On a bit more serious notes: The Bundeswehr being absolutely dogshit on all fronts is a sort of lingering topic that pops up again and again and it's generally been pretty accepted that it's a clownshow with no real use. Depending on where you fall on the political spectrum you either think this is good, bad or - majority opinion i'd wager - a tremendous waste of money. WEll then Ukraine and suddenly people thought "oh dang we might actually need these guys". Which I don't think so, but I suppose it's understandable when your view is very eurocentric and you have literally no knowledge of history and this is the first time you noticed a war is happening.
We already have a budget comparable to other western european nations who actually have functioning armies but then I think this is where it gets german, because this state like no other has absolutely lost the ability to literally do anything in the 16 years of being ruled by the CDU. And not like, do good things, literally do anything. Every state part is run by a skeleton crew of underpaid lackeys who do not understand the world and they can't do anything except try to give out contracts, then get duped, then do the same thing again because bureaucracy and that bridge still ain't built.
There's been pretty widespread corruption with large amounts of money being basically funneled directly to McKinsey for nebolous "consulting" (par for the course) and nothing ever improves as apparently basically the majority of the administrative part of the Bundeswehr is de facto done by McKinsey morons and turns out when the answer isn't "just fire lots of people and/or outsource it" they're apparently kind of at the end of their wit.
But you know, can't do anything anymore. Instead of restructuring any of this or using the pretty large funds to do anything, you just throw money at the problem and hopes it solves itself. Latest plans is to buy F35s because remember the Starfighter and those goddamn pilots had it too good for too long, I guess. In all honesty, I expect they will not actually manage to do more with the money than wheelbarrow it directly into McKinsey, because no structural changes have been made. It's just a pit you throw money into to look serious and geopolitical now and sometimes it accidently spits out a working tank, but mostly not.
The SPD got back in power and well, you gotta.
On a bit more serious notes: The Bundeswehr being absolutely dogshit on all fronts is a sort of lingering topic that pops up again and again and it's generally been pretty accepted that it's a clownshow with no real use. Depending on where you fall on the political spectrum you either think this is good, bad or - majority opinion i'd wager - a tremendous waste of money. WEll then Ukraine and suddenly people thought "oh dang we might actually need these guys". Which I don't think so, but I suppose it's understandable when your view is very eurocentric and you have literally no knowledge of history and this is the first time you noticed a war is happening.
We already have a budget comparable to other western european nations who actually have functioning armies but then I think this is where it gets german, because this state like no other has absolutely lost the ability to literally do anything in the 16 years of being ruled by the CDU. And not like, do good things, literally do anything. Every state part is run by a skeleton crew of underpaid lackeys who do not understand the world and they can't do anything except try to give out contracts, then get duped, then do the same thing again because bureaucracy and that bridge still ain't built.
There's been pretty widespread corruption with large amounts of money being basically funneled directly to McKinsey for nebolous "consulting" (par for the course) and nothing ever improves as apparently basically the majority of the administrative part of the Bundeswehr is de facto done by McKinsey morons and turns out when the answer isn't "just fire lots of people and/or outsource it" they're apparently kind of at the end of their wit.
But you know, can't do anything anymore. Instead of restructuring any of this or using the pretty large funds to do anything, you just throw money at the problem and hopes it solves itself. Latest plans is to buy F35s because remember the Starfighter and those goddamn pilots had it too good for too long, I guess. In all honesty, I expect they will not actually manage to do more with the money than wheelbarrow it directly into McKinsey, because no structural changes have been made. It's just a pit you throw money into to look serious and geopolitical now and sometimes it accidently spits out a working tank, but mostly not.