EU Army

[Stavroforos]

As things are right now, the economic argument will, more than likely, win the fight for a federal EU and EU Armed Forces will become a reality after EU becomes a federation.

If don`t see a EU Armed Forces taking shape anytime soon unless EU is federation.

As for the German Armed Forces....what can I say ? Do they need to trash the continent again just so some of you realise that the only problem is funding and you shouldn`t judge a country`s military power only by the forces it has right now under it`s command.

A fully mobilised and war hungry Germany can go toe to toe with any European country in a non-nuclear conflict.

I don't know how much never having a won actually helps your uberdeutschland argument.

[ShockBlast]

I don't know how much never having a won actually helps your uberdeutschland argument.

You do realise the German Empire was just Prussia on steroids and Prussia is Brandenburg`s nickname ?

@Dante

You read too much into it.I merely wanted to underline that Germany has the potential, I didn`t say they will actually change from their anti-militaristic stance.

This is pointless anyway, if EU becomes a federation the Germans soldiers will be regarded as European soldiers and they will answer before Bruxelles not Berlin.

Why do you almost always take it a step further ? Ha ?

I`m not the only one with a bad habit.

[Dante Von Hespburg]

@Dante

You read too much into it.I merely wanted to underline that Germany has the potential, I didn`t say they will actually change from their anti-militaristic stance.

This is pointless anyway, if EU becomes a federation the Germans soldiers will be regarded as European soldiers and they will answer before Bruxelles not Berlin.

Why do you almost always take it a step further ? Ha ?

I`m not the only one with a bad habit.

Haha i'm a Scottish University Student during a Christmas break, when i'm not drinking tea (wait...what?) i'm being bored and looking for a fight...academically...because you know, less painful .

But no seriously i was under the assumption that you were putting forward the case that Germany's current major operational flaws and funding issues could be overlooked due to historical instances and a fast-theoretical overhaul of all their political, cultural and indeed military logistical systems. My bad though if you were just musing my friend. But more on topic then, i don't believe as i've said that this current op with Germany-Poland military links is the first step to creating any kind of EU armed forces, since well... A) It's more likely actually that this is more Germany sensibly covering up it's military deficit by getting Poland to do the 'heavy-lifting' so to speak in case of disaster and B) An EU military again wouldn't make much sense to be centered on Germany, especially in the short-mid term due to other states being more effective, more experienced and developed in their use of their armed forces.

[Costin_Razvan]

So you want to say that if Germany matched UK or France`s defence budgets it wouldn`t be as competent as them ? The German government is holding them on a tight leash, that has to go away.

No it wouldn't, because their budgets are already similar enough

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...y_expenditures

Yes the UK and France spend more money, but both these countries have aircraft carriers and strong navies, including nuclear powered and armed submarines and also they have more troops. The German navy...well that's a pile of junk even if their entire fleet was in top condition, which it isn't.

The fact the Germans can't maintain their planes, ships, helicopters and tanks with the current budget is indicative of gross incompetence on their part. This is what happens when your current minister of defense is an incompetent idiot with no military credentials whatsoever.

As a businessman I'm wondering do you just throw money at a problem when it shows it face or do you look to understand what the issues really are?

You do realise the German Empire was just Prussia on steroids and Prussia is Brandenburg`s nickname ?

You do realize that Prussia and the German Empire never won anything more then regional conflicts? Also even before the German Empire they got their teeth kicked in plenty of times.

The only real glory the Germans ever achieved was in conquering France in WW2 and that had a lot do with the incompetence of the Allies AND the insane tactics of Rommel and Guderian.

France, Britain, Russia have all fought international wars that they've won in the past.

[Mangalore]

What kind of nonsense arguments are going on here? Easiest rebuttal: There are about 150 countries that didn't exist in the past 100 years either so have zero military credibility. Does that prove anything? Erm... no. That's stupid.

Other rebuttal: Yes, you usually win a war because the enemy does something stupid. That's how it always works because otherwise the other guy wouldn't have done it...

More importantly do they got to do with anything? Nothing at all.


The German army is a mess because of a multitude of reasons. It is hardly alone on that and the extent is also something to look at. There is something messed up in the procurement process for sure and the xth army reform in 20 years hardly helps.

[ShockBlast]

You do realize that Prussia and the German Empire never won anything more then regional conflicts? Also even before the German Empire they got their teeth kicked in plenty of times.

The only real glory the Germans ever achieved was in conquering France in WW2 and that had a lot do with the incompetence of the Allies AND the insane tactics of Rommel and Guderian.

France, Britain, Russia have all fought international wars that they've won in the past.

Even if they didn`t won the Germans proved that they were superior in both world wars to anyone. The German Empire fought two wars, the Prussian-French War, since the Empire was declared in the middle of the war, and WW1.

Prussia or Brandenburg didn`t won wars ? Prussia held the line in the 7 years`s war againt France, Austrian Empire and Russian Empire.
I`m not even going to bring up the Silesian Wars or the Brother`s War in which Prussia with little external help fought all other German states and Austrian Empire.

This is a chronic lack basic understanding of German history.

And are you trying to say that Germans are incompetent? As an actual businessman who actually does business with actual Germans I can vouch for their sheer seriousness.Hell their entire economy and status as the world`s second exporter stands testament to competence of the German people.

France, UK and USSR might be the victors but the Germans are the ones to unify Europe.The Germans won the peace and no one contests the German overlordship over the European Union, not France, not UK and certainly not RF.

The German Armed Forces are lacking because the Germans are scarred following the events of WW2, especially the Holocaust.

[Costin_Razvan]

Even if they didn`t won the Germans proved that they were superior in both world wars to anyone. The German Empire fought two wars, the Prussian-French War, since the Empire was declared in the middle of the war, and WW1.

They were not superior in any way to any of the major powers with the exception of the Russians in WW1. Besides that the only things they had going for them was the discipline of their troops, which doesn't make them inherently better, their LMGs, their artillery and other pieces of equipment. Germany's been led by fools since Bismarck. Militarily for all that Rommel, Guderian, Lettow-Vorbeck and Manstein could achieve there were ten times as many incompetent idiots in charge there.

Their naval might was horrible, their air force only had an advantage early on in WW2 until they were overtaken by in terms of quality by the allies, let alone quantity by each individual major member of the allies. Their tanks were considerably worse then Russia ones, either being too weak ( T-34 decimated most of the German armor ) or too expensive and prone to breaking down ( Tiger tanks ).

Prussia or Brandenburg didn`t won wars ? Prussia held the line in the 7 years`s war againt France, Austrian Empire and Russian Empire.
I`m not even going to bring up the Silesian Wars or the Brother`s War in which Prussia with little external help fought all other German states and Austrian Empire.

What part of regional conflict did you not grasp? That includes the wars with France and Austria.

As for the seven year war, Prussia had the full backing of the British Empire which sent considerably economic and military aid to them, including massing large armies in Hannover to stop the French and even then the Austrians alone crushed the Prussian armies time and time again only for Britain to help rebuild them and even then they would have lost without the Russian leader dying and the new Tsar declaring peace: The Miracle of House Brandenburg indeed.

Little external help...right.

This is a chronic lack basic understanding of German history.

I actually know their military history quite well, at least when we're talking about everything after the 16th century. I can also mention how one of Napoleon's marshals crushed the Prussian army at Auerstedt despite being outnumbered 2 to 1.

And are you trying to say that Germans are incompetent? As an actual businessman who actually does business with actual Germans I can vouch for their sheer seriousness.Hell their entire economy and status as the world`s second exporter stands testament to competence of the German people.

Economic competency does not equate to competence in military affairs, not in technology, not in building and maintaining jets, tanks, helicopters etc.

The current German Armed Forces use planes built together with the British, Italians and with input from the French ( who so happen to have better planes with the Rafale ). Their ships, which you praised the Turks for having in the Ukraine thread, use American/French and Italian missiles and guns that were built during the Cold War as well as French sensors. Their air defense missiles are American Patriot and Hawk missiles. Their attack helicopters were mostly developed by the French.

The Leopard 2 tanks came from a joint project with the Americans until they shelved it. The Americans made the M1 tank whereas Germany got the Leopard 2.

So competency in terms of WHAT? Smalls arms? APCs and IFVs? Oh certainly they do have plenty of factories that makes military equipment but in terms of weapon development they are seriously lacking. ( So are the British to a certain degree but at least everything they have actually works ).

As for the competency of their troops. The legends of World War II who made Germany capable again during the Cold War are long dead and their current military leadership is in fact incompetent to have let their armed forces to fall to such lows. Manstein would weep.

France, UK and USSR might be the victors but the Germans are the ones to unify Europe.The Germans won the peace and no one contests the German overlordship over the European Union, not France, not UK and certainly not RF.

The Germans won nothing, neither did the French or the British. America won the peace for us through the Cold War. You mistake Germany's economy with their political competence. Merkel and her entire party are nothing more then just a puppet for German business interests, and no, contrary that what you might believe having companies control your political system like that is not a good thing and this shows in the EU's complete failure with regards to everything it does in regards to foreign policy.

Ukraine was supposed to come under EU influence nice and quietly and not with massive protests and without Crimea and Russia was supposed to become Germany's . That did not happen, that the US might crush the entire Russian economy in order to prevent Russia from becoming too aggressive on a foreign policy is another matter and it does not make up for the EU's foreign policy failure and the fact that we had to turn to America to fix this entire mess ( to the point Kerry was caught on tape berating the EU for it's idiocy ) also speaks volumes about our incompetence.

The German Armed Forces are lacking because the Germans are scarred following the events of WW2, especially the Holocaust.

Germany is lacking completely since it is led by incompetent buffoons propped up by businessmen without any vision for the future of the EU, in fact they used this as a campaign strategy to sell themselves to a German populace that was reeducated after WW2 and their will crushed. It's not the Holocaust that scars Germany, it's the occupation following WW2. It's the political system that was set up by the victorious powers.

If there's to be an EU army it's going to be a British-French one. Which won't happen given England's hatred atm for the EU and that's assuming the EU survives over the next decade.

[chilon]

Even if they didn`t won the Germans proved that they were superior in both world wars to anyone.

Considering they lost both not sure how you can claim they are superior. They lost the nuke race after all by quite a margin, although arguably some of your scientists wanted the US to win that.

And are you trying to say that Germans are incompetent?

No one has said Germans are incompetent. People are pointing out the difference in "competence" and overall operational capacity. Right now Germany has very little operational capacity. If Germany geared its military for 20 years, sure in 20 years time its quite possible they could be relevant as an individual nation state but as it is, they are not operationally equivalent to either the UK or France.

[diegis]

So competency in terms of WHAT? Smalls arms? APCs and IFVs? Oh certainly they do have plenty of factories that makes military equipment but in terms of weapon development they are seriously lacking. ( So are the British to a certain degree but at least everything they have actually works ).

Not saying that in large part you aren't right, but wasn't the German HK company fixing the British assault rifles (SA-80) to work better?

[Mangalore]

Considering they lost both not sure how you can claim they are superior. They lost the nuke race after all by quite a margin, although arguably some of your scientists wanted the US to win that.

That discussion is really pointless. In the same token Napoleonic France was bad although the Grand Army was kicking around 5 to 10 enemies for several years as well. People ignore a simple fact what war is: It's politics and in both world wars germany put their heads down the toilet on the political front ensuring they would face 10:1 manpower and were essentially screwed even if those cute stories of the Aryan masterrace were true. Although one could say WW1 probably could have been averted if Germany had followed a smarter foreign policy, that would have involved sacrificing Austria-Hungary though to keep Russia as a buddy so is easier said than done.

The fact that germany lost is hardly a sign of its military incapability, rather how it lost a sign how bad it had set up the foreign relations before the war. Although this might be too deterministic Germany maybe was always screwed because as the center of Europe it would always face a multifront war with no secure border which is kind of the reason Prussian military tradition was so focussed on deceisive short wars of destroying an enemy army. Geographically there is little helping strategic defense. The Alps are only on one side, there are a couple of rivers but they are traversable somewhere and a lot of the rest is easy to travel plains. The few hilly and mountaineous regions do not really block anything off in particular if your goal is Berlin or the Ruhr valley.

France has one back to the Atlantic, another to the Pyrenees and the Alps.
Great Britain is an island.
Spain only has the Pyrenees to worry about if everything else fails.
Italy only the Alps.

All other central European countries essentially share this problem.

No one has said Germans are incompetent. People are pointing out the difference in "competence" and overall operational capacity. Right now Germany has very little operational capacity. If Germany geared its military for 20 years, sure in 20 years time its quite possible they could be relevant as an individual nation state but as it is, they are not operationally equivalent to either the UK or France.

Maybe in a vain attempt to turn the thread back to something on topic there is in my view also a simple attempt by the powers to be to shoot down the current secretary of defense because she is a rather difficult and arrogant person (has been secretary in various other resorts before).

I wouldn't rule out that some of this "outrageous" lack of operational readiness is pumped up to make her look bad. At least some parts of the reports have been relativated by the responsible offices as being normal in maintenance rotation. Doesn't mean there aren't problems and I'm appalled at how virtually every single procurement project went in the past 10 years but some of it feels mainly a PR campaign.

[Holger Danske]

The Russian military is a whole topic unto itself- it's an interesting beast going through a fast-tracked program of reform, that's dangerously precarious, Russia currently doesn't have the economy or industrial base to actually build and sustain the vision of the Russian military that Putin has put forward, and so a lot of short cuts are being taken.

Actually much of the problems comes with their inability to create a viable incentitaive for professional contract soldiers, which is why their attempt at doing away with the mass-mobilization army has totally failed. In addition the Russian military is incapble of interoperability that even the modest NATO militaries are well rehersed in by now, and they severly lack any efficient kind of C2 platform. All of this was supposed to be dealt with by the 2008 reforms following the abysmal performance in Georgia, and so far one of the only things they have been capable of doing is reducing their insane amount of cadre formations, which ironically has lead to a shortage in officers and NCO's (IIRC).