• star_wraith [he/him]
    ·
    2 years ago

    Maybe this was just a myth, but I thought German people were pretty solidly against building up their military. Has their been polling over how popular/unpopular this is?

    • TankieTanuki [he/him]
      ·
      edit-2
      2 years ago

      I thought their constitution prevented the army from leaving the nation's borders, which would make them pretty useless to NATO.

      • rubpoll [she/her]
        ·
        2 years ago

        It's not useless: Germany will be buying a shit ton of weapons and military vehicles and bombs from the US. That's the point of the US military too.

        • dinklesplein [any, he/him]
          ·
          edit-2
          2 years ago

          even ignoring this, if NATO wants it, the bundeswehr will fully rearm with no restrictions. the JSDF is currently in this process, because having japan and germany as rabid attack dogs is more useful than having them disarmed.

          • Omegamint [comrade/them, doe/deer]
            ·
            2 years ago

            Japan has been working up to it for a very long time and I'm surprised that it's even taken this long for them to go all out

            • dinklesplein [any, he/him]
              ·
              2 years ago

              there's enough of an anti-war sentiment here to stop the LDP from going full balls to the wall like Germany has suddenly decided it wants to do

        • Tankiedesantski [he/him]
          ·
          2 years ago

          Would be kinda funny if this means Germany spins up its own defence industry and starts eating Raytheon's pie.

          • AcidSmiley [she/her]
            ·
            2 years ago

            H+K has already been mentioned, but besides massive amounts of small arms, Germany is already huge in manufacturing and exporting tanks (the Leopard II is widely used in Saudi-Arabia and the UAE, for example), main guns for tanks (i think the US army uses a Rheinmetal canon on their Abrams tanks) and submarines. The military-industrial complex is very definitely a thing here, germany is consistently among the 5 biggest arms exporters in the world. there's always a multitude of wars being waged in the world that directly line the pockets of our bourgeoisie.

      • AcidSmiley [she/her]
        ·
        2 years ago

        no, that's japan. germany could have gone in that direction as well, but was already needed as a frontline state in the cold war when our constitution was written, so the us actively worked against this place becoming too pacifist.

        just for context, losing two world wars in a row and then being told to fight your own relatives in the DDR in the early stages of an omnicidal thermonuclear war really did a number on people here. Germany in 1945 knew defeat to an extend that americans, who haven't known war within the boarders of their own country since the south got its ass kicked and who still cry ab losing a few of their boats in pearl harbor, cannot even begin to imagine. and in spite of this place still being deeply infected by fascism, the defeat at the hands of the USSR and its allies was so crushing, the sight of the bombed-out cities and the endless trails of PoWs returning home so overwhelming, that even the chuddiest people here became deeply vary of war. Consequently, germany had a massive peace movement from the 1960s onwards, and unlike america's it stayed relevant in german society throughout the 1970s and 1980s, where there were massive protests against us nukes being stationed here. this wasn't an exclusively leftist thing, either, even devout christian conservatives frequently had at least some anti-war sentiment.

        today, none of that is left. our news sites celebrate the end of that era while they cheer on the azov nazis and it's absolutely terrifying to behold.

      • Animasta [any]
        ·
        2 years ago

        I've looked it up and and it seems like German army was in Afghanistan.

      • GrafZahl [he/him]
        ·
        2 years ago

        That's not a thing. Foreign deployment isn't really mentioned at all in the GG AFAIK. The constitutional court sanctioned it in the 90's tho, if the mission is part of a "system of preserving peace and collective safety". Supposedly NATO, the EU, the VN are that.

    • GrafZahl [he/him]
      ·
      edit-2
      2 years ago

      From what I can find, rn it seems to be around 70% in favor of more spending. 2018 it apparently was just 40%

      Thats just what I could find from a few headlines tho, so idk how trustworthy that is.

    • BoxedFenders [any, comrade/them]
      ·
      2 years ago

      Putin just became the perfect scapegoat for German hawks to froth at the mouth and convince moderates that increased militarization is imperative.