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Rikard's avatar

[Russia can't even defeat Ukraine! Look at how pathetic Putler's "army" is!]

[Russia is poised to pounce on Europe and sweep to the Atlantic any day now!]

The above is often stated in the same conversation by the same person. Including so-called experts, and actual military planners and government ministers. In their defense, these experts have been selected by the media as the go-to persons for their always reliably correct views.

We're well used to that song and dance up here, and no-one with an econ/pol-sci background is unaware of it; in fact, fresh students are often jokingly told that the surest career is trying to become the media's go-to expert on a specific issue. As long as you say what they want to hear, you're golden and the money and the gigs will keep rolling in. Just don't expect any professional respect from people in the field. That's me paraphrasing almost verbatim what was told us when I started as a student in Lund, long ago.

You can replace Germany with Sweden and the text works just as well. Two years back they made a big noise about starting to use the Inlandsbanan (inland railroad, disused and unserviced since the mid-1970s) for military transports. Mockery abounded. You can physically drive your finger through the wooden supports in many places, and you can pick up and move the rails if you're stong enough, and the bridges are made for train-cars as they looked and weighed in the 1950s. Plus, it was originally built for steam-engine trains.

I used to try to explain to politicians and students that you cannot decide and decree what will happen. Ýou can only try to figure out what actions of yours brings about the result desired, and to do that you must be humble and have a little humility towards the task so that you look at reality as it is, not as you believe it ought to be.

Germany is now discovering what 30 years of female politics results in: the governing principle has been "things ought to be the way we have decided" and when they aren't, throw a tantrum and blame whomever you dislike. I shouldn't say female perhaps, but at the core is the spoiled Daddy's Little Princess-mentality typical to a subset of the female psyche: they are owed, by men and their family and people and the universe and reality itself to have things their way, always.

It's not even narcissism or sociopathy - it's simply immaturity and having been coddled and spoiled. Now, they are sitting there crying because people they cannot control won't do as the Girl's Club have decided they must.

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York Luethje's avatar

In fairness, this is nothing new. All European militaries have relied on the road and train networks going back to the war of 1870. In fact, the German train network was developed with military considerations first, commercial second. Of course, back then the enemy was France.

During the Cold War, the Fulda gap strategy again relied on massive amounts of troops and materiel to be deployed quickly towards the east using whatever means available.

What’s frightening now is that all this planning is about moving a division hither and fro. Might as well not bother. These are not serious people.

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