Germany’s military, the Bundeswehr, recently got the all-clear for a massive increase in investment after parliament voted to exempt defence spending from strict rules on debt.

The country’s top general has told the BBC the cash boost is urgently needed because he believes Russian aggression won’t stop at Ukraine.

“We are threatened by Russia. We are threatened by Putin. We have to do whatever is needed to deter that,” Gen Carsten Breuer says. He warns that Nato should be braced for a possible attack in as little as four years.

“It’s not about how much time I need, it’s much more about how much time Putin gives us to be prepared,” the defence chief says bluntly. “And the sooner we are prepared the better.”

  • finitebanjo@lemmy.world
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    I foresee a non-zero chance that this could backfire and their new ever-expanding military budget gets used on smaller weaker nations and then as an excuse to divert funding away from services that people actually rely on.

  • ZeroOne@lemmy.world
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    Just don’t draft people & you good. A drafted military never fights well

      • ZeroOne@lemmy.world
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        How about you fight instead of dragging people to die in wars witbout their consent.

        Oh wait, you rather sacrifice others.

        Oh & there are more desertions in a drafted military

        • Bashnagdul@lemmy.world
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          Don’t mistake me for saying drafting and war is good. Just that a drafted army fights better than a non existent one.

        • Kusimulkku@lemm.ee
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          I mean I’d be there right with the other reservists fighting. Not that many options for a lot of countries, Russia is so much bigger and stronger than a lot of those bordering Russia that you need pretty much every man to do their part.

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    Sad to read that people are ok with this.

    Stop contributing to rich people bullshit and step out of the system. Every other move will get us all killed.

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        Yes. Dying for peace is way better than dying for war. Also stop buying shit, stop paying taxes, build and support alternative networks. Educate yourself and especially the young people around you. Stop building walls, start building bridges. The system only “works” because we believe it does.

          • Ponygirl42@lemmy.wtf
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            will war work? No it wont so better to try something different.

            Also no i do not mean an anarcho commune. But hey all is better than the slaughter for money we have at the moment.

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    What the hell is with the Germans and austerity? They’ve been holding their own country back for over 15 years

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    I don’t see this as Germany leaving history in the past, but being smart to protect their future so the that the lessons of the past mean something.

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      Germans are on track to elect the AfD. Do you think them having a 500 Billion dollar army is a good plan?

    • Kusimulkku@lemm.ee
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      I’m not sure what else those under threat of attack should do than to try and best prepare for it. Germany isn’t the first target that comes to mind but still.

        • Kusimulkku@lemm.ee
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          And Germany needs to spend more to get their shit in order. Right now their military is in a very poor shape.

          You don’t defend your country or help your allies by just pointing at a balance sheet.

            • Kusimulkku@lemm.ee
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              They’re spending billions on military pensions alone. Doesn’t do anything for their military capability. They’ve been chronically underspending for decades and it has deteriorated their capabilities. And it’s understandble, times have been good and USA was a good strong partner. Things have unfortunately changed. What they need money now is modernization, new purchases, development, all sorts of things to actually make the military a respectable defence force.

              You don’t fight a war with receipts.

              • index@sh.itjust.works
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                Who are you supposed to fight a war to begin with?

                Germany is not the only country in the world spending money on military pensions.

                • Kusimulkku@lemm.ee
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                  Gee I wonder who might be the threat here.

                  Germany is not the only country in the world spending money on military pensions.

                  No but if they are spending a lot of money on it, by your logic they must have a a very capable military.

  • Lord Wiggle@lemmy.world
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    It feels a bit weird being on the German side for once, also their track record of succeeding isn’t that great, but I love our neighbors and I fully support them.

    I’m just, sad the world is falling into another world war while we also just could be more kind and forgiving towards each other. It would save a lot of lives and leads of pain and agony.

    • njm1314@lemmy.world
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      I mean the track record is pretty good as long as you don’t just stop at the 20th century.

      • Lord Wiggle@lemmy.world
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        There were no world wars pre 20th century. But yeah, Germany, Prussia and the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation were pretty successful pre 20th century.

    • Gammelfisch@lemmy.world
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      We are not the same Germany, with exception to the Prussian military discipline that is buried deep within us. Thanks to morons in DC and Moscow, they are forcing to break the pacifistic dam that we were force to build post WW II.

      • Lord Wiggle@lemmy.world
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        Not just republicans. Democrats in the US are right wing too. The entire country is fucked up, the reps just speed up the process exponentially. But don’t forget the most immigrants who have been thrown out was during Obama and Biden. Biden supported Israel too, with loads of weapons.

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          I call them the Republicrats and get attacked as being a centrist. That is the perversion of this situation is that I don’t think either part of our one party system give two shits about me. The only thing about the democrat faction is they are not trying to put people in real cages. Just trap them in wage slavery.

          • Lord Wiggle@lemmy.world
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            Right… As if incarceration didn’t increase during dems terms. As if there weren’t crimes against humanity in prisons and detention centers thanks to dems.

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              Its been increasing no matter who has been in office as long as I have been alive. Its never gone down. So your point to me is meaningless.

              • Lord Wiggle@lemmy.world
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                It actually went down during Trumps first term. That fucking idiot even failed in the thing he wanted most.

    • LittleBorat3@lemmy.world
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      So yes forgiving and all that. Here are the steps: 1 Putin removes his troops from the occupied territories 2 he apologizes 3 maybe someone forgives him.

      • Lord Wiggle@lemmy.world
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        Well yeah, but what I wished was that he wouldn’t have invaded in the first place, no totalitarian rulers, no people declaring wars as a dick measuring contest. No Putin in the first place. Putin will never give up and apologize, but hopefully he dies and his replacement would retreat, apologize and help Ukraine fix their country. But the chance of that happening is little to none, the next in line is probably just as bad as Putler.

    • MehBlah@lemmy.world
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      They are good as long as they don’t have a demented drug user has their leader.

    • realitista@lemm.ee
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      Their success rate would have been a lot higher if they had known when to stop ;-). I think if the stated goal of defending Europe from Russia doesn’t change that they have a very good chance of success given the numbers they are talking about.

      • gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de
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        The crazy thing that still makes my head spin and that I fail to process properly is that Europe would still be under Nazi regime today had they not attacked Russia … despite all the crimes. How do you deal with that? idk

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          I’m not sure it would. The Nazi economy was supported by plunder, they had to keep attacking to fund it. They couldn’t get to Britain or America, and they had otherwise more or less run out of Europe.

          I don’t want to imagine the kind of atrocities they could have committed in the time that it would take for them to collapse, but I do think the collapse would have come

      • FireRetardant@lemmy.world
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        I also wonder how much farther their war efforts would have gone had they not wasted time, men, and resources on ineffective warfare like that massive train driven cannon. Its a lot of effort and resources to set up double track rails just to miss most of your shots.

        • Lord Wiggle@lemmy.world
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          Or if they only focused on Brittain and didn’t invade Russia for one, especially with summer gear in winter.

          • prettybunnys@sh.itjust.works
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            Generally incompetent leaders who promoted people to positions of power based on their loyalty rather than merit also.

            Just the whole general way they did everything, I’d say.

          • Venus_Ziegenfalle@feddit.org
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            The opposite is probably true. The blitzkrieg strategy relied on soldiers being able to fight effectively for days on end without sleep. It definitely isn’t a sustainable way to treat your troops but it was very effective and not possible without Pervitin.

            • tacobellhop@midwest.social
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              That part worked. The resultant addictions didn’t really help. Like the decisions got worse over time, even when it was a pipe dream in the first place.

              • FireRetardant@lemmy.world
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                You’d almost need to take your front line troops after a few days/week of methed up raids and then put them into rehab backline labor positions. Rinse and repeat until you win the war or the troops hold a methed up mutiny.

      • Lord Wiggle@lemmy.world
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        That doesn’t feel weird, it feels totally fucked up. The Dutch government is the same, maybe not as bad as Germany but still. There’s a ban on supplying them with weapons, but the Dutch government is finding loopholes to do it anyway. I’m totally disgusted by it. Fuck Israel, bunch of fucking nazis. Out of everyone on this planet, especially them should know better.

  • PumpkinSkink@lemmy.world
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    Great powers rearming will not be good for anyone no matter what the context is around it. After Napoleon, European leaders were so afraid of war between great powers that they avoided it for 100 years. The moment they let their guard up we got WW1. The weapons do not make us safer. Don’t think for a moment it can’t happen again.

    • ynthrepic@lemmy.world
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      Neither does passivism though. If everyone around you is losing your mind, you either give up your freedom and very possibly your life, or you fight.

      The only reason no other great power has needed a fully prepared military is because of US leadership. That can’t be trusted now, so here we are.

    • zaphod@sopuli.xyz
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      After Napoleon, European leaders were so afraid of war between great powers that they avoided it for 100 years.

      What kind of bullshit is this? The napoleonic wars were over in 1815. In 1866 there war the austro-prussian war, in 1870 the franco-german war. That’s barely 50 years, and those wars are just those I remember from history class. I’m sure there were more in between. Or are we talking Napoleon III who was deposed in the franco-german war in 1870? Well I’m pretty sure in the 100 years since then Napoleon there were some even bigger wars.

  • ShittyBeatlesFCPres@lemmy.world
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    I feel like this is a good idea but I also saw what Germany did to Brazil in that World Cup and there needs to be a plan for them going too far and hurting people just for living.

    • Hudell@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      And they did hold back that day, after the first 4 goals +/-, just to avoid embarrassing the host that much further.

      • ShittyBeatlesFCPres@lemmy.world
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        I feel like I’m doing ok. I want the Fediverse to happen and I imagine I have way more likes than dislikes. (I don’t know how to check.)

        Sometimes, jokes don’t hit. Life has upvotes and downvotes and I accept both with the zeal of a competitor.

        • qyron@sopuli.xyz
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          That’s the spirit.

          But did Germany defeated Brasil in the cup?

            • idiomaddict@lemmy.world
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              Ehh, they scored more than half of those points within six minutes, and six out of seven within the first half hour. They stopped trying to score after halftime and dampened their post-goal celebrations. It seemed like they really weren’t trying to rub it in, but Brazil was just not being competitive.

              • barsoap@lemm.ee
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                but Brazil was just not being competitive.

                That’s quite the understatement: It was so bad Brazilian fans started to cheer for the German team. Which, under usual circumstances, only happens when we’re not playing against each other.

                All in all it could’ve been worse for Brazil: It could have been Argentina. And it could have been better for Germany: It could have been the Dutch.

            • baduhai@sopuli.xyz
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              What was mean spirited? Your joke, or Germany winning 7-1? Because I don’t think either were mean spirited, and I’m Brazilian.

              • ShittyBeatlesFCPres@lemmy.world
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                Germany winning 7-1. I was a neutral but kind of rooting for Brazil just to see a fun match and home fans celebrating. It’s always more fun when a team wins at home. And then minutes later. I thought “Oh no. Namar is out and Germany is the country least likely to hold back.” Brazil players looked dejected. Anyone with empathy felt for them.

          • ShittyBeatlesFCPres@lemmy.world
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            Maybe I’m a bit contrarian, which grows old but I try to balance it with sincerity and light jokes. I don’t have any particular agenda when posting on Internet forums, to be honest.

            You do you as well. I would nominate “Meh, you do you.” as the Fediverse slogan if I had such powers.

            • Bronzie@sh.itjust.works
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              You keep doing you. I found the joke funny.

              If we’re all too afraid of downvotes to post our true opinions, Lemmy will turn into another echochamber.

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          It’s true, most of your comments seem to have a positive upvote score and therefore more upvotes than downvotes. Your Yale comment seems to have attracted the most downvotes in recent time, currently “-14” “upvotes”/points (seems that some lemmy clients just call them “points”)

          So actually it seems that currently Lemmy itself doesnt support showing one users total upvotes/downvotes as this would very much resemble the reddit Karma system and they dont want that.

          However as all your comments and the total sum of votes for each comment(I think also the bare numbers of upvotes/downvotes are visible via Api access) are public one could theoretically write a script or build this into a Lemmy client. However the 3 clients I just used to test this don’t support this and probably don’t want to.

  • Gammelfisch@lemmy.world
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    What choice do we have? I would focus on improving everything for the regulars and copy the Finnish reserve system.

  • Naevermix@lemmy.world
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    This is not just about security, this is about safeguarding the last bastions of real democracy.

  • archonet@lemy.lol
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    for the first time, Germany possibly gets to be the “good guys” in a world war! Quite a turnaround.

      • crushyerbones@lemmy.world
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        Yes. There are actual letters and memos from german leadership about poking the Austrians into making the situation in Serbia worse in hopes a tiping point would give them an excuse to take swathes of Russia and France in the coming conflict.

        Bonus points: methods for the handling of jews and other undesirables in the occupied lands were already being talked about

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      Because Germany is on your side?

      Careful that you don’t draw the wrong conclusion.

      • archonet@lemy.lol
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        who says I think Germany would be on our side?

        at this rate, the US is looking more and more like it’ll jump into bed with Russia than the rest of NATO.

    • nuko147@lemm.ee
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      World war normally has not good guys. It is that Germany has gone so evil in WW2 that made all others appear the good guys. But in the end they all are evil (countries not people living in them, and no it’s not the same).

    • 🦄🦄🦄@feddit.org
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      With the Putin-loving, fascist AfD as the second strongest party in the country? We will see, but I do not have high hopes.

      • Djehngo@lemmy.world
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        So my understanding is that they are the second strongest, but still at around 20% the other German parties formed a coalition that froze Afd out of power. So they are still a threat in future elections, but they have limited impact on policy for now.

        Is that correct or have I got the wrong idea?

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          Yes and no. In general you are right, but there are municipalities in East Germany that had over 50% of the votes go to the AfD… which is still absolutely insane to me. I’m sure it’s the same in the USA, but cities tend to lean more left and rural regions tend to heavily favor the AfD (or slightly less/more right parties).

      • takeda@lemm.ee
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        Fuck trump, he made world less safe in so many ways and now in addition to threatening Canada and Greenland he appears to be planning to stay a war with Iran.

        And get this, the excuse is because they don’t want to negotiate suspending their nuclear program after he broke previous agreement.

      • archonet@lemy.lol
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        I’d like to believe they’ll kick the Nazis out of the bar before they reach the levers of true power, but I’m American and you see how well having that naive hope went for us.

        Having said that, I imagine the Germans are at least slightly more cognizant of the risks involved than we are. Difference between “It can’t happen here!” and “It has already happened here and it was bad.

        • 🦄🦄🦄@feddit.org
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          Having said that, I imagine the Germans are at least slightly more cognizant of the risks involved than we are.

          Yeah one would think so, huh? But nope, right now nothing points to that. The last government declined to start the banning process against the AfD even tho the chances of success would have been really high. And that was a coalition of basically the labor party (as far as they think of themselves at least), the greens and some neo-lib shitheads. With the conservative government of right now? Lmao fat chance.

      • archonet@lemy.lol
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        you know that article is dated September 28th 2023, right?

        now, I’m not saying Israel doesnt have a history of acting like bastards, but that’s just a wee bit before they started ethnically cleansing the Gaza strip.

    • index@sh.itjust.works
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      “good guys” vs “bad guys” logic isn’t much wise. In the cold war USA and germany recycled nazi and ss members to war with russia. World governments are all corrupted and have blood on their hands, none of them is really the good guys.

    • gaael@lemm.ee
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      Remember the first persons to be harassed, assassinated, detained, sent to concentration camps were german citizen.
      The first who tried to resist Hitler’s power, sabotage infrastructure, retrieve and send confidential informations to the allies were german citizen.
      A lot of germans were the good guys in ww2 (and afterwards for that matter).
      Whatever the conflict, let’s not forget that [country X leadership] is not the same as [country x as a whole].

    • Boxscape@lemmy.sdf.org
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      for the first time, Germany possibly gets to be the “good guys” in a world war! Quite a turnaround.