Two undersea cables in Baltic Sea disrupted

This would be an excellent time for Germany to announce that it is tripling munitions production, and that they’re going to do whatever they have to do to protect the territorial integrity of Europe. But they won’t.

Our governing coalition just split and there will be early elections (most likely) in February. Nobody has a majority right now, any anmouncement is currently unlikely. In fact our lovely head of the Government just reaffirmed that we won't send taurus to the ukraine.

These long-range missiles are a short-time tactic designed to merely hurt the Russians or prevent them from doing certain actions under threat of pain and not a real strategy. Ukraine hasn’t had any battlefield successes since the Kursk Hail Mary which failed early and is now only maintained with the hope of improving their negotiating position when the time comes.

The approval of long-range strikes by the US & co likely means that Ukraine’s position was getting even worse than expected.

Furthermore, it became clear from the leak of German military communications that it would be German soldiers who would have to operate the weapons.

All in all this seems like a case of Scholz knowing Germany’s capabilities and risks and the public overestimating the former while dismissing the latter.

Increasing armament manufacturing capacity is critical for Germany and European self-defense regardless of whether those shells go to Ukraine or just get stockpiled. Does anyone seriously think that Europe is going to avoid future warfare in a world where Russia achieves its military goals in this conflict? It's madness.

If it were critical, it would have already happened. But Germany and the EU know deep inside that this isn’t about ideology and conquest and Ukraine is a pretty unique case.

On the other hand with Germany and the EU acting so tough, Russia might believe them, so some military investment is probably wise.