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It has come to my attention that some readers mistook a blog post of mine as a defence of German foreign policy.
I understand that I was socialised as a German, and reading German literature gives a different perspective than reading French literature and so on. Still, it baffles me how one would project one's own nationalism onto me. I've spent more than a decade bashing German policies, so why would I turn simplistic nationalist on this topic? This should have failed every kind of plausibility check.
My intent with that blog post wasn't to defend German foreign policy - right now I'm not even sure what our foreign policy is on the matter. I suppose there's a lot more going on than what newspapers report.
I've been around for a while. I remember very well the run-up to the 1991 Gulf War, the 1990's bullying of Iraq over a supposed nuclear weapons program, the 1999 Kosovo Air War, the lies and propaganda that paved the way for the 2003 invasion of Iraq and so on.
What I saw in the past weeks reminds me of what happened in 2002: Suddenly, only one specific -and not exactly dovish- policy is considered the only sensible policy. Suddenly, all deviations from said policy are considered to be a display of weakness, display of lack of resolve, display of being a poor ally, display of disunity - and then an army of useful idiots on the internet begin the bullying and bashing against the dissenters.
Freedom fries!
This is one of the very, very few (by my count: two) English language mil blogs that are not prone to fall over when some hawkish campaign sets the army of useful idiots in motion for its cause. This time it may not be about going to war outright, but here in Europe delivering weapons and stuff into a warzone is not considered neutral behaviour.
"Why, of course, the people don't want war," Goering shrugged. "Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece. Naturally, the common people don't want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship."
"There is one difference," I pointed out. "In a democracy the people have some say in the matter through their elected representatives, and in the United States only Congress can declare wars."
"Oh, that is all well and good, but, voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country."
THINK !
For else, you might turn into a part of a useful idiots mob.
It's OK to believe that delivering weapons and munitions into a warzone makes the world a better place. It might be true. But keep in mind the opposite view is very legitimate and also well-grounded in history.
S O
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It's France and Germany, who have a policy different from the Anglosphere. While France leads this tandem overseas, Germany leads it on the continent. Other than "arte", there's fairly little shared news on this in both countries.
ReplyDeleteI have a feeling that many of the newer EU and NATO countries align more with the Anglosphere. This split between Franco-German tandem and Anglosphere orientation is a possible faultline for a future breakup of the EU.
Oh, the Anglosphere have been off in la-la land for a while. The whole Ukraine business looks more and more like a big pile of nothing. Hot air.
ReplyDelete"This split between Franco-German tandem and Anglosphere orientation is a possible faultline for a future breakup of the EU."
ReplyDeleteLook, somtimes one can learn from history: We had this around 2000-2003 with "New Europe" vs. "Old Europe", the Anglophone approach that was only based on a war outside the EU was dead long before 2008.
Why do you now assume a better result when the same experiment is repeated. :-))
Back in the 00's the East Europeans learned that American interests are not necessarily their interests, and playing vasals who provide auxiliary troops for stupid wars doesn't yield significant returns.
DeleteMaybe their current politicians need to re-learn that lesson, but they shouldn't need to.
the Americans are near-useless for the security of the Eastern European NATO countries because of the geographic spacing and the small combat capability maintained by Americans in Europe.
Germany should focus on its army and make sure it has six top rated mechanised brigades with super-quick deployability for alliance defence in Eastern Europe.
Playing devil's advocate, could it be that Germany doesn't want military power, because not having it at the ready provides the conditions for a catastrophy. Getting out of that catastrophy in turn would require significant investments in German strength, which make current restrictions on German power obsolete. So the armament level of Germany is kept to the limit for preventing too big a catastrophy for this country, but definitely not with much capability to support allies in case of conflict, which would be the level necessary to prevent mentioned catastrophy.
DeleteA Poland liberated by Germany from Russian occupation would be very different from the current Poland remembering the German occupation. This ghost of WWII in arguing for limits, even symbolic ones such as in the 4+2 treaty, might be the issue Germany wants to settle in order to have more of a hegemony in Europe without people crying Fourth Reich.
I don't know for sure what people are thinking, but this is as I see it:
Deletegeneral population: doesn't really think about the military
ministry of defence: wants more money whatever the circumstances
ministry of finance: wants to avoid deficit, rather unmotivated to pour much more money into the military
parliament: just nods to what the cabinet wants a nod for
big news media: news sections report increase of mil budget as if it was a good thing, satirists and investigative formats chastise ministry of defence for ineptitude and waste of money
everybody: Pretty much disinterested in lessons from history, albeit officials still play the lip service routine
There are more traces of nuts in my frozen pizza than strategy in German military policy.
SO wrote: "Germany should focus on its army and make sure it has six top rated mechanised brigades with super-quick deployability for alliance defence in Eastern Europe."
DeleteNo dispute, I would like to have two brigades more.
The other aspect of course is IMHO the discussion whether we should provide high modern weapon systems to the Polish forces under certain conditions.
It's more important to get it right than to make it big.
Deletehttps://defense-and-freedom.blogspot.com/2015/11/an-army-corps-for-germany.html
We can grow big in few years if we get it right.
I would have a seperate Lehrbrigade that is not deployed in war time but is used to train the replacement. So at least seven brigades. :-)
DeleteKRT wrote: "So the armament level of Germany is kept to the limit for preventing too big a catastrophy for this country, but definitely not with much capability to support allies in case of conflict, which would be the level necessary to prevent mentioned catastrophy."
ReplyDeleteThat implies that there has been done good analysis by German politicians or generals. I dispute this. The current situation happend by chance/ short term political "thinking".