Posted on 03/26/2014 9:05:55 AM PDT by Olog-hai
Mounting tension in the Crimea is prompting calls for compulsory military service to be reintroduced in Germany.
A number of German ex-generals have raised fears over the nation’s military strength should it be drawn into a NATO-led conflict.
“We need compulsory military service. There is no other way for Germany to guarantee national defense within the [NATO] mutual defense alliance,” retired NATO general Egon Ramms told Bild newspaper. “[It certainly can’t be done] on a voluntary basis.”
Ramms was commander of the Allied Joint Forces Command between 2007 and 2010, one of the highest-ranking positions in the NATO alliance. …
(Excerpt) Read more at thelocal.de ...
All Quiet On the Eastern Front
It was much better under the Germans. It is a beautiful spot, though, and one can see why it was the "king's mountain"--konig, with the umlat over the "o." It relies mostly on tourism, the guide said.
From Google: Destroyed in World War II and annexed to the USSR in 1946, the region was stripped of its German identity and was named after Mikhail Kalinin, a Russian communist leader. A highly militarized zone during the Soviet era, the area only opened to visitors about 20 years ago.
How delightful, named after a Russian communist. I THINK I prefer the original name.
You mean Królewiec , is now Kaliningrad.
Richtig.
Is Putin prepared to return the East Prussia to Germany and Kuril Islands to Japan by way of correcting old mistakes. And China still identifies on her maps the Russian Far East and West Seberia as Chinese (throw in Kazakhstan and Exterior Mongolia for good measure).
The hope for Germany lies with its youth, as it does for most countries.
The oldies ARE finally dying out. When they are gone, their TOTAL welfare-ism will die with them. It was a "nanny state," really antithetical to Germans. They have always been "worker bees."
There still is the sense of government being the nipple off which folks suckle, which DOES have to do with the AMAZINGLY high taxes they pay. But, for those young Germans (and most youngsters) the world has expanded beyond reason--thanks to many factors. Those young Germans see it, talk to it via the Internet and fully participate in all that this "new" world has to offer.
My fear is the draining of U.S. coffers paying for TOO MANY Americans sucking off the gumin-nipple...and INSISTING on their RIGHT to do so, without ANY responsibility whatsoever connected to it.
One need not worry about the middle east. They have SO much money from the petroleum and natural gas resources that all they do now is lie back, eat, drink and belch. [And those are the women :o)]
I have been saying for years that the United States needs to do the same thing. I understand there is some downsizing in the military due to technologic and computerized advances.
However, there is still a need to have a ready force, able to execute multiple battles around the globe at once. This is the ideal. Since we may be ending or misadventure in Afghanistan soon, we can use that freed up funding to train more of our young people. Another reason is, let’s face it, we need to provide gainful employment to the same category of people. The country and culture would benefit from having more Americans go through the discipline of the military, even in it’s diluted form of today, with different rules for different sexes. I dont’ expect any of this to occur until the next President, unless Putin becomes a clear and present danger directly to us. If Putin starts ‘vacationing’ in Cuba, or forms some sort of property use deal with Haiti, we may begin develop a brand new attitude of urgency in the states.
Hey, what do I know? I read what I wrote from GOOGLE.
It's SUCH a prime piece of real estate that it is NOT surprising to read about the battles for it.
Partitions of Poland-Lithuania is a Tsars Favorite Pass Time.
Morgen die ganze Welt.
every male on turning 18, should be in the military for at least 2 years....then their testosterone levels would rise to normal levels...no internet porn, no computers in the barracks....
Not true, it was Germany who invented the modern welfare state. Bismark introduced welfare and public healthcare in the 1870s in order to appease the socialists who were becoming an increasing threat the old Prussian autocratic order of things.
What does TDY stand for?
They only ended the mandatory nine-month military service a couple of years ago.
You are correct. I also doubt the idea that the dying off of the “old” people will transform German youth (what there is of them) into free enterprisers.
Temporary DutY. it’s an assignment away from your parent unit. can be for anything, one of my soldiers in germany (1975) was away for 6 months as a ski instructor
My father was in North Africa during WWII (Rommel--the Desert Fox)--then Anzio. He never lectured anyone, ever, about the Germans. He RARELY mentioned it. It was something HE wanted to forget. Why would he not want to forget it?
My mother went through it as the wife here at home. She didn't want to discuss it either. Why would she?
In others words, SAVE your lecture for someone who cares about your opinion of WWII. I don't. Ich danke Ihnen sehr.
Battle of Kursk.
It is not clear that conscription will address that issue, but conscription in the face of a foreign existential threat has always been a means of addressing it. And Putin is conveniently providing that foreign threat - whether it is a serious threat is irrelevant.
A third consideration is that military mobilization has a sad history of mushrooming out of control in Europe. We are at the centenary of such a disaster, where the nationalistic drives of a subject people threatened an ancient, creaking, multinational empire in the Austro-Hungarian, which took actions in terms of mobilization whose reflections in Russia, Germany, France, the Ottoman Empire, and eventually Great Britain, put the entire continent on a war footing. It would not be a good thing to repeat that bit of tragic history.
Nevertheless, aggression never met is aggression never ending. Conscription may lead to war or it may prevent it. It isn't the act itself, but how it is handled. And the European track record in that regard is not encouraging.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.