Thoughts? How does this relate to US military hegemony? Will Germany just act as America's lapdog like Britain, or do they represent a kind of turning point for the distribution of power globally?
Thoughts?
I'm completely terrified of how bloodthirsty the press in my country has become in recent days. they're constantly yelling about how the SPD (yes, the pro-NATO Rosa killer party that has just approved the 100 billion extra military spending) is too Putin friendly, i've never before seen such blatant, open propaganda here and that's really saying something, given that we're just past an unprecedented onslaught of chynabad articles due to the olympics (aka the nuclear take games). they're basically braying for blood and any nuance or understanding of the conflict is seen as treason. this already was a huge problem before, but they've taken the rabid :frothingfash: jingoism to a whole new level. i can't read any news site anymore, it's just wading through endless hawkish bs and when i've scrolled past the warmongering there's probably some TERF being platformed yelling about how i shouldn't exist. i'm so fucking tired of all of this.
As far as the 100 billion go, they may as well burn the money, all of it will be spent on dysfunctional crap that's as bad or worse as an F-35 already rusted when it takes flight for the first time. Our MIC is at least as inefficient and wasteful as America's, it's pure corruption and giving handouts to a handful of well connected arms manufacturers and advisor firms. it's just painful to see how much money they're wasting on this, this is almost twice of Germany's annual arms budget and Scholz has already promised to at least meet, if not exceed, NATO's 2% goal. This will be a veritable bonanza for Heckler + Koch, Krauss Maffai Wegmann, Airbus and other war profiteers, while our infrastructure continues to rot, our schools fall apart, and we have the second-worst wifi coverage in all of Europe. but yeah, sure, we have money to arm azov giga nazis so they can fight wagner ultra nazis.
How does this relate to US military hegemony? Will Germany just act as America’s lapdog like Britain
Germany almost always does. Bandwagoning the USA is all our political class is capable of when it comes to foreign policy. There's been rare exceptions like Iraq, but the last days have convinced me that the CIA will never allow something like that to happen again. and even if that wasn't the case, our ruling class just has no idea what to do without D.C. calling the shots. like, zero. they're completely lost if they have to think for themselves when it comes to such things.
Considering this will probably surpass health and education funding, it will probably lead to austerity measures. From what I understand, their ruling class has been braying for this for over a decade, and Putin has now given them a pretext to militarize in order to protect their global interests. And like in the past, even some of the left parties are buying into the bullshit. This will further reinforce NATO on the eastern flank, and will probably raise tensions even more with Russia. Of course, the US will be more than happy. I'm sure some of that spending will go towards the purchase of American tech (also F-35s LOL), and with Russia's influence with the EU likely to decrease, China will be the next target.
And who knows, if everything falls into place, maybe we'll get another Wehrmacht.
I feel like this happens periodically. Where theres some proposal for german rearmament, deeper french-german military cooperation or a 'european army.' The US does take it seriously as a threat to its hegemony. But its settled in back room deals we dont really have eyes on. Channeling this energy into Nato is good for the US because , well, its a us tool.
Germany can have their iraq war fever as a treat, but half of that money is going to mckinsey for figuring out which boondoggles to buy with the other half
EU is America's lap dog and it's gonna get nastier and more blatant now that Germany relies on the US for fuel, and there will likely be pressure for Europe to get out of Belt and Road as well. Mayo morons going down with the ship.
The US leadership might have preferred the Ukraine to be their puppet but the current war is not the worst thing to happen for them as it has created a Russian bogeyman that will scare European satellites tightly into the US sphere of influence. As the cherry on the top this makes Europe more dependent on American LNG and European satellite states will be lining up to spend like drunk sailors at the US military industrial complex.
Is
spoiler
"They're going to spend it all on gas, won't they?"
a too distasteful of a joke?
@Pseudoplatanus22 check this out: https://newleftreview.org/sidecar/posts/fog-of-war
