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.”
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?
Mostly correct yes. The main danger lies in future elections.
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.
I mean, were they really The Bad Guys™ in WW1?
From what I understand about WW1, it was just a huge clusterfuck
If they won they wouldn’t be.
From my point of view, everyone was the Bad Guys in ww1.
No we weren’t! - Belgium.
THEN YOU ARE LOST, ANAKIN!
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
The Austrians were the bad guys in WW1. Germany just played European Great Power politics like everyone else.
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.
Danger 5
thaaaaank you, that’s goin’ in the seedbox
Germany on track for the greatest redemption arc of all time lmao
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].
World war normally has not good guys. It is that Germany has gone so evil in WW2 that made all others appear the good guys. But in the end they all are evil (countries not people living in them, and no it’s not the same).
“good guys” vs “bad guys” logic isn’t much wise. In the cold war USA and germany recycled nazi and ss members to war with russia. World governments are all corrupted and have blood on their hands, none of them is really the good guys.
Cue Red Alert theme
They’re literally supporting genocide.
you know that article is dated September 28th 2023, right?
now, I’m not saying Israel doesnt have a history of acting like bastards, but that’s just a wee bit before they started ethnically cleansing the Gaza strip.
Because Germany is on your side?
Careful that you don’t draw the wrong conclusion.
who says I think Germany would be on our side?
at this rate, the US is looking more and more like it’ll jump into bed with Russia than the rest of NATO.