seen-this-one

Ah yes, history has shown that this is a good idea. I’m sure it’ll end well this time. germany-cool

  • Staines [they/them]@hexbear.net
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    14
    ·
    21 hours ago

    None of these weapons will be used to defend Europe. They will sit in a stockpile and be sent to assist yet another genocide in a decade or two.

  • kittin [he/him]@hexbear.net
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    18
    ·
    24 hours ago

    Germany managing to go one entire generation without ethnically cleansing Eastern Europe and decides to reward itself with a little treat (the treat is ethnically cleansing Eastern Europe)

  • GrouchyGrouse [he/him]@hexbear.net
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    54
    ·
    1 day ago

    Does Europe have a Germany problem or does Germany have a Europe problem.

    Like, if it’s a forgone conclusion that the Krauts will attempt to rule Europe, we must take a stance. As long as we know there is a Germany that will do this that becomes the constant. The variable, then, is how they succeed and fail with each attempt. The Eternal German, to give it a name.

    So the question is: is Europe destined to be German and this is one long series of struggles as the Eternal German waxes and wanes? In which ultimately Europe will be suborned, eventually.

    Or is Germany destined for failure every time, and therefore the Eternal German takes the role of the fickle province in constant rebellion against the rest of Europe?

    Which way, Western Man?

    • AssortedBiscuits [they/them]@hexbear.net
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      10
      ·
      edit-2
      1 day ago

      Europe came closest to achieving political unity under the Nazis, making Adolf Hitler the Qin Shi Huang of Europe (a very cursed phrase). You can see this clearly with this Wikipedia map on Sweden’s “neutrality”

      Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland were “neutral” who did what Herr Hitler told them to do, leaving only Iceland, Portugal, Ireland, the UK, and the RSFSR as part of Europe that Hitler failed in the project of European unification. Runner-ups of European unification are Napoleon and the EU, which both failed to bring southeast Europe to the unification project.

      The Waffen-SS was essentially Europe’s first real army, not a European army of some European principality or a European statelet or a European petty kingdom, but a real army of a (near) unified Europe with European men recruited from the entire continent.

      And this army was completely staffed by genocidal fascists hopped up on stimulants and tasked to wage a war of annihilation against the Tatar-Mongolic Judeo-Bolshevik hordes of the Soviet Union, demonstrating that the very idea of Europe itself is forever cursed and order will not be restored until Europeans accept their true identity as northwestern Afro-Asians hailing from the continent of Afro-Asia.

      • PolandIsAStateOfMind@lemmygrad.ml
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        7
        ·
        edit-2
        1 day ago

        I don’t think that even mattered, consider guys who did lost later turned out to be UK and France. Though it might be because they became UK and France because repeated conquests by Germans…

  • SootySootySoot [any]@hexbear.net
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    22
    ·
    1 day ago

    WW1 and WW2 were fought with German guns, I know not what weapons WW3 will be fought with, but it and WW4 will probably also be German guns.

    We don’t learn to denazify Germany until at least WW7 or 8.

  • darkcalling [comrade/them, she/her]@hexbear.net
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    31
    ·
    edit-2
    23 hours ago

    My cynical thoughts are:

    Germany’s military will always be used for NATO aggression. They are already an occupied vassal, American troops are in the country (Rammstein base among others) and the reactionary German armed forces will NEVER use force to remove them, thus they can only be a pawn of them. Additionally most German officers are trained like dogs for loyalty with the American troops, additionally there is evidence the west runs a significant blackmail network as well as a spy network against its own and those officers and members of intelligence who would help the US coup Germany for its benefit are known and written down and will be called upon.

    Remember what happened to Australia and Whitmer, there was a non-violent coup using arcane process to oust someone who wanted neutrality, they would absolutely use violent means to do what’s necessary. They installed a military dictatorship in Greece in the last cold war and would not hesitate to place Germany or other places under a similar yoke though would likely prefer to oust elements against them and spin up a tail of their treason and with the loyal German empire loving, immigrant scapegoating press I’m sure they’d have little issue at present or the near future doing so.

    There are only two hopes I think for near-term freedom from the US yoke:

    1. mass movement building and massive sustained protests and organized economic shut-downs to force the issue (even then 50/50 it goes to an open repressive reactionary dictatorship). It’s either that or 2) hoping US decline accelerates before they can drag the rebuilt German/Euro army into wars to sustain the empire in the 2030s and that it picks up to such a pace that they cannot maintain their occupation and control over Germany. Frankly I believe US decline will be slow and take many decades so the realistic hope is movement building. From what I’ve seen of the self-flagellating, genocide apologizing, self-hating, anti-Soviet German left they have their work cut out for them.

    I saw a take that I fully believe as it so describes the deep mentality of Euro-liberals. Namely that the lesson Euro-liberals who run and love the EU today take from WW2 is that America will come and prevent Russia from de-Nazifying you in a war, and will prop up your fascist, reactionary people, install them in government, protect them and help build and maintain a joint bulwark against Russians and communists. Not that genocide is bad, not that war within Europe is devastating and self-defeating, because the wrong people (Nazis) were all installed in positions of power post-war and they learned to not do fascism openly without American help and that’s it and that’s why Trump has them so upset because Biden worked them all up to do aggressive support of open lovers of Nazism in Ukraine and now they’ve been blue-balled or feel the threat of it. Add on their decline, the loss of their neo-colonies in Africa, the drain of industry because of sanctions and its just even worse. And the only ones waiting in the wings to supplant these are the open admirers of fascism, the open far-right reactionary parties prepared to conduct a purge of immigrants, to scapegoat on that basis and build Europe up for war to be used as a tool of the US. They’ve been gaining in Germany, they’ve been gaining in France. German government pretended it might try to crush them but its hand was held back by the bourgeoisie who wish to have this tool available soon. It looks bleak.

    Maybe the US hold on them slips but I think there’s a good chance that the European bourgeoisie without a much bigger stab in the back by the US (more than just abandoning Ukraine) still operate under the post-war delusion that they must maintain links with the US at all costs. More importantly they may be conscious enough of their class to recognize their position and understand the consequences of China rising unchallenged in the long-run and be willing to make a sacrifice as they have been doing for the safety of global capitalist hegemony even at the expense of their local profits.

    I earnestly believe this will not have a chance to come to the point of causing tensions with France as they will be welded together, united in purpose to defend “the garden” in an attack on China or an attack on Africa to subjugate it again, to pull it away from BRICS and China and get to extracting again. That or a suicide run on Russia (after which they sit in the ruins of nuclear wasteland and pout at each other and the Americans and whine that the evil Russians ruined it all).

    • BynarsAreOk [none/use name]@hexbear.net
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      17 hours ago

      Good post. Looking at the two options you mentioned I wonder if there is a third one.

      Namely if I could bet on smaller and historicaly based European nationalism to bring them to fight among themselves again. Granted the historical reasons are very different, colonialism played a big role and ultimately it was indeed America’s WW2 victory that finaly put an end to any hopes of a local EU supremacy fight.

      Yet I think this threat still lingers. Look back at the 2008 crisis specificaly and the fallout from Greece, Spain, Italy, Ireland and others, but specialy Greece. I wonder how the EU would have reacted if Greece had indeed taken extreme measures to get the fuck out of the EU and if that could have led to others following. The whole point of the troika was to impose German supremacy to begin with.

      Later there was Brexit too but it seems it was far more of a reactionary UK self contained issue rather than a real fight between EU elites. Yet it once again proves the EU is not a sacred concept under certain circunstances.

      Historicaly speaking, all major EU countries were at war with each other practically at one point or another. Those old catalysts do not exist anymore obviously, as none of these countries have realistic hopes of (re)building an empire.

      Yet I look at climate change as a possible big catalyst. Yes as you note EU and German fascists have it easy by blaming immigrants but I wonder if this will remain as easy if these immigrants are Italian or Polish, heck even Spanish.

      I wonder if the next catalyst will simply be the friction between the current EU neoliberals who rely on the concentration of German economic power and dominance over the other members, those who still want to play by the rules of “civilization” while far right starts to look at the EU itself with skepticism and as yet another land to be conquered so that they can be in charge of closing of the borders.

      Its why I mention the historical roots because, the modern “western” identity is fickle at best and Germans, French and English have been at war for centuries. I’m not sure how much actual faith there is on true European “unity” as is enforced by German/France under US leadership at this point, this unity and even such concept is an extremely modern concept to begin with and if the EU leadership starts to look increasingly weak and dependent on US leadership than certainly this may well fuel reactionary forces regardless.

      On that aspect I don’t think the US “management” of Nazism is the only way out either as an escape valve to blame the Rest of the World(immigrants, Russia etc), the historical precedent would put all these white Europeans fighting each other for centuries earlier too.

      So yeah basically for now German’s army is basically just to fuel NATO but in the long term I would grab some popcorn and watch out for future intra-European fighting like the good old days too.

  • trompete [he/him]@hexbear.net
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    37
    ·
    edit-2
    1 day ago

    I so hope this backfires. First of all, I don’t think they can pull it off anyway, the corruption and incompetence is off the charts with these people and that’s not due to lack of vision (which they also don’t have) or whatever, that’s systemic. All that money will go into private pockets and fuck-all will be delivered, and thank Allah for that.

    Also, this will antagonize other EU countries (well, some of them, I assume the Baltics will hail their German overlords), making it so much easier for nationalist EU-skeptic politicians to gain support.

    • SexUnderSocialism [she/her]@hexbear.netOP
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      23
      ·
      1 day ago

      Yeah, if they do somehow pull it off (which is a big IF), then the rivalry that Europe used to be known for might make a return. The whole idea behind the formation of the EU, which the US helped push for, was to squash this rivalry, unite the European bourgeoisie, and making them both subservient and militarily dependent on the US. I can’t imagine that Germany trying to reclaim its position as the European military superpower is going to sit well with countries like France who would prefer that position instead.

      First as tragedy, and multiple times over as farce. same-as-it-ever-was

      • someone [comrade/them, they/them]@hexbear.net
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        8
        ·
        1 day ago

        Of course the big difference between the historical France/Germany rivaly and a possible future one is France having an independent nuclear weapons capability. Even the UK relies on the US for maintaining - and if rumours are true, being allowed to use - their nuclear weapons. If the EU were to collapse I could see a lot of smaller powers ally with France, under terms very favourable to France, if it meant an ironclad nuclear-response security alliance with France.

      • theturtlemoves [he/him]@hexbear.net
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        3
        ·
        1 day ago

        The whole idea behind the formation of the EU, which the US helped push for, was to squash this rivalry

        But does the US want to maintain this system now? Perhaps they see the EU as a competitor and want it to gridlock, or even fragment.

    • Sinisterium [none/use name]@hexbear.net
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      8
      ·
      1 day ago

      Also, this will antagonize other EU countries (well, some of them, I assume the Baltics will hail their German overlords)

      Poland was one of the loudest supporters for a while. Western euros dont care, eastern euros have too many russia brainworms. The UK is irrelevant. Maybe Serbia cares or Greece idk. Its not 1950 anymore.

  • UmbraVivi [he/him, she/her]@hexbear.net
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    32
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    1 day ago

    As a German: I think having a military is probably necessary if we ever hope to become less dependent on the US. But on the other hand, I’m 100% confident Merz has the absolute worst ideas possible because he is a worthless parasitic ghoul and the world would be a better place if he was shot.

    • MarmiteLover123 [comrade/them, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      10
      ·
      edit-2
      1 day ago

      Also any military expansion will most definitely be buying more US or Israeli military equipment under the instruction of the US. Does Europe have a domestic equivalent to the F-35 fighter jet, and the THAAD, AEGIS Ashore, Arrow, Patriot PAC 3 air defence systems? The answer is no, which is why Germany just bought Arrow 3 air defence (midcourse ballistic missile interception) batteries from Israel last year. Europe has managed to deliver just one SAMP/T air defence battery to Ukraine in the entire war, so domestic production is just not there. The 80 or so cold war era F-16AM block 15s Ukraine are getting from Europe can only be delivered because of a US support package, and US replacements (F-35s) being sent over to the European countries giving up these F-16s. See Macron saying Europe gave Ukraine all it could give. Also, Europe is definitely not buying the Chinese equivalents to those systems, that would not be allowed. These are all critical capabilities in a hypothetical NATO-Russia war.

    • trompete [he/him]@hexbear.net
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      12
      ·
      edit-2
      1 day ago

      They are either trying to be an independent imperialist power, or they’re just doing the US empire’s bidding. Either way it’s imperialism. If you believe their insane plans will actually manifest (I doubt it), their goal is to be able to win the next round of war in eastern Europe. Clearly they’re not winning this round, so wherever the front settles, they want to be able to do re-match in couple of years.