An unreasonable army?

[Skybird]

What you wish and what you get sometimes are two different things. Especially if you do a poor job in preparation.

Germany's Army Feels the Pinch

By Konstantin von Hammerstein and Alexander Szandar
With deployments in the Balkans, Afghanistan, Africa and now the Middle East, Germany's military, the Bundeswehr, is fast becoming the global service provider for German foreign policy. But the force is insufficiently prepared for its new tasks and, as it is about to embark to Lebanon on its next foreign mission, remains underfunded and poorly equipped.

AP

German Defense Minister Josef Jung: The German army's needs are growing faster than its capabilities.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel is here to send a message. After climbing on board, she now stands in the brisk morning wind on the deck of the frigate "Saxony" to address a group of sailors. It makes for good TV imagery on Thursday evening, imagery dominated by a chancellor who clearly has a special place in her heart for Germany's troops. Why else would Merkel be paying a visit to the German navy at its base in the Baltic seaport of Warnemünde?
After Merkel had spoken with the Lebanese prime minister by telephone the day before, it now seems clear that a German naval fleet will sail for Lebanon in the next few days. About 1,800 soldiers from the German air force and navy will likely take part in the mission, provided the Bundestag, Germany's parliament, approves the measure this week, as it is expected to do. Here in Warnemünde, Merkel tells the assembled sailors that she is confident that "the navy is prepared to assume responsibility."
Out at sea the navy was showing off the capabilities of two of its speedboats, the "Zobel" and the "Frettchen." One of the two craft shot magnesium flares into the air to demonstrate the navy's latest method of distracting enemy rockets. Germany has promised to send three or four of these boats to Lebanon as part of the United Nations peacekeeping contingent being assembled there.
It's a daring promise on Germany's part, given the problems the boats have experienced on previous missions in the Mediterranean. At high speeds, the crafts' ribs broke in the Mediterranean's heavy swells. Since then, the ships are no longer permitted to travel with full fuel tanks and have been forced to reduce their weapons payloads while in the region. Higher water temperatures have wreaked havoc on cooling systems for the vessels' electronic systems and diesel engines, forcing the speedboats to travel at reduced speeds.

DER SPIEGEL

Graphic: International comparison of military spending

The journey to the Levantine coast will be a long one. Because the boats cannot be operated without their full 34-man crews, they'll be forced to put in to port every two days. The trip for these so-called "speedboats" will be everything but speedy and will take an estimated two weeks. But no one is likely to care much about the delay, because these are not the types of ships that will be needed for one of the peacekeeping force's key tasks in Lebanon, which is to search other vessels. The rocket launcher on the afterdeck takes up so much space that there is no room for a rubber dinghy that would enable the German sailors to board a suspicious ship. The two frigates' "Sea Lynx" helicopters, which will also be redeployed to the eastern Mediterranean in the coming days, will handle the task instead. But even these helicopters are not designed for such use and will have to make two flights to carry a complete twelve-member search and inspection team.
The equipment difficulties the Lebanon mission highlights are symptomatic of the Bundeswehr's overall condition and of the fact that Germany's armed forces have not been properly equipped for their changing duties for some time now. This chronically underfunded, poorly outfitted and physically exhausted force is now embarking on a new foreign mission, with ten others already underway.
German troops are helping secure the peace in Bosnia and Kosovo, are stationed in Afghanistan, Congo and Sudan, are patrolling the Horn of Africa and serving as military observers in Georgia and in the border region between Ethiopia and Eritrea. Sixteen years after the end of the Cold War, the German government is increasingly using the armed forces as a global service provider for Berlin's foreign policy. Germans themselves are reluctantly getting used to the fact that their reunified country is now also assuming the military role of a medium-sized power.

EXPENSIVE AND SUPERFLUENCE: PLANNED BUNDESWARE PROCUREMENT

Eurocopter

Tiger Combat Helicopter Number: 80; Cost: €2.6 billion

DDP

Eurofighter Fighter Jet Number: 180; Cost: over €21 billion

REUTERS

Puma Infantry Fighting Vehicle Number: 410; Cost: €2.1 billion

But the demand for the Bundeswehr has grown faster than its capabilities. While countries like Australia, France and Great Britain have increased their military spending in recent years, Germany's defense budget has declined almost continuously since reunification. "Germany is among the countries that spends a relatively small percentage of its budget on defense," says the chancellor, succinctly summing up the problem.
Indeed, Germany spends just over one percent of its gross domestic product of about €2 trillion on defense, which puts it at the tail end of NATO countries in terms of military spending. Although the Bundeswehr's €24 billion budget will increase by €480 million next year, its own costs will rise by €300 million as a result of the increase in the value-added tax later this year that has already been approved by the Bundestag.
The defense minister is virtually the only prominent politician willing to stand up for the Bundeswehr. "Many members of parliament have lost interest in the Bundeswehr," says former Defense Minister and Social Democrat Hans Apel. "Supporting the military does nothing for their careers."
Despite its growing importance internationally, the German military continues to play the role of a stepchild in German domestic politics. Despite opinion polls that show the armed forces, together with the Federal Constitutional Court and the police, enjoying the highest level of public confidence among all government institutions, this hasn't convinced politicians to open the national pocketbook when it comes to military spending. Besides, two-thirds of German citizens say that Germany has plenty of problems of its own that should be addressed before turning to problems in other countries.
This apathy within the public and the legislature means that experts are the only ones who are currently addressing key defense issues. How big should the country's armed forces be? Is compulsory military service still appropriate today? Which of Germany's national interests urgently require the deployment of its armed forces? What should the army of the future look like?
The last of these questions has been systematically ignored for years. Former Chancellor Helmut Kohl's last defense minister, Volker Rühe, dragged his feet when it came to transforming the Bundeswehr into an intervention force, because he wanted to avoid the domestic political controversy he feared such a change would trigger. Only his successors, Rudolf Scharping and Peter Struck, both Social Democrats, launched the overdue reforms starting in 1998.
Germany's security "also needs to be defended in the Hindukush," said Struck. "Our field of operations is the whole world." Struck envisioned the new intervention force replacing the old Bundeswehr, which was still designed to repel the powerful armies of the former Soviet bloc, by 2010.
The current defense minister, Franz Josef Jung, continues to stand by his predecessor's goal. In the draft version of his new "White Paper on Germany's Security Policy," Jung, a Christian Democrat, proposes a rigorous restructuring and re-equipping of the military to suit its "more likely tasks" -- international crisis control instead of tank battles on the northern German plains.

But there is hardly any other political sphere in which ideas and reality are so far apart. A study by the government-aligned German Institute for International and Security Affairs is consistently critical in its assessment of the results of reform efforts to date. According to the study, the Bundeswehr has failed to structure its arms planning to suit the "requirements of the current situation in security policy." The military, the study concludes, still has a tendency to "hone the capabilities it needed during the Cold War."
The conclusions are obvious. The Bundeswehr is spending its already stretched budget on yesterday's projects. For example, it's been 16 years since the end of the Cold War and yet the air force continues to insist on acquiring the MEADS missile defense system, at a price tag running into the billions, a system that dates back to a 1980s initiative by former Defense Minister and Christian Democrat Manfred Wörner.

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In recent years the army, loath to be outdone by the air force, has purchased 188 "Howitzer 2000" tanks with a range of 40 kilometers (25 miles). Acquisitions like these have prompted Germany's military leadership to brag that it has "the world's most modern artillery." But rivals within the air force promptly ridiculed their army counterparts, saying that the new short-range weapons are of little more use than for "shooting into the sky on New Years Eve in Uzbekistan." The air force, for its part, can't be dissuaded from pursuing its plan to purchase 180 Eurofighter jets for about €21 billion.
To his credit, former defense minister Peter Struck ordered a reduction in Germany's inventory of heavy Leopard 2 tanks from almost 2,000 to 350. But the generals were so upset over Struck's decision that, in order to placate them, he approved purchases of the "Puma" armored personnel carrier. As it turned out, the giant steel vehicle, weighing in at 43 tons when fully loaded with battle gear, was too heavy to be carried by the newly developed A400M transport aircraft.
Military leaders didn't see this as a problem. The "Puma" will now be constructed as a modular vehicle and assembled upon arrival in its deployment region. In its report, the Institute for International and Security Affairs acerbically notes: "The extent to which it makes sense to conduct such assembly work in acute crisis regions where armed conflict may already be underway merits further investigation."
Germany's parliament, the Bundestag, only recently approved the Bundeswehr's planned purchase of new antitank missiles for its "Tiger" combat helicopter. The original plans for the missiles stem from the 1980s and the German military's efforts to be prepared for a Soviet tank offensive in the "Fulda Gap" region near the then-border between West and East Germany.
Despite efforts by Wolfgang Schneiderhan, the inspector general of the Bundeswehr, to convince the Defense Ministry to approve fewer than the planned 80 Tiger combat helicopters and 180 Eurofighters, officials there rejected his proposal out of fears that it would prompt the defense industry to demand compensation for the reduction in order volume. Despite the fact that the two systems will consume about one-third of the Bundeswehr's purchasing budget in the coming years, defense ministry officials decided to keep their orders at the original levels.

Photo Gallery: Merkel's Day at Sea

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Click on a picture to launch the image gallery (6 Photos)


Germany's defense planners continue to order away, seemingly ignorant of their troops' more urgent needs. This year the Bundestag will be called upon, once again, to approve many new acquisitions that shouldn't be given priority, including equipment for the MEADS system, high-tech frigates priced in the billions, submarines and the "Boxer" wheeled multirole armored vehicle (MRAV). At three meters (about 10 feet) wide and almost eight meters (26 feet) long, and weighing in at over 30 tons, the Boxer is so disproportionately large that its usefulness in places like Afghanistan and Kosovo is severely limited.
Coupled with the obviously erroneous investment in unnecessary major projects is the defense bureaucracy's equally obvious inability to successfully implement projects that actually do make sense. As a result, the "powerful force" the Bundeswehr calls itself in its promotional materials still lacks much of the equipment it so urgently needs to perform its new tasks: state-of-the-art information and communications technology, lightweight vehicles instead of heavy tanks, satellites and unmanned aerial vehicles for fast and precise reconnaissance and large, long-range transport aircraft. Bureaucrats at the Defense Ministry have spent the last five years negotiating with various suppliers to agree to the transfer of about 300,000 telephone connections and 100,000 computer jobs to a private firm the federal government plans to establish with a consortium of companies.
The "Hercules" project is estimated to cost more than €6.5 billion over a ten-year period, and yet not a single member of parliament has submitted the draft legislation needed to approve the project. The defense administration's efforts to combine the separate computer systems of the army, air force and navy into a single efficient network have been just as futile. Such "leadership systems" are urgently needed to make it possible to coordinate troops abroad. Faced with the helpless efforts of military officials, Egon Ramms, the commander of the Multinational Corps Northeast, decided to take matters into his own hands. Following extensive comparison studies, the German general recommended purchasing a computer system from new NATO member Poland. Unlike the German military's "Heros" system, says Ramms, the Polish equipment allows for the seamless transfer of data among departments within NATO and the European Union.
Given these levels of poor management and waste, many important projects simply lack the necessary funding. While Germany plans to launch its first spy satellite next year, the Bundeswehr has only four "Luna" unmanned aerial vehicles for near-range reconnaissance in places like Kinshasa and Kabul. The cameras mounted on the small aircraft are capable of delivering live, close-up images that enable German forces to detect potential assailants. Although the military has a considerable need for such aircraft, only four additional systems have been approved -- with the fourth scheduled for purchase in 2012.
The money is apparently also lacking for urgently needed "Dingo" armored patrol vehicles. Although the Bundeswehr recently ordered 149 of the vehicles, it won't have the funds to pay for the last of the vehicles until 2011. The military's economizing even extends to personal equipment for its soldiers. Although it recently purchased 166,000 new G-36 assault rifles, only 14,000 came equipped with night vision scopes.
The Bundeswehr's ambitious "Infantry of the Future" project has all but fizzled. So far only two companies have received the mini-computers, GPS navigation equipment and night vision scopes that are part of the planned effort -- though this may not necessarily be such a great loss. The wireless equipment doesn't work, which means that Germany's supposed high-tech warriors still lack the capacity to transmit critical data such as an enemy position's target coordinates.
The Bundeswehr has apparently "set the wrong priorities," complains Rainer Arnold, a defense expert and Social Democrat. Bernd Siebert, a defense politician and member of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party, is also convinced that the Bundeswehr is putting its money in the wrong places. In his opinion the defense budget ought to be increased by €1 billion euros in what he calls an "immediate investment program." The CDU's defense experts plan to discuss Siebert's proposal this week.
Politicians within the conservative CDU/CSU coalition, in particular, are increasingly calling for a boost in defense spending. "It's an unavoidable debate," says Andreas Schockenhoff, the deputy head of the CDU/CSU parliamentary group in the Bundestag. "The gap is widening every day between the military's mounting tasks and its declining funds." The chancellor, on the other hand, has taken her customarily noncommittal approach to the issue. Of course, she says vaguely, an additional deployment such as the one in Lebanon "will play a role in the 2007 budget debate."
The chancellor also avoided the sensitive issue during her tour of naval maneuvers in Warnemünde last Thursday, instead praising the navy's "highly motivated" sailors. After the visit, Merkel said that it was her impression "that the navy operates with state-of-the-art technology." The chancellor was apparently impressed by her small excursion on the new high-tech frigate "Saxony."
No one told her that the software on the Saxony's firing control system still doesn't work. Apparently the manufacturer installed three different software systems on the frigate and its two sister ships, systems that are unable to communicate effectively with one another. Fixing the problem will take months, which means that the navy's three new super-ships won't be taking part in missions anytime soon.
Translated from the German by Christopher Sultan

[Skybird]

On the same topic:

SPIEGEL ONLINE - September 15, 2006, 05:25 PM
URL: http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/spiegel/0,1518,437301,00.html
German Military

Topping up the Arms Budget, Behind Voters' Backs

By Alexander Szandar
Increasing Germany's military budget will be hard to sell to voters. But with German troops involved in a growing number of operations abroad, extra money is needed. What to do? There's always the option of topping up the budget in roundabout ways.

AP

Supply ships like the "Frankfurt am Main" have been to Indonesia, and now they're needed in the Middle East.

An annual reception held by the German parliament's Military Commissioner tends to be a run-of-the-mill affair in Berlin politics. Year after year, members of parliament, military officials and high-ranking members of the Advisory Council on Military Affairs meet over a few drinks. Military caterers provide a few meatballs, some bratwurst and beer.
But last Thursday the party felt more festive. For the first time in the 50-year history of the German military, or Bundeswehr, the head of state himself made an appearance. Federal President Horst Köhler came "to send a signal," as Military Commissioner Reinhold Robbe from the Social Democrat Party (SPD) put it.
Köhler delighted his audience by complaining about a widespread but "friendly lack of interest" in the German military. He said the government had done a miserable job of explaining Germany's most recent missions -- in Congo and Lebanon -- to the German people. The "reasons for missions abroad" have to be "carefully stated," and in a way that "the general population can understand them," the Köhler told his listeners.
The problems he addressed are real, and Germany's lack of interest in its own military is only aggravated by a recent need to spend more on it. Opposition to defense spending has risen with the need: About 64 percent of Germans are against increasing the military budget, which now hovers around €24 billion ($30 billion).
An increase in military expenditure is also out of the question for German Chancellor Angela Merkel, at least for now. No German leader relishes headlines about a "German Military Buildup."
More missions abroad
Still, Merkel understands that the Bundeswehr can't shoulder new missions indefinitely without an influx of cash. The peacekeeping mission to Lebanon has been cast in terms of a historic duty to protect Israel, and Germany, Merkel says, can't put off more world crises by begging, "No new conflicts please, we can't afford it." She adds that the defense budget "isn't sacrosanct" or untouchable, which seems to mean it might be increased. But Merkel also resists the German arms lobby by making clear she has no new military program "for the 2007-2008 budget."

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But German Defense Minister Franz Josef Jung has reason to hope that he'll receive considerably more for 2008-2009. Politicians working on budget and military issues have started a discreet search for more cash, and they're doing it with Merkel's tacit approval.
The idea is not to formally increase the defense budget. Somewhat scurrilous demands from the back rows of the Christian Democrat Party (CDU) -- like paying for the German military's reconstruction work in Afghanistan with funds from the foreign aid budget -- also don't have much of a chance. But any tricks will reportedly be tolerated to hide the fact that German military coffers are fattening.


Even the Minister of Finance is a party to this game. Peer Steinbrück is willing to talk about indirect financial support for the military, as he told party allies from the Social Democrat Party (SPD). But Steinbrück named one condition: Defense Minister Jung and his military officials have to prove to him quickly that they have made use of every savings opportunity and that there is genuinely "no more air in the box."
Providing that proof shouldn't be difficult for Jung and his generals. For example, the budget sum allocated for military operations abroad next year is €640 million ($812 million) -- €30 million ($38 million) less than this year's total. But costs will almost certainly rise.
The new German mission in Lebanon alone -- involving frigates, speedboats and Tornado reconnaissance planes, which Jung has determined will take at least a year -- will cost a good €15 million a month ($19 million), according to preliminary estimates. That adds up to almost €200 million ($254 million) a year. Reducing troop numbers in Afghanistan or the Balkans won't be feasible, and an expansion of the Congo mission is possible.
All of which makes the air in the box pretty thin. So government strategists have come up with a few tricks for implementing their clandestine increase in defense spending.
A little here, a little there
Jung is still allowed to submit "expenses higher than planned" in 2006. He'll receive the extra money from the German government's budget for "general financial administration." That's what he'll do to cover for the German military's peacekeeping mission in Lebanon. In 2007, Steinbrück will tap the same budget again, bringing in millions for the mission in Lebanon. He can also claim "immediate need for operative reasons" in other places like Afghanistan. Jung will also get extra funds to cover rising wages and pensions and to compensate for an increase in sales tax starting January 1.

DDP

German Chancellor Angela Merkel stands between Defense Minister Franz Josef Jung, left, and Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, as she announces plans for Germany's mission to Lebanon.

There's also an international business deal to be rescinded: According to an agreement reached in July, the construction of two Israeli submarines will be partly financed with funds from the German defense budget. Jung would have to contribute a good €300 million ($380 million). But now there's a plan to cover Berlin's share of the Israeli project with funds from the general budget, where it appears under the bureaucratic label "Specific Plan 60." So Jung can keep his millions and spend them for his own purposes.
People involved in this shifting of funds hope it will yield up to €2 billion ($2,5 billion) for the military.
Coincidence or not, that's almost exactly the sum that Jung's party ally Bernd Siebert has requested for an "investment program" -- to purchase, for example, lightly-armored vehicles to protect German troops in Afghanistan from attacks by the Taliban and by drug barons. And it just so happens that the military has come up with this very sum in calculating the cost of its "minimum need" for 3,500 "protected leading, specific-function and transport vehicles."
In this and in other cases, military officials aren't short on ideas for how to get extra millions. General Wolfgang Schneiderhan, the German Chief of Defense, and the commanders of the German army, air force and navy spent three hours presenting their financial concerns and shopping lists to the German Defense Minister on Tuesday last week.
Wish lists from the army, navy, and air force
Schneiderhan explained that in 2004 -- under Jung's Social Democrat predecessor, Peter Struck -- the defense budget was cut by about €26 billion ($33 billion). But since Struck's own hopes for extra funds didn't come true, more than €8 billion ($10 billion) for projected new purchases were already missing again the following year.
As expected, the German army's top officer, Lieutenant General Hans-Otto Budde, stressed that buying lightly-armored vehicles was the "priority." But he also requested body armor for snipers and even new tank bridges to ensure the "mobility" of active troops.
At no time during the meeting did air force commander Klaus-Peter Stieglitz signal any willingness to compromise on the plan for purchasing 180 expensive Eurofighter jet planes. He was all the more vehement in complaining that the growing costs associated with the "maintenance and use of materials" were forcing the air force to fly less and reduce pilot training hours -- a one-hour flight with a Tornado fighter jet now costs about €30,000 ($38,000). The reduction in training hours has a negative effect on "operational capacity," Stieglitz lamented. He also pointed out that there is a shortage of funds for new, unmanned reconnaissance planes badly needed by his troops.

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Vice Admiral Wolfgang Nolting explained that the German navy is "on the edge." He pointed out that the supply ships "Berlin" and "Frankfurt am Main" are frequently needed -- for humanitarian aid after the tsunami in Indonesia, for example, or for the new peacekeeping mission in Lebanon -- and argued that the construction of a third ship of this type, originally projected for 2014, needs to be "rescheduled" for an earlier date.
The Defense Minister was amazed. Even if the backroom negotiations in Berlin scrape together the hoped-for millions, there won't be enough for all the generals' wish lists. What's more, new costs for more military operations are on the horizon.
Sending troops to Darfur, for example, is an adventure Merkel has shelved for as long as German soldiers are still busy in Congo. But as recently as Friday, actor George Clooney ratcheted up pressure for a Darfur mission at the UN by making the sort of humanitarian appeal that has kick-started most of Germany's missions since the Balkan conflict in 1998.
"We were brought up to believe that the UN was formed to ensure that the Holocaust could never happen again," Clooney said in New York. But if the world waits too long, "you won't need the UN (in Darfur). You will simply need men with shovels and bleached white linen and headstones. How you deal with it will be your legacy -- your Rwanda, your Cambodia, your Auschwitz."

[The Noob]

That gave me Laughts...

Angie, the U-Boat Commanderin

Gotta make a SH3 movie about this...
With an XXI!
Great Idea, not?

[snowsub]

Sad to see the state of you armed forces Skybird.

But for all Australia's spending we're not in anymore better shape, we've got 4 major OS deployments happening atm: The Solomon Islands, East Timor, Afghanistan & Iraq plus assorted personnel scatered in other locations, talk here is about increasing recuitment for the ADF.
I'm assuming germany would have the same shortage of personnel problems?

[Perilscope]

Originally Posted by snowsub

I'm assuming germany would have the same shortage of personnel problems?

It's even more embarrassing considering Germany as over 80 million people; they should be doing much better.

Australia I could understand to a certain point, it as roughly 20 million habitants, well, minus Steve Irwin now.

[STEED]

From the propaganda side if Germany had a better army and started popping up here and there in the world the wet liberals will be shouting out it's the fourth reich. These people need to grow up that kind of thinking is crass.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by snowsub

Sad to see the state of you armed forces Skybird.

But for all Australia's spending we're not in anymore better shape, we've got 4 major OS deployments happening atm: The Solomon Islands, East Timor, Afghanistan & Iraq plus assorted personnel scatered in other locations, talk here is about increasing recuitment for the ADF.
I'm assuming germany would have the same shortage of personnel problems?

Concenring the really qualified ones - yes (pros with special training for the mission, instead of conscripts).

The financial burden of the Reunification is immense, but that is not the excuse because so much, some would even say: the majority of the money for that purpose got sunk into stupid and useless prestige projects, bad planning, pumping money into old, non-working structures that guarantee that nothing would turn for the better, it is the usual trench warfare between the conservative's and socialdemocrat's different economical orientations. We have been betrayed for some hundred billion euros over the years by this kind of incompetent thinking.

There is nothing bad in having a smaller army, like mthe BW is today (it once had almolst half a million in standing troops). The point is not to use an army for purposes that are overstretching it's structures, capabilties and lines. Politicians want too much, but they invest too little. Politicians with memories ofn the war, and thus: experience and competence for ilitary affairs, are no longer there, are no longer in office. It's designer managers from the kindergarten and the marketplace of selfish egocentrism that run the show today. war is only a Hollywood movie, and there it only works, doesn't it, so why worry? Politicians can't win prestige or make a career by standing up for the interests of the BW, so they do not care for the BW. They should increase the defense budget - nevertheless should want to make far lesser use of the BW. Some of the deployments are alibi shows anyway or have unrealistic goals and irrational strategical perspectives from the very beginning. and too many people in Germany think of the BW as an assisting agency for the german Technisches Hilfswerk. but an army's top job is not to reconstruct infrastructure and operate hospitals in countries on the other side of the globe , but to fight wars. For this purposes it needs to be designed and funded. This is often forgotten. Too many missions so far have gone well in the meaning that german losses are small, or non-existant. That has caused a feeling of that the Bw is well-funded enough (it works, doesn't it?), and that these deployments are not dangerous and could cause dozens of coffins returning to Germany within just hours (it works, doesn't it?). when I think of the german role in Afghanistan, it's thin supply lines and dependence on well-meaning from the other side - my hairs are raising. If they Afghans would make serious bsuiness one day, the germkan would get massacrated within 36 hours. Only one third of them are combat troops, and the ammo levels ahve been described to me as being "ridiculously low", since they are not there to wage war, aren't they? This infantile wishful distorting of realities cannot be the the criterion by which our troops get deployed. there is too much infantile naivity with regard to these matters in German public opinion. Germany is not prepared in any way for the possebility that German soldiers get killed in greater numbers. News from Afghanistan, where since over 18 months now even the once beloved Germans are regularly attacked almost daily now, by rockets, road-mines, small arms and even artillery, and already had casualties and equipment also got lost, is mostly ignorred in the medias.

I would like to see a pro army, no conscripts, much better funded, and not much smaller than it is now in size. the orientation and structure needs to change. None of this will happen soon. Internal rivalry within the various branches of the armed forces do not make it any easier.

[Bertgang]

The changement from conscripted to professional army isn't easy at all, as my country is experiencing since some years.

Once we had too much conscripts, and lot of them had little to do out of cleaning barracks; now we have professional soldiers, often veterans of pacekeeping missions, but their number is really too small for the several tasks of our army.

The further step is to make something similar to US National Guard, using civilians ready to wear an uniform if asked.

I just volountered for this sort of service, having now an unexpected freedom from family's duties; I'm becoming a bit aged for that but, who knows, someone knowing two foreign languages should have at least a chance to be really enlisted.

[Skybird]

The Suisse model also is said to work well. But it cannot be the answer for an army that wants to participate in international deployments.

[SUBMAN1]

Yeah, they need to spend even more I think so that they can catch up a bit with the US. THen they can help out more and make more of a difference on the Global scale. We need more countries capable of taking things on without the US's help. Tired of footing the bill.

-S

[snowsub]

Well China could if they wanted to and pulled their finger out.

But I'm sure they don't want to and prefer to let the US waste money on other peoples problems

[Skybird]

China wants to get engaged in Lebanon, with more than the troops already there. Talkk is of up to 3000. It's about improving their relations with energy-exporting countries, especially the Arabs, and Persians. Better get used to Chinese uniforms anyway. It's only a question of time until they step more into appearance with international and UN-related commitments. Reason: prestige.