Germany plans to build Europe's largest military

In 2015 the German army had to use wooden sticks in exercises because they had no guns.

https://www.newsweek.com/germany-cant-explain-use-broomstick...

In 2017 the German navy had zero operational submarines. They were all broken.

https://www.defensenews.com/naval/2017/10/20/all-of-germanys...

In 2018 the German air Force had only 4 Eurofighters combat ready.

https://www.dw.com/en/only-4-of-germanys-128-eurofighter-jet...

Hopefully the situation has improved since then?

I doubt anyone is as worried about the 4th Reich as much Germans.

I am pretty sure anyone expressing these worries outside of Germany is either a troll, completely ignorant or a combination of the two.

The worry is not about fourth reich. Worry is about whether the army raised in a pacifist country will be able to recruit sufficiently to increase the numbers and when the time comes, whether they want to fight. General reddit 'experts' seem to suggest, the army would instead propose an economic partnership with the opposing side to settle everything amicably (:

People often talking about the strength of armed forced in terms of how much money was spent on them, but money does not guarantee quality. Russia shows that you can have a big but useless military. Ukraine shows how you can do a lot with a little. It's possible to sink massive amounts of money into useless weapon systems, not to mention the corruption around their procurement.

I'd like militaries to look a bit more at effectiveness, at having a military that they can actually use, and that is well suited for the kind of missions they're likely to use them for, and not merely at size and money.

> due to the large GDP, the spending in absolute terms is not that meager: 50 billion Euros per year!

This is ignoring the labor costs and other costs differences between Russia and Germany. A euro goes a heck of a lot further in Russia and pays quite a few more soldier salaries.

And also for all that money even at cheaper wages, Russia military is embarrassing and appears to be in a state of poor maintenance. It’s only mighty due to callousness towards civilians and willingness to be a meat grinder if its own people.

You don't have to wait 1-2 years, there are already studies for the US voting.

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-poli...

Basically, the TL;DR version of this is that no, the average voter's decisions do not sway the decision of politicians, but the politicians decisions are heavily correlated with the preferences of the top 10% earners.

Isn't this expected due to recent events?

My govt spent a lot of resources battling covid. It wasnt the mandate they were voted in on. Covid meant their progress on campaign issues was sidelined a fair bit.

Situations change. I would be more worried to have a party in power that ignores the issue of the day. (which happens frequently, for example with climate change).

It's not a big surprise. Modern neo-left politicians have a long track record of this kind of policy inversion when they get into power. The same thing happened with the Lib Dems in the UK. They only really had two policies going into coalition with the Conservatives: a referendum on proportional representation, which got modified into something slightly different and then they lost, and eliminating student fees, a pledge which they immediately abandoned once they were in power and realized how expensive it would be. Then it happened again with Brexit: a whole lot of MPs promised to respect the vote and implement the referendum, then once they got into power immediately and publicly reversed this position, in some cases even crossing the floor to join different parties that had 180 degree different policies (this doesn't automatically trigger a by-election in the UK, though really it should).

The issue is not really communication breakdown. The problem is that politicians often don't really research their positions going in. Then once they are in government they get access to lots of briefings, 'secret' information, they have to start thinking about budgets and so on. Suddenly they realize their policies weren't quite as obvious as they thought they were. Getting rid of nuclear was flagged for many years as an obviously stupid move but the Greens could blow off such criticism as "right wing" and thus (to their supporters) not even worthy of consideration; suddenly they're in the hotseat and can't do it so easily anymore.

It is odd, and yet it surprisingly makes sense too. But it's certainly weird to see German conservatives oppose military spending, while social democrats and greens embrace it. But that's also because just now, the threat of Russian aggression has become undeniable. Germany has for a long time pretended that Russia was just another peaceful country that they could trade with. And they were very reluctant to abandon that illusion because they depend so much on Russian gas.

I will say, as a Green opponent of nuclear power myself, I think Germany in general, and the Greens in particular, are wrong about banning nuclear power before they've banned coal power. Coal is by far the bigger evil. Ban coal first, then oil, and after that, we can worry about nuclear. I'm not a fan, but in the age of global warming, it's probably the lesser evil.

you can have "more feminism" along with nuclear power and military, I'm not sure what the issue is there. just require compulsory service for women if it's required for men. even if women aren't as able to do infantry because of strength requirements, there's a ton of roles in the armed forces (logistics, mechanics, etc.) that don't require lugging 200kg.

Realistically they're not going to be a threat of course, but it's still unsettling to see Germans enthusiastically cheer doubling their military.

Quality of life also tends to suffer when Russians invade your territory or cut off your energy supplies.

I don't get the joke... Am I missing something?

No, they lost in 1945 and honestly Germany probably deserved a lot more taken from it. If it wasn't for the cold war, it would have been rightfully broken up in pieces instead of getting away with just getting divided in 2 for a few decades.

And the current situation does not excuse Revanchism for Nazi Germany's defeat even if it's to "own russia". Especially since the third Reich literally killed 20 million USSR citizens and waged a war of extermination against the soviets.

> Germany does not have a great track record as a military super power.

They were never really a super power, they were just very fast (i.e. tactically and strategically strong, but in absolute terms not amazing). This changed as things went on, due to good engineering and solid use of resources. They are still well-known for good engineering and the culture that goes along with it and they've moved on ideologically from the problematic past they had. It is not something endemic in Germans that makes it so that whenever they have power they must devolve into fascism. Current day Germany is a fine example of this, because they already have a large amount of (economic) power.

I don't understand. What do you mean by this? Donald Trump isn't mentioned in this story at all.