US Army Europe wants German chief of staff
 

http://augengeradeaus.net/2014/03/u-...es/#more-14694
US army Europe with headquarters in Wiesbaden, Germany, have asked the Wehrmacht, I mean Bundeswehr, to give a German General the job of chief of stuff. The US after the NSA affair seems to be trying to improve the German-US relations. Most likely Brigadegeneral Markus Laubenthal, Komandeur of the 10th Panzer Division will get the job. Apart from training in the Bundeswehr, he took a traing course at the Advanced Command & Staff Course No. 5 at the Joint Services Command & Staff College, Shrivenham, Uk, and has a master in Defence Studies at King's College, London.

That leaves one question:
"When do we attack Poland?"

Never! :O:

:har:

Well, the standard procedure is to cut a deal with the Russians first. :O:

Hey! Be nice. I'm related to Commander, USAEUR. :stare:

Cool. How closely related?

Chief of staff is not the decision making commander at the top. ;)And you can take it as certain that pieces of US key intel that are rated as being of vital sensibility regarding US interests will never appear on his desktop.

Its an offer to the German side to allow getting bribed. So politicians will accept it, since they see nothing unusual in that. NSA and CIA probably gave the recommendation, to do something about improving PR after the recent cooling in relations.

I personally would prefer to have the offer rejected. It imitates friendship where there is indeed no friendship, but just shared interests between two states that behind the curtain treat each other as hostile nations anyway (spionage, stealing business secrets, spying on top staff etc.), with the one dwarfing the other in these regards.

Germany wanted to get access to the five eyes club, but was refused membership. Not that I regret that, but this is the detail that says much more about the state of relations and "trust" than this military post offered now.

He's my uncle. :rock:

How about that. You must be proud of him. I just read his bio on Wiki. :salute:

Oh yeah. :salute: :yep:

Can't be many bases left west of the Rhine by now, surely? :hmmm: Airfields maybe, but I thought most of the army bases had been shut down now.

A wee bit oversensitive, methinks. Thanks to WWII, no German will be more than a Corps commander in NATO. Even during the Cold War, the Germans are never even Army Group commander despite it being their home and them being the single largest ground contingent.

NUTZ!:03::O:

So precisely what US assets would he be in overall command of should the appointment go ahead?

USAREUR'S chief of staff. That includes 40000 US soldiers, 25000 of them combat troops. Chief of staff has a relation to SACEUR like Sergeants have to unit lieutenants or captains: mama keeps the house in shape and runs family's everyday business, but daddy decides the general orientation, goals, longterm plans.

http://www.stripes.com/news/europe/f...staff-1.274004

One could also say he's the superior butler in the house, overwatching all lower servants. But the house owner says what he wants to get done, then not caring for the details anymore.