Hacker News Reader

Comment by PhantomGremlin | Hacker News Reader

In my opinion, the chances of any sort of war at this point remain pretty low.

You're right, there's little chance of a war between any of the EU (or soon to be former EU) countries. And, more importantly, there's no foreseeable reason for there to be a war.

But, not to put too fine a point on it, there also can't be a war for one other reason: Nobody but Putin has much in the way of armed forces. Things could get really ugly if Putin decided to, e.g. invade the Baltics.

I did some quick checking. Here's an example: Germany's current unified armed forces, the Bundeswehr, have 178,000 active soldiers.[1] In WW II, Germany's army (just the army) had 12,000,000 active soldiers in 1944.[2]

For today's EU, war would be more of a dalliance than serious business. And that's a good thing.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bundeswehr [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Army_(Wehrmacht)

View on HN

What makes you so sure? Populism is on the rise. With decisions like this they just gain even more power, see Peer Wilders etc. And naive people believe in simple solutions to complex problems. They are easy to fool. Our situation now is not so far from 1910 where many intellectuals would never have thought that a war among civilised nations would have been possible.

Honestly - I'm afraid of this development.

Same. It can start with something small and get out of control fast. Especially with our destabilized Middle East, tension in the South China Sea, Russian aggression in Europe and the Arctic, and growing nationalism and anti immigrant sentiment.

You're comparing a volunteer army in peacetime with a conscripted army fighting a total war on two fronts. In 1944, the Nazis had been at war for 5 years and had spent a further 5 years before that militarizing German society.

Before Hitler broke the Versailles treaty in 1935, the German army was limited to only 100,000 members -- fewer than today. It took less than a decade to mobilize to the extent you describe. It happened then, it can happen today.

You don't need massive armies to reduce a region to a nightmarish place of death and destruction. The war in the Ukraine only involved around 100-150k combatants (the overwhelming majority on the Russian side) yet it certainly harmed the Donbass region and Ukraine in general.

12 million was at the peak of the war, the number you want is at the start of the war, when Hitler felt he had enough troops to invade with.

I tried to quickly find the numbers, but had no luck. It was 100,000 in 1931 (scaled back from WW I) and was supposed to be tripled through recruitment before Hitler started conscription.

Sorry. I should have also linked to the numbers. I got the external link from the Wehrmacht wiki article: http://www.feldgrau.com/stats.html

That table has nothing older than 1939, but the number in 1939 was still pretty impressive.

I also got confused, the 12,000,000 peak is directly comparable to the recent 178,000 since "Wehrmacht" was the previous name for the complete "unified" armed forces, not just the army.

   1939: 	4,722,000+
   1940: 	6,600,000+
   1941: 	8,154,000+
   1942: 	9,580,000+
   1943: 	11,280,000+
   1944: 	12,070,000+
   1945: 	9,701,000+

Except for all the US troops stationed in Germany bolster that number dramatically, in the case of Putin invading. And we can rapidly move troops and supplies over to Germany as well, along with all the other NATO troops doing the same.

Germany doesn't need an invasion force, just a defense aided by dozens of other countries by treaty. It is hardly a surprise it has a fraction of it's WW2 army.

all the other NATO troops

The mood in the USA is turning more inward. There is less appetite for NATO. The sentiment is moving more toward: if the Germans don't want to be learning to speak Russian, then they should be paying for more of their own defense. But they're not:[1]

in terms of share of German GDP, military expenditures remain average at 1.2% and below the NATO recommendation of 2%.

I'm personally astonished at how little of an Army Germany has today. Especially considering that just a few years earlier, Eastern Germany was studying Russian in school and was a large component of the Warsaw Pact.

Poland is quite afraid of Putin. But Germany seems to have adopted a "meh" attitude toward the whole situation. They probably think that if they sell enough BMWs and Mercedes to Russia that everything will turn out OK. And probably it will.

Edit: Germany doesn't need an invasion force, just a defense aided by dozens of other countries by treaty.

Just want to add that I think you're wrong about this. There is a world of difference between large integrated forces, such as the US V Corps and VII Corps in Germany during the Cold War, and what exists in NATO today.

Nowadays, some of those "dozens of other countries" would contribute what, perhaps a battalion or two of combat troops? Not the same as when VII Corps deployed from Germany to Iraq and defeated the Iraqis in the first Gulf War. Not the same as when V Corps deployed from Germany to Iraq and defeated the Iraqis in the second Gulf War. Both those Corps have been deactivated. Nothing took their place.

Total US force in NATO was 67,000 in 2015. Not as big as one might think.

Here's a "semi-official" NATO statement about force levels: Some 25 per cent of NATO members do not have an air force, 30 per cent have no naval force or maintain a navy with less than 600 sailors, and 50 per cent are fielding an active army of less than 20,000 soldiers. NATO is an Alliance of unequals [2]

Finally, the other side is now run by an ambitious, intelligent, charismatic leader in Vladimir Putin. It's no longer led by Boris Yeltsin the drunken bum, and hasn't been since 1999.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bundeswehr [2] http://www.nato.int/docu/review/2015/Also-in-2015/europe-def...

I appreciate the statistics. Having seen them, what I would say is: in the start of a war Germany may be in a lot of trouble, but I would expect the US would come in and assist them.

I agree NATO is an alliance of unequal partners. The US definitely spends above 2% GDP on .mil, and as NATO is mostly controlled by the US (and was always intended to be). I think it is reasonable to assume they will be on the hook in the event of a major invasion.

I'm pretty sure, no one want a war, including Putin and west leaders.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com