years we probably have replaced a lot of soldiers with barely enough ammunition for a few weeks with much more soldiers and ammunition for 2 days. Because actually sane decisions are not flashy enough to impress stupid voters or the media they consume.
All while having wasted billions on shiny new stuff in irrelevant numbers, infrastructure for conscripts not actually needed, and big symbolic projects, simply because idiots are prioritising short-term bullshit to impress morons to get their votes in a few years again.
But loudly talking about building a massive army is so much easier (and more effective to get approval) than actually managing the logistics needed to make the existing army work properly. The old saying that there is no glory in prevention is sadly true for military deterrence, too.
If anything, an argument in favour of an EU army would be a reduction in total size, due to removal of redundancies.
And we also have the German army, for comic relief!
(I'd love it if our army was equipped and trained for more than that...)
Yeah, that's a very popular story. Interestingly the voices of actual NATO allies working with German soldiers are usually the exact opposite of the media and political narratives.
It's the second-hand perception of someone who works as a civilian worker in the Bundeswehr. It's slowly getting better but the damage from two decades of pointless austerity politics (and a lack of enthusiasm beforehand) is definitely felt.
Basically, they're trying their best but the equipment stockpile isn't up to scratch yet and it's currently so hard to find good recruits that the government is considering bringing back the draft. It's not that the Bundeswehr is bad but there's a lot to do before it's fully functional again.
I think its partly a scheme of the Bundeswehr to get more funding.
Look or Helicopter's cant fly over Water and our gun's shoot diagonally we really really need the extra 100 billion.