http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/05/22/...r-its-command/
There troops using our euqipment, says the article? Well, fine, but does not solve the problem of that the equipment pools of the Bundeswehr are hopelessly undersupplied.
I also question the widsom of now trying to raise a second military framework beside NATO. It is said NATO should beocme better supported, means the Germans should spend more for repairing their deficits and equipment lacks. And that NATO should become more independent from the US. Which cna only be acchieved by strenthening European legs in NATO. But when nations like Germany are being unwilling to invest the needed money, why to assume then that this money will all pof a sudden be avialable to turn an idea by theorists into a combat-strong reality?
I live in Münster, which is the central base for the logistics of the German-Dutch corps. And I knew what some of the soldiers here say about that corps. They called it a paper tiger, under-funded and undersupported. A detemrined Russian effort it would not be capable to resist. It some years now that I was told this. But i doubt that much has changed since then. Why should it have?
The shiny new world - for Germany it works perfect. On paper.
More payment for soldiers to make the job more attractive. Turkey out of NATO. More money in to repair the broken down and to replace the missing hardware. An end to pointless oversea missions that erode resources and finances for no substantial gains. All this within the framework of NATO. We do not need a second money-eating military framework beside it. For what?
This is about symbology as much as the damn Euro was. Another toy the eurocrats want to boast with, despite the obvious deficits. And no, it will not solve the basic problem. The Bundeswehr wanted to hide the fatc that it had to little working equioment by intriucing clever onceptions and shiny terminology for having the equipment being rotated between units. This of course did not chnage the fact that there was too little working equipm,ent, and still is. Now they want to hide the perosnell deficits by rotating th eperosnell between the equipment pools, so to speak.which again means that the personell deficits of the Bundeswehr will not be cured for real.
Its all self-deception. In the end you still have to little ammuntiion, to fewtanks, too few interceptors, too few helcipters, too few missile stockpiles, too few NVG, too few whatever, and still too few German soldiers who udnerstand that a soldier is no self-protective development worker, but a warrior.
And only the klatter will serve as a miliutary deterrance aainst foeign military aggressors, namely Russia in the Baltic. Not bilding schools in Afghanistan. Drilling waterholes in africa. Repairing bridges in some third world center of the world events. An army that alcks the warrior's spirit and the eqipment an dperosnnel pool that can endure longer times of conflict and higher losses, will lose the next war. Such an army will never serve as a deterrance, because it is not potent enough for that .