Back in 2007 I wrote
The similarities between 1933 Germany and today's Russia are striking.
Mortified, defeated, survived economic crisis, shrunk military, authoritarian government, desire for national greatness, territories to reclaim, history of military strength even without major allies, arms limitations treaties in force (...) they could grab Eastern European territories just like Germany was able to grab Saarland, Austria, Czechoslovakia and Memel before appeasement was given up.
I'm a little embittered about how 'very serious people' of 2007 were talking and writing all about COIN and interventions as the future of warfare, and seamlessly switched to pretending to give important counsel about Russia and China when it became apparent that their old counsel was bollocks.
I've never invested self-discipline into writing in a polished, "very serious people" pundit style unless I got paid for it. My emphasis was on content, not style. My content is often critical enough to not win any fans among the establishment anyway. This concerns not the lest military spending, which you need to consider to be too little in order to be a true military affairs pundit. Hardly anybody can live off telling people not to give more money to stakeholders. The stakeholders won't pay you for such a message.
It's astonishing that COIN was ever able to get the attention of the military-industrial establishment in Germany at all, given the constitutional mandate for the German armed forces:
Article 87a
(1) The Federation shall establish Armed Forces for purposes of defence. Their numerical strength and general organisational structure must be shown in the budget.
(2) Apart from defence, the Armed Forces may be employed only to the extent expressly permitted by this Basic Law.
(...)
Sadly, the constitutional court once bent this (and Art. 24(2)) beyond recognition in 1994, which opened the gates for the stupid interventionista crowd in the first place.
S O
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