At a time when conflicts are going on in different parts of the globe, the possibility of returning to Mandatory Army Training has triggered an uproar in Germany! With this, the bitter memories of the Second World War and uneasiness associated with the same have returned to the Western European country.

German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius has defended the decision of the Olaf Scholz Administration in this regard, stressing that the Bundeswehr (Germany’s National Army) is severely understaffed. According to the minister, the total deficit of the Bundeswehr is 21,000 soldiers. Pistorius has further said that Berlin would have to make a quick decision regarding the Mandatory Army Training. Else, NATO’s defence plan would make it difficult for Germany to safeguard its territory from external attacks. It may be noted that Germany has to send troops to other countries as per the NATO defence plan.

Interestingly, the Social Democratic Party and the conservative Christian Democratic Union, the two partners of the ruling Coalition, have backed the government’s proposal. As expected, Human Rights activists feel uncomfortable because of this. They believe that Germany is afraid of Russia. Hence, the German politicians have been discussing the issue of reintroducing the system of Mandatory Army Training since the beginning of the Russia-Ukraine War. It should be noted that the Mandatory Army Training was stopped in Germany in 2011. Defence Minister Pistorius recently called the decision by former Chancellor Angela Merkel to end conscription a “mistake“, stating: “I am convinced that Germany needs some kind of military conscription. Times have changed.”

In Sweden, visiting German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said (on May 14, 2024): “There would not be a return to mass conscription. That would not work anymore. There were many more soldiers, there were much more barracks, there was much more infrastructure that was built for this purpose.” The Chancellor added that his government would take all the necessary steps to make the military service more attractive to his countrymen.

According to defence experts, Germany has decided to follow the Swedish Model of military training. The Scholz Administration has reportedly prepared three proposals… All German citizens must undergo compulsory military training at the age of 18, all men and women aged 18 and above will undergo a physical, as well as mental, examination before joining the Army, and people aged 18 and above shall receive the Army Admission Form. However, there is nothing mandatory in the third proposal as only interested persons shall fill up the form and join the Army. Berlin would make a final decision in this regard in June 2024.

Germany’s ‘War-Readiness’ A Boon For US Defence Industry
(EIR) German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius’ two-day visit to the US on May 9-10, 2024 was above all a shopping spree for the US-made military equipment. Among his purchases were three complete units of HIMARS long-range missile launchers to be shipped to Ukraine, as well as 60 twin-engine Chinook transport helicopters, produced at a Philadelphia Boeing helicopter factory that Pistorius visited on May 9.

Both deals are to be financed by the special fund for the German Armed Forces of EUR 100 billion. Of that sum, fully one-third will be spent on F-35 fighter aircraft, despite the doubts about them voiced by German military experts, who find them too costly and not really efficient in battlefield situations in Europe.

Rather than waiting for the German defence industry to gear up its own production that will take a few years, the Defence Minister prefers to shop for already-existing military hardware, in keeping with his viewpoint that Russia would attempt to attack NATO in 2026, if not already in 2025. Therefore, Germany has to be made war-ready in time. That includes a doubling of direct German military aid to Ukraine, scheduled to go from EUR 4-8 billion in 2024, in addition to the planned stationing of a heavy combat brigade in Lithuania near the latter’s border with Russia, and the building of an ammunition production factory on Ukrainian territory. None of that would shift the military balance, but it would certainly push Germany deeper into direct confrontation with Russia.

And if this militarisation drive at the expense of the German taxpayers were not scandalous enough, Pistorius unashamedly emphasised during his US trip the economic benefits the German turnaround would bring for the US. “We currently have around 380 contracts with US defence companies alone with a total value of around USD 23 billion,” he said. It seems Pistorius is listening to those defence experts in Germany who believe that, because such defence contracts secure US jobs, they would facilitate German cooperation with a potential Trump Administration from 2025 onwards.

It may be noted that the defence budget and military support for Ukraine are both excluded from the government’s attempt to cut all other items in the 2024 fiscal budget. However, the austerity fanatics in Berlin seem to overlook the fact that the country’s infrastructure, notably in the transport sector, is certainly not war-ready. Thousands of highway and railway bridges and thousands of kilometres of railway tracks are in urgent need of repair, or even complete replacement.

This has just been documented in the reply of the Transport Ministry to a query by Bundestag member Sahra Wagenknecht. For the period 2021-22, the most recent overview available, 7,112km of highways were in need of repair, a substantial increase from the 5,797km of 2017-21. For railway tracks, the increase over the same period was not as high, 17,636km to 17,529km, but the condition of railway bridges worsened considerably, with a list of total replacements needed rising from 1,089 to 1,160, and 8,000 bridges to be repaired.

With inputs from Executive Intelligence Review (EIR) Strategic Alert Weekly Newsletter (Volume 38. No. 20, May 16, 2024)

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Published by Koushik Das

Koushik Das (born on May 16, 1976 in Kolkata) is a career journalist. Based in the Indian capital of New Delhi, Koushik writes mainly about foreign policies and current geopolitical issues, and rarely about other topics. His own political ideas are highly influenced by Antonio Gramsci, Louis Althusser, Michel Foucault, Michael Oakeshott and others. English philosopher and political theorist Oakeshott (Dec 11, 1901-Dec 19, 1990) says that “in political activity, men sail a boundless and bottomless sea. There is neither harbour for shelter nor floor for anchorage, neither starting-place, nor appointed destination. But we have to keep afloat”. (Rationalism in Politics, 1962) As a student of Political Science, Koushik loves to share his views on issues, which have great impacts on his thought process (and also on India, South Asia and of course on the global community), with his readers through his website – Boundless Ocean of Politics. By doing so, he tries to keep himself afloat. You will find some of his articles in https://inserbia.info/today/ (https://inserbia.info/today/author/kou_das13_i/), as he has been trying to assess the global geopolitics since 2003. You can also mail him at kousdas@gmail.com View all posts by Koushik Das