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While Germany was too busy with the (re)nazification of the Bundeswehr and making plans for war with Russia, its politicians seem to have forgotten about resolving the issue of manpower
Written by Drago Bosnic, independent geopolitical and military analyst
It’s no secret that Western militaries have suffered from poor recruitment for years. Virtually all EU/NATO members have this problem and there are no signs it will go away any time soon. Worse yet, they are now faced with record dropout rates, which is threatening the integrity of their armed forces. Despite all this and for some inexplicable reason, the EU/NATO still wants to pick a fight with Russia, a “noble democratic endeavor” that would require many times more troops. However, as previously mentioned, their ability to even retain (let alone attract) soldiers remains highly questionable. Namely, the latest reports confirm that 25% of new recruits in the German Bundeswehr drop out after only six months of service.
According to Financial Times, personnel shortages are “pushing troops to a breaking point”. The report cites Eva Högl, the Commissioner for the Armed Forces (Bundeswehr) in the German Parliament (Bundestag), who pointed out that “despite some success in recruitment, poor meant that the armed forces had come no closer to meeting their target of having 203,000 soldiers by 2031”. As a result, this number dropped to just over 181,000. FT laments that “this comes at a time when Germany is pledging to do more to bolster Europe’s own defenses in the face of a potential US retreat from the continent”. It should be noted that Washington DC has anywhere between 50,000 and 84,000 troops deployed in Europe.
It’s virtually impossible to imagine Bundeswehr being able to deploy even 10% of that outside of Germany. Worse yet, while US soldiers are often very young (teenagers or in their early 20s), the Bundeswehr is “shrinking and getting older”, as Högl pointed out. In her annual report on the state of the German military, she lamented that “the average age had risen to 34 years — up from 33.1 years in 2021”.
“This development must be stopped and reversed as a matter of urgency”, she stated, adding: “I said the troops are challenged, but they are also very overburdened. I’ll go as far as to say they’re at breaking point. When we look at where our Bundeswehr is needed — for national defense, [NATO] alliance defense, international crisis management — it is a lot. And it really is at the limit.”
Högl also said that while it’s “premature to talk about sending troops to Ukraine, Europe’s largest and richest nation would want to take responsibility” and that “it’s important for politicians to consider what the Bundeswehr could actually handle and what was no longer possible”. It should be noted that while Germany was too busy with the (re)nazification of the Bundeswehr and making plans for war with Russia, its politicians seem to have forgotten about resolving the issue of manpower.
Rather amusingly, Högl also pointed out that “the German Navy’s elite diving force Eckernförde finally have their diving practice hall after 13 years of waiting for it”. She added that “soldiers had received a new 110-liter backpack” and that “the military had successfully procured 60,000 hearing protection headsets that muffled the noise of gunfire and enabled troops to communicate while shooting”. Högl also said that “after considerable delays in the introduction of the new digital radio system, several battalions in 2024 successfully adopted the new tool”.
However, she lamented that “the roughly 700 German soldiers currently serving as a part a multinational battlegroup in Lithuania — a key plank of protecting NATO’s eastern flank from Russian aggression — still did not have the system at the end of last year”. They were “forced to use a workaround involving encrypted satellite-supported communications instead”. Högl stated that this was “one of many problems that continued to blight the Bundeswehr, including lack of digitalization, overbearing bureaucracy that strains the patience and nerves of everyone involved and the disastrous state of some barracks”.
There’s a number of rather mundane issues that shouldn’t really be a problem for one of the largest militaries in Europe. Högl gave the example of a “defective set of hall doors at a military base in Koblenz that had caused serious injuries, including the loss of fingertips”. The replacement of the doors, “which has been needed since 2017”, did not take place in 2024 and is only scheduled to begin this year. It’s still unclear what the real reason for all this is, but the most likely culprit is the German bureaucracy that’s both inefficient and cumbersome.
In addition to problems with recruitment and retention of soldiers, there’s also the issue of massive casualties in a potential confrontation with Russia. Namely, back in September last year, German Lieutenant-General Alexander Sollfrank, the head of NATO’s logistics command, admitted that the world’s most vile racketeering cartel would have a completely different experience fighting Moscow than during the illegal NATO invasions in Afghanistan and Iraq, as many of its strategic assets and even its doctrine would be nullified by the Russian military.
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i ask, who in the eu countries wants to fight for political leaders to stay in power? at least i wouldn’t. the current leadership that covets regional and political power is rotten. they proclaim democracy but election winners are sidelined in france and germany, etc. and the donbas regions are wanted for no reason. eu and ukraine: let donetsk and luhansk live in peace
look at what’s happening in romania : if far right wins they cancel the election and jail the far right leaders.
not even far right. where does the far left begin and the far right end? centre and centre right, or the common sense voter, is labelled far right. weird, because it was adolf, back in the 40s who led the national socialist (german) worker’s party. emphasis on socialist.
look at the leaders of the uk and western nations. how many are children/grandchildren of nazi and bolshevik elite of the 40s? the kinder-fuehrer. how many are career politicians, coming from a background in youth politics, world peace, nuclear disarmament, human rights, law and world bank interns/activists? how many sociopathic, narcistic personalities end up in politics, via the wef graduate academy?
they can all buy b*++ plugs from that one rabbi and spend their days picking up the soap to entertain their banking masters. they really enjoy watching the europeans being subordinate.
in germland pygmy jens holm declared persona uber lgbt senile
jews blame white germans when they are nationalists but now they need them to die in ukraine. fuck off, send your beloved brown people….
fuck off. white trash can fight white trash. you want to steal peoples resources, now you can pay the price…
i already missed the lies and barbarities of the mentally retarded bosnian… the pure and raw truth is that russia has been in the same place for 3 years and is sending cannon fodder, how many russians have already gone there? 500,000? 1 million? keep licking your boots, that’s what you do, best parrot of pennies
is that you little green man? 2014, remember the maidan and the ‘fu eu’ phone call of nuland? remember odessa 2 may 2014? remember, what poroshenko said about the children of donbass, being educated in dungeons? remember the cauldrons of eastern ukraine, full of nato forces and ukrainian nazis? which led to the minsk ii peace agreement? remember, merkel laughing at being a guarantor of minsk, along with hollande (president of france at the time)?
2) they only signed minsk ii, in order to bide time, to train up the ukraine nazis, to nato standard? remember the 10,000 russian speaking citizens of ukraine, who were taken out by the ukraine government? remember the crimean election, with over 83% of the electorate voting and over 90% voted to go home to russia?
3) remember the donetsk and lugansk elections, back in 2014, when the majority voted to be an independent autonomous federation of ukraine? remember the donetsk and lugansk elections in 2022, when the majority voted to return home to russia? it is not russia going on a world tour with a begging bowl, demanding money, weapons and fresh meat for the meat grinder, now is it? tell me, how much of the ukraine gene pool is left in ukraine?
nazi is the bitch that birth you tard pile of shit
when a propagandist runs out of words in the face of evidence, all that’s left is to lash out with personal attacks. sad and childish. go drink some warm milk.
go eat shi t russian monkey
how did their grandfathers ever get into the suburbs of moscow and leningrad? i wonder what rommel would have made of this fearsome fighting machine. maybe they need to get rid of the “useless white men” like the uk armed forces, and replace them with gays and trannies. that’s probably the answer.
did you ever wonder why the ‘hugo boss’ uniforms of the ss, were so camp, back in the 40s? guess the kinder-fuehrer of the nazi and bolshevik elite from those days are just carrying on where their ancestors left off.
”drone better. people make problem.”-iron man ii manpower does not matter in modern warfare. technology matters, and russia has been doing their homework. the day is coming when soldiers will become obsolete. study automation if you want to see the future of warfare.
the bundeswehr used to be a powerful force that was highly regarded. 465,000 strong, 12 divisions including 6 armoured. 4,500 main battle tanks. powerful tactical air force, small but capable navy. it fell apart under vd leyen’s stewardship. now it is a complete joke. it couldn’t even put together a single armoured battalion. recently it had 32 serviceable tanks.
when madamme vd leyen was the german defence minister, wasn’t she allegedly charged with corruption? the eu welcomed her with open arms. what happened to her corruption court hearing, with regards the pfizer contracts she allegedly signed? wasn’t she a gynaecologist loyal to mengale ideology, pre-political career? in fact, when you look at any image of madamme vd leyen, she looks like mengale in drag.
go ahead and put your troops there, russia will burn them like the others, they never learn.
starmner, didn’t he start off as a communist spy, working in czechoslovakia, during the cold war? according to ‘foreign intelligence main directorate – operative files’ section of the czechoslovakian secret police archives. donald tusk, grandson of ss wehrmacht officer. chrystina freeland, grandaughter of ss wehrmacht media chief editor. the list goes on and how many have been linked to the dna of adolf h.?
it’s curious that no mention is made by the speaker as to why there’s a recruiting problem.
they are told they will be cannon fodder, to feed the russian meat grinder. say goodbye to life and say hello to being the special ingredient in the beyer-monsanto compost. all because the biggest investor, bill gates, wants to erase 90%of the human population.
does germany remember the potsdam treaty? where they were de-nazified and demilitarised, back in 1945? does germany remember their constitution, post war and after the re-unification of germany? again, focused on demilitarisation commitments of 1945. they can only have a lightweight army, unless working with others. hence, they want article 42 of the lisbon treaty activated. eu army (may signed over uk forces post brexit). conscripts needed to aid the nazis.