This year, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz pledged to build Europe’s strongest army – a tall order for a country whose military has undergone years of neglect.
The coalition government is hoping a new bill agreed upon last week will help make this a reality, bolstering Germany’s forces in the face of the perceived threat from Russia and a significant shift in US foreign policy.
The sweeping new reforms will see Germany attempt to boost its numbers to 260,000 soldiers, up from around 180,000 currently, in addition to an extra 200,000 reservists, by 2035.
Germany the nation isn’t the problem. Fascism is the problem. There is nothing special about Germany that makes it any more or less susceptible to fascism than anyone else. 1930s Germany happened to have especially fertile ground, but it could have been a lot of other places.
Although AfD does need to be told to go the fuck away.
You say that as the AfD, ANOTHER militant German political entity, is on the rise.
This what they call “History repeating itself.”
But Germany is hardly unique in that regard. Both now and then.
Not unique, but still how safe is to create a new powerful army when the forces against democracy could just democratically take control of it?
Not very. Ultimately, that’s an argument for anarchism.