Tag Archives: Military

Know Your Friends

June 10, 2015 By in Hard Facts, Helplessness, Hideology, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hypochondria, Hypocrisy Tags: , , , , , , , , , , 2 Comments

You know, like you know your enemies? But with friends like this…

NATO

According to a Pew Research Center study, only 38 percent of Germans would want to help a NATO country if it were to be attacked by Russia. Far more than half of those asked would be against it. So much for NATO’s Article 5.

Das ist im Vergleich mit anderen Nato-Ländern die größte Ablehnung militärischer Hilfe nach Artikel 5 des Nato-Vertrags, der im Angriffsfall die gemeinsame Verteidigung vorsieht. In Italien (51 Prozent), Frankreich (53) und Spanien (47) sind die Werte der Umfrage zufolge etwas niedriger, während in Polen und Großbritannien fast die Hälfte der Befragten für eine militärische Unterstützung wäre.

Border Patrol German-Style

May 8, 2015 By in Hard Facts, Hi-tech, Higher Education, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

German marines have rescued 200 (now over 400) refugees shortly after launching two ships to scour waters between Africa and Europe.

Border Patrol

The ship “Hessen” evacuated the boat in distress about 250 kilometers south of the Italian island Lampedusa. The refugees were brought to an Italian port, the German army said after discussions with Italian marine rescue officials.

The “Hessen,” along with the “Berlin,” also a Bundeswehr ship, were warned of a refugee distress situation on Monday morning. The ships had begun their search mission on Tuesday, when they sailed from Crete towards the sea area between Libya and Italy.

Just Out Of Cold War Storage

April 12, 2015 By in Hard Facts, Helplessness, Hi-tech, Home Cooking Tags: , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Demothball: to remove (naval or military equipment) from storage or reserve, usually for active duty; reactivate.

Leopard 2

Germany plans to bring 100 mothballed tanks back into service in what is widely seen as a response to rising tensions with Russia over Ukraine.

Die im Zuge der Neuausrichtung der Bundeswehr festgelegte Obergrenze von 225 Kampfpanzern Leopard 2 soll auf 320 erhöht werden.

More Massive Military Might

February 18, 2015 By in Hard Facts, Helplessness, High Art, Home Cooking, Humor, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy Tags: , , , , , , , 2 Comments

As if we hadn’t already seen enough yesterday…

A German battalion assigned to Nato’s rapid response force used broomstick handles instead of guns on a joint exercise due to chronic equipment shortages.

Broomsticks

Oh, I dunno. Maybe this is just part of Germany’s new security strategy. I mean, if they really know how to use these broomstick handles properly and stuff?

“Sure you can manage that broom, Potter?” said a cold, drawling voice.

Russia Triggering Massive German Military Shift Or Something

February 17, 2015 By in Hard Facts, Helplessness, High Art, Home Cooking, Humor, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen has said that she has had it up to here with Russia’s use of unconventional military force to exploit its dominance over former Soviet states and sees no other choice but to begin threatening Russia with Germany’s massive military might or something. In the future sometime perhaps, that is. Maybe.

Ursula

She has even gone so far as to begin plans for the publication of a so-called “white book” as early as next year. Or the year after, these things take time. The Russian military was not immediately available for comment as they were completely out of breath with shock and awe upon hearing this.

“What is our reaction to the attempt to establish a geopolitical projection of power through military violence as a form of influence?” she asked no one in particular. “How do I know? I’m just the Defense Minister of Germany. But it’s bound to be in that white book and I just can’t wait to read what it will be.”

Tanks For Nothing, Vlad

January 4, 2015 By in Hard Facts, Helplessness, Hi-tech, History, Hurt Feelings Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

The end of the Cold War didn’t necessarily mean the end of war between big countries, and Russia’s invasion of neighboring Ukraine undermines the notion that a quiet Europe is forever free from war. And modern warfare means tanks. Germany recently bolstered their current arsenal of tanks by buying and upgrading 20 Leopard 2A7 tanks acquired from the Netherlands, though originally from Canada.

Tanks

Upgrading old tanks is fairly routine and accounts for the dangers of the present. Developing a new advanced tank, instead, is a bet on the future. In August, German company Krauss-Maffei Wegmann (KMW), makers of the current versions of the Leopard tank, merged with French defense company Nexter. Speaking to the merger, KMW CEO mentioned the idea of a Leopard 3 tank, noting that France has a strategic perspective that stretches decades into the future. In October, when the budget committee of Germany’s parliament put together their draft of a 2015 spending bill, the proposal to develop a new tank was quietly noted, and then debated in an independent German armed forces journal.

German Soldiers Build Schools

December 30, 2014 By in Hard Facts, Helplessness, Higher Education, Home Cooking, Hypocrisy Tags: , , , , , , , Leave a comment

And roads. And they train the police and only do the things that other bad soldiers won’t do because they reek of goodness and niceness.

Kill Lists

And of course they also select insurgents to be placed on “kill lists” when nobody else is looking (so the bad soldiers can kill them later). But still.

A so-called “Target Support Cell” was based at the German headquarters of Mazar-e-Sharif. The group’s mission was, according to the report, “to collect information for the nomination of individual targets.”

The Dirty Dozen

December 11, 2014 By in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Helplessness, Hideology, Home Cooking, Hypocrisy Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

No, not the movie. That’s the number (12) of German “troops” currently active in Northern Iraq training Kurdish peshmerga fighters.

Iraq

Just sending weapons all the time was starting to get a little peinlich (embarrassing) for everybody – even here in Berlin – so this bold military move needed to be undertaken to prove to the rest of the world that, well, I don’t know what this was supposed to prove.

And now get this: Word is out that Angela Merkel’s government may now even want to surge big time and send more than 100 trainers more.

But don’t worry another invasion of Poland or anything just yet: Under German law, any military deployment abroad requires parliamentary approval, but this mission may require more than a simple parliamentary vote. The Defence Ministry fears it may require a change in the Basic Law, Germany’s constitution, Bild reported quoting an unidentified ministry source.

Right. The Germans will change their constitution for this? Hey, it’s better to have a dirty dozen than no dirt at all.