Usually HN is very wary of the consequences of the state collecting data about its citizens and restricting freedoms in small steps. Is it not the case now?
Hint:some of these events involved spheres of influence and control over resources in eastern europe!
> Germany's parliament, the Bundestag, has voted to introduce voluntary military service...
> The form will be mandatory for men and voluntary for women.
> The government says military service will be voluntary for as long as possible, but from July 2027, all 18-year-old men will have to take a medical exam to assess their fitness for possible military service.
> a form of compulsory military service could be considered by the Bundestag.
Well, that escalated quickly. There's nothing here that could be really described as "voluntary".
But let's call it what it is: compulsed military service is slavery for the elite.
Seems ~20% of the population are immigrants (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuremberg#Demographics), some of the people you saw are Germans and some of them are not, but I think the main confusing part is how you mix up how someone looks and what nationality they have. I think maybe you're trying to say "white" instead, but for some reason avoided using that word?
Is the idea that it’s better for your livelihood to just start learning how speak Russian now?
84% of the German population is ethnically German, so the commenter above was probably spectacularly unlucky. They are right though in that it is an aging population with only around 13% under 16.
The guaranteed next step is to offer the volunteers a long term paid contract at the end of their term. This would probably be well above what they would be paid elsewhere (young men with no university degree, desperate enough to volunteer in the first place).
Run the scheme for a few years, and you will have a large number of, young, high-school-level educated people that are financially dependent on the army. Thus, a militarized society.
What could possibly go wrong?
That's really dumb. It's not that hard to look up population statistics [1]. Without having to say anything on the validity of your last paragraph (I'd have to apply Hanlon's razor before I would be able to argue in good faith), it really has nothing to do with your random tourist observation. There are very much 'white' children (which you probably meant to say, but didn't for some reason) running around in Nuremberg (not "Nuremburg").
[1] https://www.nuernberg.de/imperia/md/statistik/dokumente/vero...
EDIT: If you understand German, here is a song from 1972 about these brutal cross-examinations:
> Franz Josef Degenhardt - Befragung eines Kriegsdienstverweigerers
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDTtMTcj8X0
Additionally, the participation of Germany in the first aggressive wars in Yugoslavia in 1999 and then in Afghanistan from 2001 on (before citizens were told that the Bundeswehr is only a defense army, and would never participate in an aggressive war) lead to a radicalization of another generation against the Bundeswehr - and yes, this generation eagerly listened to the above-mentioned horror stories of the older generations. It is even rumored that this next generation's radicalization against the Bundeswehr indirectly lead to the suspension of the compulsory military service in Germany in 2011.
Two, Germany, like most countries and frankly human populations, has a male surplus in its fighting-age population [1]. This is why, historically, large socities tended to wage war with men first. (Even those that e.g. held elite units in reserve, which undermines the usual biological argument.)
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Germany#/media...
This generation is rightfully feeling like they're getting a sore deal.
Finland, Sweden, Norway, Switzerland, Austria, Brazil, Chile, Mexico and Thailand each have active conscription [1]. The slippery slop you describe is far from inevitable.
Military service was never abolished in Germany. It was only suspended in 2011 (and lots of people were celebrating even this small improvement).
>The German government is one of the few on Earth that seems to actually hate its native populace.
They certainly don't hate the pensioners or the people on welfare. Just the native youth, which will have to bear the burden for all of this, but does not get to decide.
So please have some grace if today's kids have looked back at our miserable history and have decided that they'd rather not die for a country that doesn't seem to give a shit about them.
I'm broadly sympathetic to the argument that the multipolar world we're in now makes a good case for nuclear weapons adoption. But Germany probably isn't the one Europe wants to arm itself. And even if it did, their Greens wouldn't allow it.
Not sure what you are babbling about but, It's about ethnicity and not race. Plenty of third generation Turks still don't consider themselves German, then someone with black skin adopted as a child might consider themself German, it's about culture not race, we're not in last century anymore. Proportion of young people with immigrant background is high in many Westeuropean countries, if they don't integrate into society they won't be willing to defend it.
...why would you populate your army solely with the surplus? The point is you have a buffer that you can burn without immediately impacting your demographics for the long term.
> that is not the reason why men and not women go to war
It's a serious theory [1]. (It's more correct to say the surplus and it share a common cause.)
[1] https://link.springer.com/rwe/10.1007/978-3-319-19650-3_931
The Venezuelan escalation happened after the Alaska Summit, and God knows what tradeoffs were made there verbally and with full deniability.
A strong army is only good if you have a strong, independent foreign policy. German chancellors used to be able to contradict the U.S., but that is no longer a given.
Western defense contractors and Chinese industrial suppliers profit. Russians and Ukranians alike die.
In other words we need a nuclear umbrella. Now that America is no longer our friend we need to build our own. It has worked very well to keep us safe since the 50s. And I don't think the French + English ones are sufficient deterrence anymore.
Also, if you have decades of mandatory conscription then there is no slope to slip. Germany on the other hand is now on a slope, since they regress from a fully professional army back to conscription. How much down they will slip, remains to be seen.
Active != mandatory.
> Mandatory conscription (which I have personally served) is for a fixed term, so your livelihood is not tied to the army paying your salary
You're seriously arguing that countries with mandatory conscription are less militarised than those with active (but not mandatory) conscription?
The only fairly recent war that the west was involved in that was slightly justified was the first gulf war. But even that wasn't really any of America's business. It wasn't that they actually cared about the Kuwaiti people. Just the oil.
Not so long ago we were told a serious army has now to be a professional and highly trained army. Everything else was useless.
But they seem to plan to just draft young people and fight some sort WWI a bit like the nightmare in Ukraine.
But today Western Europe countries are not Ukraine. If they would engage in a war they would collapse into total chaos very quickly. Those are old, very divided and absolutely not resilient societies.
Just cutting the electricity for a week would collapse the cities. Starting with people putting the buildings on fire because they do not know how dangerous candles are.
"Training" young people for 6 months wouldn't change that.
This is a bit like what happened in WWII when Germany attacked country like Belgium or France. They went right through it because there were a dissymmetry between the German who had it really tough for 20 years and the Belgian or Frenchman at the time.
But the current head of NATO is a former HR at Unilever, so I guess he knows better.
I don't know how the Selective Service requirement in the US works, so I can't answer this question.
> Or is it “easy” for the German government to establish a draft?
Such a (temporary) suspension can hypothetically terminated at any time by the government. The question is basically how the population will react. I guess if the suspension of the general conscription would be terminated by the government, there would be really furious public rallies (and I am rather certain that my boss would immediately attempt to approve a vacation request if I wanted to attend such a rally in Berlin if it happened during the work week - just as an "innocent" kind of support for this cause from behind the lines :-) ) because multiple generations got really radicalized against compulsory military service (I wrote about this topic at https://news.ycombinator.com/edit?id=46177817 ).
This is why the German government currently attempts to approach the whole topic of quitting the suspension of compulsory military service so indirectly.
Also, this is racist as hell, why isn't it flagged to death yet?
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cp3l22z5y2zo
Give me the choice of being tasered repeatedly (Russian forced conscription practice), or having my groin beaten so badly that survival removal of a groin organ is required (Ukranian forced conscription practice, as reported just this week), I'll take the taser and retaining all of my organs, please.
But I think you should legally be able to answer if you can think of anything between 1914 and 1945 that is taught to Germans in schools that might cause younger Germans to feel some aversion towards preparing to fight a land war against russia in eastern ukraine? Anything that maybe resulted in the premature deaths of millions of young german men, initially volunteers who were solicited at the secondary school level?
Massive political differences and ultimate outcomes aside for each conflict, Germany becoming increasingly militarized has a poor track record when it comes to not getting extremely large numbers of teenage german boys killed in eastern Ukraine.
Looking at the parts of Eastern Ukraine that were under Russian occupation since 2014 and are now almost devoid of male population, that's what happens if you're not willing to fight in your own (European) army: sooner or later you end up fighting in the Russian one.
Ordinary Russian and Ukranian people are both victims of this war. It is being waged for reasons neither of them chose, that neither of them asked for, that neither of them wanted. Civilians are being killed on both sides, and the people most vested in the continuation of the conflict are those that reap all of the profits from the war while paying none of the human costs. This is a classic principal-agent problem.
If you can't see the inhumanity in the structural forces at play and want to play a game of "attack the strawman" to score meaningless internet points while millions die needlessly over a pointless war, I can't force you to stop, but I'd at least hope you can grow up and take the tragedy and human suffering seriously enough at some point to care more about that than you do about your HN rep.
The longer you stick around HN, the less surprising this is.
HN does not punish commenting in bad faith, and the design of HN's gamified engagement systems encourages bad-faith use of the downvote and flagging system.
You're opposing the war in the same way Russian propaganda "opposes" it: if only Ukraine stopped fighting, so many lives would have been saved!
But Ukrainians don't have that choice; if they stop fighting against the Russian aggression, they will be fighting as part of it in a few years when Russia invades the next country over. Not to mention losing their culture in the cultural genocide that Russia is committing in the occupied territories.
On the other hand, Russians can stop fighting and go home any time you guys feel sufficiently "opposing the war". But that option is clearly not what you're advocating here with your posts.
On top of that there is a large dislike in the society against military system. To break that you won't just need "a few years", but likely ~2 generations of compulsory military service for both men and women (e.g. how Isreal does it), that forces a personal connection with the military for everyone.
https://www.bundeswehrkarriere.de/downloads/mannschaften/936
tl;dr: Okay but it's not golden by any means.
Many parts of Africa have below 80% literacy rates[1] and that's in their respective language; coming to Europe would likely mean learning a new language as well as learning a completely foreign country. If we're speaking about Germany specifically, Germany didn't colonize as many places as the British, Dutch or French so they are unlikely to speak German.
If you want skilled workers, why not simply train those workers locally?
[1]: https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/literacy-...
But even before that, everyone I know didn't even consider Germany as a potential place. It's either UK, USA, china or even Malaysia.
87% of the overall population, yet only 13% of the child. That’s a stark difference.
But the comment reminds me of an observation in SE Asia - go to Singapore and very few kids and tons of senior citizens.
Then go to Vietnam and its most people in their 20’s and younger. It’s a difference you can’t help but notice.
And since Singapore is extremely selective about who they give citizenship too, they’re really struggling with the age pyramid. I believe the estimate is it will be 2 workers for every retired person by 2030.
So it could be:
- the native young population who are now flocking in the AfD
- the people fighting the AfD in the street
- the second generation immigrants born there
- the very recent immigrants
- a mix of all
Because the alchemy of creating a working army and "esprit de corps" is much harder than in a corporation. You cannot just take a modern managerial approach to creating an army.
A mix of all will end up obviously in a disaster but selecting on any group will end up in a civil war or coup.
Yes but remember that was the point.
The career and trained militaries were spending most of their time schooling young people and were not focusing on capabilities. This is why most countries put an end on that nonsense.
So right now you can be sure an enormous amount of personnel in the German army switched focused on running this new "Voluntary service". A voluntary service which will produce at best 1% of workable soldiers.
This makes no sense.
Many IT projects for freelancers in Germany are Bundeswehr/NATO related because they're among the few who hire people right now because of the economic situation.
Once we reach the point where people have to decide if they enlist in order to to keep on feeding their families, that'll sort itself out.
Each to their own.
Everything the media has been hammering Russia for is being setup right here in Europe.
It’s simple. Don’t invade your neighbors.
While it’s all reprehensible, I’ll give a pass to horrific recruitment practices in a nation fighting for its survival. Not so much to a nation working to commit genocide on their neighbor in an adventuristic invasion.
I’d be saying the same thing about Ukraine if they had been the ones to invade Russia. Russia chose to be the bully here. This “both sides” rhetoric is just gaslighting and victim blaming BS.
Looking at various videos of people going shopping in Russia I see lots of full cabinets, cheap prices for quality goods and no one having to pay extra for organic produce because GMO is forbidden there.
I haven't been there but the two Russians I last worked with in 2019 have since left Germany to go back to Russia so that might tell you something.
Guess who has been propagandized.
I don't think that the social situation is as bad as you describe. I just think that people generally don't feel keen to put their life on the line for Germany.
In Germany there is a whole industry around recruiting foreign nurses. I work in immigration and a few of my colleagues specialise in that. There are websites and initiatives just for that.
It will get worse. This population is aging.
https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2019/04/02/indoor-plumbing-st...
The state of Russia are very well documented you know, by countless of neutral observers. Yet you dismiss it all as "mainstream media propaganda".
As for the rest, of course you see quite a few people that do not look like the von Trapp family singers, or whatever shaped your stereotype of how ethnic Germans are supposed to look like. Apropos ethnic Germans, historically we happen to be a two digit number of distinct tribes anyhow, and it still is suprisingly easy to piss one of the natives off by confusing them for a member of the wrong tribe. But I am digressing.
What I can say, all ethnicity questions cast aside, the governments in the time that I am following the news (the very late Kohl era), which have been nine different now, are all quite the same in one way: kicking the can down the road and pulling up the ladder from above. The state/society/economy I grew up in had quite some substance of which it could coast off for some time.
But as with all things that go down south: Gradually, then suddenly.
Do you think there might be a fairly obvious reason for that?
The issue lies with state subsidies for employing refugees which currently mainly targets Ukrainian workers, though they'll never outright say it: https://www.arbeitsagentur.de/unternehmen/arbeitskraefte/gef...
If you have a job to offer you can now decide if you pay a German out of your own pocket or if you hire a Ukrainian who will end up being cheaper for you because the state supports you in doing so.
Have seen this with bicycle mechanics, nurses, nursery homes, lots and lots of cafés.
Goes without saying that I like Ukrainian people just as much as I like Germans, Syrians, Iranians, Russians, etc.
Yes this what I am sincerely wondering: which group (however you want to define it) of relatively young people, do they believe they can leverage "to put their life on the line for Germany"?
Good luck, man.
Good luck on your path.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_during_the_occupation_of_...
The Red Army wasn't all that civilized either on their way to Berlin.
We have been told in most stories that this is a time when people come together and stand up but this is really propaganda.
The reality is most people go a little bit crazy and paranoid in these situation. Understandably.
For example, friendly fires have always been very much under reported. Can you imagine what it lead too when an army is already a bit suspicious of each other?
It was the Soviet Army which liberated Auschwitz, Soviet Army which crushed the nazi war machine starting from Stalingrad.
And these are the main points which your nauseating antirussian propaganda pretends as if it does not exist. And the rest, some of it happened, some of it did not. And wikipedia is not a reliable source for historic events, itis full of propaganda as most educated people realize.
[Just saw that this comment got hidden; if it was not so dangerous, one could have only laughed at how the "free speech" warriors want to suppress other people's views. Nothing new of course.]
French people, Slavic peoples, and Irish people living in Germany do not become ethnically German because they are white, and it's obvious that in any nation-state it would be reasonable to be surprised if the vast majority of people were not members of the ethnicity that formed the nation-state.
This all happened multiple times, and the only reason you can chuckle is ignorance.
I'm not Russian either.
And these were only the opening months of the war. Here is Soviet officer Leonid Rabichev giving a chilling description of the final months of the war in Prussia and the extent of Soviet atrocities against civilians: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Ywe5pFT928
Stories like these are why the phrase "Soviet liberators" is used only sarcastically in Eastern Europe.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molotov%E2%80%93Ribbentrop_Pac...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_invasion_of_Poland
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German%E2%80%93Soviet_military...
Russia is threatening to fight Europe as of yesterday, continue to increase weapon production and militarisation. It is obvious that it just cannot stop as its economy and social order is switching more and more to the war-time. China backs russia up and officially declaring that it cannot allow Russia to lose.
The alliance which was created specifically to stop this scenario is now being neutralised by US withdrawing from it.
And you still call it "Russia/Putin nonsense". Do you live somewhere where you feel isolated from all of this?
Please tell me so I can go there as well. Because at the place where I live - Russians drones are flying over important infrastructure mapping it out without government/military being able to stop it. Russians propaganda fills social media, and politicians are corrupted by russia without hiding it too much.
"Used only sarcastically in Eastern Europe"
You just forgot to add "after decades of antirussian propaganda". And still, there are people who don't think about it sarcastically at all, they just are not allowed to speak (if they don't want to lose work, or to get processed by the state for "negating history").
As for the rest go and get the skeletons out from your own closet, there are plenty of them there.
I live in Germany so I'm fucked either way. I'm also aware of NATO expansion until a point where Russia couldn't ignore it anymore. You think Russia will attack Europe, I think the West is keen on fighting a war against Russia. I don't subscribe to any of the narratives you presented, especially since I think it obvious that its the West that finds itself having to wage a war because their currencies, social order and demographics needing a reset. NATO being a defensive alliance is a joke.
Since we're unlikely to come closer to an understanding I'll refrain from going further.
Sometimes it's just easier to agree to disagree.
May we all live through this somehow.
And even with the new voluntary service the armed forces will be much smaller than the army of just West-Germany alone during the cold war (which was about 0.5 million).
It's time to wake up to the fact that the Cold War actually never ended.
I am not pro Russia, I am anti war. There are no winners in war. And the US betrayed us (I live in Germany).
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/1/22/russia-hands-down-c...
Tbf, at least in West Germany people had a choice. In East Germany you ended up as 'Bausoldat': https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bausoldat, and you could forget about any 'carreer opportunities' for the rest of your life.
And as former East German who then went the 'Kriegsdienstverweigerer' path in unified Germany during the 90's I cannot complain about any discrimination or incorrect behaviour, all communication was perfectly correct and respectful and I didn't even have to show up anywhere in person (in hindsight it was a silly decision - but in the 90s it really looked for a little while like the Cold War might be over and armies would no longer be needed in Europe).
They may very well live another 20 years and you have to pay their demise, too. Their generation smoked more, drank more alcohol, had a life full of asbestos, PCB and lead. It's gonna be expensive for us.
We had our chance in 2020, but blew it because of silly ethics. I see little gratitude for the gigantic sacrifice the young generation made for boomer life. I hope the kidz won't forget next time someone eats a bat.
this is what "patriarchy" actually looks like but you sure won't see anybody on the left complain about that....
Also the Bundestag agreed in advance to activate conscription if not enough volunteers can be found (which, given the results in France, seems about as certain as the sun rising tomorrow)
In fact filling out the questionnaire at all seems risky.
In the 90s, the situation was already very different - doing alternative national service (Zivildienst) instead of compulsory military service got a lot easier (possible exception of which I heard: you were very athletic - it was rumored that then they still made it much more inconvenient to refuse to do military service).
For good reasons, my references were from older generations - the trauma that they had to endure if they wanted do alternative national service (Zivildienst) instead of compulsory military service exactly did lead to the situation that it got much easier in the 90s to do alternative national service instead.
And the way it was keen on fighting a war is (check notes) _increase economic ties to the point that the whole of Germany's economic growth was dependent on Russian' gas_? Or to reduce military spending year over the year? Or to stop conscription in all countries?
It is completely a wild take for me to hear that the west was keen to fight a war with nuclear power by the means of reducing its fighting abilities to almost zero while the other side militarises? Am I having some crazy dream?
Also, the AfD folks would be rather fighting for Russia, the leftist activists will conscientiously object, and recent immigrants are not allowed to serve. Very weird to mention "second gen immigrants", as if ethnostate-ish racial tension is a wider issue in Germany and they are not normal citizens. I see no difference to children of Turkish migrants serving in the past. Do you realize Germany had mandatory military service before?
> A mix of all will end up obviously in a disaster but selecting on any group will end up in a civil war or coup.
Obviously! Jeez...
Btw. historically, after WWII, one of the reasons to have mandatory military service for every man was specifically to get a diverse army, as a cross-section of society, instead of clusters of certain dispositions, so the Bundeswehr exactly won't become an ideological, political force. Conscientious objection is a legal right for every soldier, at any moment, because of it. The constitution also prevents any sort of "group selection". A homogenized army is much more dangerous to the democratic order, than a diverse one. People thought of this before...
This is highly misandrist. I can’t believe that we are in 2025 and a - so called - democratic government is still denying women the opportunity to potentially go and die miserably in the front lines on equal footing with men.
We can surely do better. Women and girls deserve more.
Not true, Europe (as in EU or Schengen or similar group) wants to be left alone by some hyper aggressive undeveloped dictatorship in the east with massive inferiority complex. But if we keep hearing every week how we will be annihilated in nuclear holocaust or just murdered in millions in conventional warfare, at one point you stop ignoring a mad dog barking at our door.
We wanted peaceful mutually beneficial economical cooperation but Ukraine's huge gas&oil fields in the east plus all the heavy industry from soviet era also there was I guess too much to ignore for them, greed is always a strong emotion. Lets not forget who started the war in 2014 and massively escalated in 2022 in their brilliant 3-day 'special operation'.
But its fine I guess, russian incompetence created the strongest army in Europe since WWII, extremely motivated personnel literally defending their homes and loved ones from mass murder, theft, subjugation and erasure of identity (all this is provably happening on conquered territories so there is 0 room for doubts). They will bleed dry their economy and military there and real problems and misery for russia will start then. Self-harm in front of whole world, no tear will be shed for what was once pretty advanced society (at least compared to now, comparison with say US was always rather to be avoided due to inevitable hurt feelings and egos).
At least, the current government tried relaxing the debt brake a little and investing but I fear it's too little, too late. Germany is hooked to competitiveness shortcuts at the expense of their neighbors. The cure would be harsh. Add the quasi-religious adherence to a completely broken economic model turned into an absurd moral system and I personally have very little hope to ever see the situation improves. Then again, I have too moderate my cynicism. I thought for a long time that the eurozone creation, a currency union without transfers, was so stupid it would never be toppled as the worst political decision but then Germany passed the Schuldenbremse. They might manage to outdo themselves once again.
I'm convinced the status quo will prevail. The German public will prefer slow death to any kind of transfers and common investments. They have already blocked the interesting parts of the Draghi plan. Japanification here we come. Let's enjoy becoming Disneyland while we slowly lose any kind of international relevance. I mean at least there most likely will be catering to the elderly and maybe crafting luxury goods as an alternative to tourism. At least, our brightest should be able to leave to places where innovation still happen. Such an exciting future Karlsruhe is leading us to.
I'm just sad my country is tied to the sinking ship.
We should probably avoid posting shallow dismissals and remember that a good critical comment teaches us something.
Additionally, as your comment leaves readers wondering which parts of the divided comment section you deem "worthy of HN" and which you do not, I cannot help but think of this ambivalence as a method to spark reactions. Another word for this method would be "to bait", I think.
Are you?
Tell us — for how long has NATO been on russia's border?
> You think Russia will attack Europe
No, we have observed that russia has already attacked Europe.
First world problems...
You will always be able to object military service, it's not difficult at all and absolutely won't be any time soon. I have a hard time imagining you to be forced to do alternative service. In case of actual war, when mobilization becomes a reality, well... your origin country will likely be involved too.
You seem to exactly know what I'm babbling about. Parent commentator somehow confused "looks like" for "is citizen of", something you seem to grasp perfectly well.
For all we know, 100% of the people the parent saw were actually "Young Germans", as you cannot tell people's nationality by just looking at them. Unless of course, "Young Germans" is actually referring to something else, not people's nationality.
Former East Germany is lit up in red, similar to how you could see the old borders on night satellite photos from the color temperature of the outdoor lights in West and East Germany, which was most easily noticed in Berlin (article has a picture from 2012): https://kottke.org/19/11/the-berlin-wall-of-light
The outdoor lights will eventually all be LED, which will erase the old border from the night skies.
The german constitution restricts drafting to men[0] and would have to be changed before such a law could even be considered.
Before you ask, yes, the constitution also says that men and women need to be treated equally[1]
Honest question: why don't you emigrate to Russia since you seem to admire it so much? They are specifically looking for people who 'share Russian values', and Germany is on the 'white list' - so acquiring citizenship should be really easy and you don't need to live in a country you apparently seem to hate.
Here's how it works:
https://mid.ru/upload/medialibrary/aef/94mfg4ehws6kav1nk8bts...
Deaths and destruction in wars against significantly weaker countries are never for nothing, as certain well-connected people always get filthy rich, regardless of the end result. The ones who make the decisions, they always get their share, whether through the war hardware industry, mercenary business, the reconstruction industry, the resource exploitation industry, or something else. The wider population might end up worse off and poorer, but who has ever asked them about anything when there is so much money to be made by their ''democratic representatives'' if they play along?
One could say the "hacker ethics", love of freedom, tinkering goes beyond time, but this falls apart at any topic beyond that.
Again, this is a very rational response and I applaud the German government for being realistic.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contact_hypothesis
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S014971892...
The "male surplus fighting-age population" in Germany will flee to the next European host or back to the MENA country they fled from if conscription begins.
This is what I was suspecting a bit.
But how did they get there? didn't the people from the former German Democratic Republic (where AfD is very strong and a lot of recruits are) broke the wall to liberate themselves from Russia and the USSR?
What happened in the last decade that they would now swing back to Russia?
Nurses aren't actually paid badly (they get paid above minimum wage), they usually don't complain/protest about wages. The problem stems from being understaffed and consequently bad working conditions. The core issues is hospitals being run like private businesses, which means they are not affording redundancy. It's a systemic problem with the medical system, which has little to do with wages, or immigration.
Our only hope is European Federalization, at the very least militarily. I believe we can do it. We must. We have no other choice.
As far as evidence, "generally waves hands around." See the Trump/Putin surrender proposal. Also, see: https://www.france24.com/en/video/20251206-us-threatens-with...
Just that threat of weakness from the US side is the end of traditional NATO.
US forces were what kept us together militarily. We MUST find the new path quickly.
I post this with a tears dropping from my eyes, genuinely.
No matter who is reelected in the USA in the future, the US-led post-war rules based order is over. Something new must take its place. It best be Democracy. We took it for granted all this time. This could its last chance.
Here is some interesting reading:
> The West’s Last Chance
> How to Build a New Global Order Before It’s Too Late
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/united-states/wests-last-chan...
- Alexander Stubb, President of Finland
I don't think you'll find much sympathy for that class among the people this reform is targeting.
Ever since I moved here, the law made it very clear that this was a transactional relationship. That cuts both ways.
I uphold German values in my everyday behaviour. Killing for Germany was never on the table.
Made for a good story, reality is a bit more complex methinks. There's after all a lot of money to be made with war.
A battle between humanity and a virus deeply deeply divided our society. If I remember correctly Germany or Austria were ready to put non vaccinated people in jails.
About every lines of division deepens.
There's no need for antirussian propaganda. The Russian actions speak for themselves, have always done so, and will continue to do so.
In short: Propaganda. Germany is a major target of Russian influence. The AfD itself is heavily funded by Russia. There is no "old love" situation, Russia isn't representing socialist ideals or anything. (Russia wasn't loved back then either, btw.) Quite frankly, AfD followers often are just misled and detached from reason (e.g. objectively voting against their own interests). If you talk to them they often entertain some really fucking wild ideas and conspiratorial thinking. Of all parties in Germany, AfD has probably the most successful social media campaign, especially on TikTok. Mind you, the AfD's "not our problem"/"do nothing" position is aiding Russia in Ukraine. It's easy to put a nationalist/antisemitic spin on it.
Now, the leftist party is another story. There you find a completely misguided "old love" base, which is dogmatically "pacifist" and anti-NATO. They really should check the values Russia represents these days...
Honorable mention to Britain in America and Germany in France, where guerilla/resistance forces were instrumental in the eventual allied victories, even though the invaders were eventually toppled by outside armies.
I dunno, maybe Berliners would prefer becoming Ukrainian War-era Kyiv instead of WWII-era Paris after all.
Russians should only be treated with a very long stick.
Guerilla warfare is not winning, it is making things a huge mess.
Obviously, either path is undesirable. It would be nice if we could use some of those "undermining and overthrowing regimes we don't like" expertise on actual threats instead of countries that just want to nationalize their resources.
Importing migrants just worsens the underlying problem. You destroy your own pipeline and eventually run out of migrants. Germany needs to pay more and provide a better work environment instead of just finding people desperate enough it seems like a good deal.
Edit: I just checked and the average German nurse salary is (43k in USD vs 88k USD) less than half the average US RN salary. Crazy!
I think you are arguing in bad faith. Otherwise you would have recognized Covid isolation has been the opposite of contact interventions. Oh and of course this:
> If I remember correctly Germany or Austria were ready to put non vaccinated people in jails.
You remember wrong, non vaccinated people actually got publicly sodomized by general Drosten himself before euthanization. The former now has been ruled unconstitutional, but failing to get every new vaccine within 3 months is still punishable by death. Life in Germany is unbearable, please stay away!
Yet. And no it is not prison. Is forced labour and death so that some assholes make more profit.
Did you notice that every "patriot" who says "we will defend our country" never goes on the front line ? The same with their children.
I find this point of view to be profoundly sad and I hope it’s not shared by the majority of immigrants to germany
Meanwhile, the richest boy in the world:
> The EU should be abolished and sovereignty returned to individual countries, so that governments can better represent their people
Giving up the nukes allowed Ukraine to attract foreign aid and build an economy for 20 years before invasions began. Who knows what would have happened if they kept nukes and didn't get necessary aid and couldn't build their economy or maintain the weapons.
Where did you get this figure?
23.70€/h (~27.60 USD/h) apparently is the average wage for nurses. Working full-time, 38 hours per week, that's 46,831.2€ (54,492.34 USD) per year. Mind you, half of socialized costs, like health insurance is payed by the employer, so you need to adjust figures accordingly. It's of course a totally ridiculous comparison without adjusting for living costs, etc.. Also typically there are 5-6 weeks of paid vacation per year.
https://www.allgaeuer-zeitung.de/pflege/durchschnittsgehalt-...
So does Montana. That doesn’t give Helena any sovereignty points.
This is the Russian way of putting it. Guess what, NATO doesn't "expand". Each and every NATO member had to apply for membership themselves, after a national decision to do so. Any guesses why all Russian neighbours want to be NATO members?
Lol wtf, got any source for that except "IIRC"?
"I even heard they wanted to reintroduce the death penalty, just for the unvaccinated!" (see how easy it is to invent and spread lies?)
just no. Maybe next election when the AFD wins which also happens to be against this.
> Did you notice that every "patriot" who says "we will defend our country" never goes on the front line ? The same with their children.
Germany hasn't had a purely professional army for the longest time. Most men in Germany already served in the military, got basic training, or did alternative service (e.g. worked in a hospital). Mandatory military service is constitutionally set up to draw across the population, regardless of social or economic status. Again, we're not talking about who has to die when Russia invades, but who has to get basic military training...
It's not that complicated really, the eastern parts of Germany are on average poorer, older and less educated than the western parts, well paid jobs are rare, unemployment is higher (although tbf I'm unfair here towards the old generation, since those are not the typical AfD voters - it's rather the young people who tend to vote on the extreme ends of the political spectrum). Most of the smart young people move to where the grass is greener, those who stay are often bitter and disillusioned.
Carve out a similar demographic slice in western Germany, and you'll get similar high support for the AfD.
...basically the same reason why MAGA is bigger in the rural areas of the US than in the big cities.
The current law from Friday states:
- every young adult get information material about the Musterung
- everyone is free to go there and free to go to do the basic training
- just in case we will have to few volunteers then the state can at first force everyone to go to the evaluation as it was before - if we will have to few recruits then next step is a loot box system
- then and only then the state can force you. But this has also limits as we are still in Germany
Yes it was a shitty move by Merz to not involve the actual effected generation but I would have expected a far much worst law then this.
https://www.payscale.com/research/DE/Job=Registered_Nurse_(R...
I am happy to accept your figure of "slightly more than half" for the sake of this discussion.
> Mind you, half of socialized costs, like health insurance is payed by the employer, so you need to adjust figures accordingly.
Nurses in the US also have half (or more) of costs like health insurance paid for by their employer - in that particular case, almost always much more than half. Half of Social Security retirement tax is paid for by the employer, but additional retirement payments beyond Social Security are usually much less than half. We can probably safely call this a wash.
> It's of course a totally ridiculous comparison without adjusting for living costs, etc..
Germany has overall notoriously high living costs. For instance, the electric rate my German friend is paying in east Germany is 4x(!!!![1]) my rate in the US, and she and her husband pay much more for a small apartment than I do a large house. On top of this, German housing often comes ludicrously unfurnished - most Americans would be surprised to learn that renters are often expected to provide their own kitchen. Germany certainly does not win out on housing costs.
Nurses are underpaid. Pay nurses more.
[1] I used to be baffled as to why Germans typically have no AC, only small appliances, often no clothesdryer, etc. Then after learning this I realized that for an average person, running American-style appliances would be totally unaffordable. Even lower class Americans will happily blow hundreds of dollars keeping their house at 60F in 95F degree heat while cooking in their electric oven and running their electric clothesdryer. While this results in "high" bills around $400 here, that'd be $1600 in Germany. You couldn't live like an American there. Even my personal "high" bills which sometimes approach $200 would cause me to cut back severely - $800 would be way too much.
Just to add, the current government does not have the necessary majority to make such a change. Therefore making a law which includes drafting women is legally impossible without opposition collaboration.
Build nukes and plenty gigantic bunkers for the population, nothing else. And then follow the doctrine of immediate nuclear escalation upon any territorial infraction. Plane got off course in bad weather? Grab your Sauerkraut and bye bye Moscow.
Attacking people just because they are cis- and AMAB (assigned male as birth) isn't bad. Its your actions that determine good or bad.
And, throwing men into a potential meat grinder of war is unethical. Frankly, it should all be actual volunteer, and not this doublespeak shit of voluntarily required.
Theres also this now public problem. Do trans-women count as men or women? And do trans-men count as men or women? The best answer is "volunteer". But governments are weird, especially the conservative/fascist adjacent ones.
> We can probably safely call this a wash.
Does it tho? Cause in Germany there are no deductibles or co-pay. How many hours do your nurses work for the money? How man vacation days are included.
Btw. the median income in Germany is 52,159 Euro.
> Germany has overall notoriously high living costs.
According to this site, US is 21% more expensive than Germany:
https://www.mylifeelsewhere.com/cost-of-living/germany/unite...
> I used to be baffled as to why Germans typically have no AC, only small appliances, often no clothesdryer, etc. Then after learning this I realized that for an average person, running American-style appliances would be totally unaffordable.
Are you comparing Idaho to Germany? Cause Californians have to pay more for electricity than Germans.
0.23€/kWh is the current price for electricity in Germany. We don't have ACs, because we got well insulated homes and live in a rather cold climate. Modern houses are equipped with heat pumps which can do both. Yes, we now widely heat houses with unaffordable electricity!
https://www.ndr.de/nachrichten/info/Strompreis-aktuell-So-vi...
All sorts of questions to ask. Yes, if our timeline was otherwise unchanged, but the nukes were kept and maintained, it seems unlikely that invasion in 2014 would have happened... But it's a big change to the timeline to keep the weapons, and there's too many unknowns to predict the resulting changes. I do strongly suspect few countries will accept similar assurances in the future, unless under duress, but then Ukraine wasn't exactly free from duress at the time either.
It's an admirable attitude, but its popularity contributed to the outbreak of WWII.
Also, Ukrainian drones vary the gamut from cheap, but modern FPV drones for easy mass production to state-of-art naval drones, rivaling anything produced in the world.
By the time we're quibbling about deductibles and co-pay, we're not talking about meaningful differences - and of course, it can vary widely. However, when your employer is the medical system, your insurance is usually pretty good.
> How many hours do your nurses work for the money?
36-40 hours is a typical workweek. Around here, it's 36 hours.
> How man vacation days are included
This is, as well-known, not federally mandated, and can vary widely. Leave is also often lumped into many different categories. A look at my local, poor rural hospital system says they get 200 hours of PTO a year starting out, or five weeks, plus holidays.
> 0.23€/kWh is the current price for electricity in Germany
Maybe something has changed. This was what I looked at, and that's not what my friend is paying right now. It's only twice as high as California, which is not representative of the US as a whole.
https://www.bundesbank.de/resource/blob/862768/b159d13929f17...
> We don't have ACs, because we got well insulated homes and live in a rather cold climate.
Yes, and having an AC would put a stop to the German obsession with opening windows to stop mold from forming. But even though climate control would be very convenient even if most of the time it's not necessary, Germans don't have it because they can't afford it. Because professions like nursing are paid too little.
Why is there such resistance to just paying people more? How on earth does it make more sense to import people to pump up the labor supply, suppressing wages, so that you have to continue to import people, because there's no reason for a German to go into a low-paid field with a bad work environment?
Didn't expect that, tbh. Not bad.
> Why is there such resistance to just paying people more?
Because I said elsewhere, nurses are mostly happy with their wages, it's the hospital management and de facto working conditions which suck. Higher wages won't fix these working conditions.
The idea of shooting down thousands of cheap drones using the S400 sounds ... interesting, to put it mildly.
> It also successfully used by India in the latest spat and India is placing more orders after its proven success in Operation Sindoor
There's not exactly many options available to India if they want to have any kind of air defense. The S400 certainly isn't terrible, but India also has every reason to exaggerate it's performance. Not only that, but it's not like both sides of that particular conflict haven't already been caught in many blatant lies regarding their performance.
5 or so months after the war Indian Air Force started repeatedly falsely claiming that they downed at least five Pakistani fighter jets, and one AWACS aircraft. This claim is patently absurd and completely unsupported by any evidence, but propaganda is very important to the Modi government.
If India had evidence of them destroying a single Pakistani fighter, they'd absolutely be displaying that all over the place. They don't, because they likely did not hit any.
Simply importing people who are desperate for even a below-market (in Germany) wage means that there is no economic incentive for conditions to improve or for wages to rise, and that your own pipeline will continue to dry up, leaving you totally dependent on foreign labor. Aside from any other issues with migrant labor, what happens when that dries up? This is an extremely foolish, shortsighted policy that can be solved by the simple expedient of paying people more.
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46177825.
This was also confirmed by several independent international aviation experts not only the IAF. The S-400 achieved a record-setting engagement by shooting down a Saab 2000 AWACS aircraft from a range of greater than 300 km.
Check out the analysis of Austrian military analyst Tom Cooper - he has covered this too.
> If India had evidence of them destroying a single Pakistani fighter, they'd absolutely be displaying that all over the place.
Umm..dude, the strikes were deep into Pakistani territory. Can't show the live site you know ? They did show satellite imagery.
> but propaganda is very important to the Modi government.
The IAF is not in the habit of lying and the government doesn't modify IAF briefings. The only propaganda here is sadly coming from yourself.
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternative_f%C3%BCr_Deutschla...
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petr_Bystron
There is plenty of news coverage.
> Is Merkle part of AfD since she shat on Poland and Baltics 2 months ago?
You mean Merkel? No, she is not part of the AfD. She also isn't part of the government anymore and her political influence since 2021, in particular 2 months ago, is basically zero. Did you get the memo? We had two elections since Merkel. I don't care where she shits. That's a private matter.
Everything else you say is correct, but it applies to all German workers. In that sense, it's a somewhat low-paid job. It feels to me like they're more deserving of their income than a keyboard jockey like me.
Not a single credible source has reported this.
>The only propaganda on this subject is sadly coming from yourself.
Look, there are a plenty of actual photos of the IAF losses in this conflict. The IAF claims of PAF losses took months to surface and are not accompanied by any evidence and are widely considered to be fabrications by the rest of the world, and I'm certainly not talking about pro-Pakistani medias.
>Check out the analysis of Austrian military analyst Tom Cooper - he has covered this extensively.
Tom Cooper is an idiot who also repeated false claims that India had PAF pilots in custody. He's also got an extensive history of making up false claims about non-existent AFU successes against Russia.
https://medium.com/@x_TomCooper_x/ukraine-war-4-5-july-2022-...
https://xxtomcooperxx.substack.com/p/ukraine-war-29-june-202...
Articles like these that are more optimistic than the most optimistic Ukrainian propaganda.
If he is the genuinely best source you can find, maybe it's time to start reconsidering your beliefs.
>Umm..dude, the strikes were deep into Pakistani territory. Can't show the live site you know ? They did show satellite imagery.
Ah yes, of course it's impossible to source footage of a single one of the five jets supposedly destroyed inside Pakistan. That's totally credible!
>The IAF is not in the habit of lying and the government doesn't modify IAF briefings. The only propaganda here is sadly coming from yourself.
So you're telling me that the IAF never claimed to have lost zero planes in the conflict against Pakistan, only to change their story after photos came out? :)
Look, I get you guys have a certain nationalist interest in this topic and it's very emotional. But you could at least try to include some decent sources since this is HN. To start with, I'd love to see some substance for your original claim that Russia is using their super expensive long range S-400 to shoot down thousands of cheap Ukrainian drones when Russia has a plenty of vastly cheaper equipment suited for that particular task. That's a claim I've never seen before, as opposed to the India-Pakistani conflict that has been endlessly litigated at this point.
People don't want to work in these conditions tho. And the public has to pay these wages. Seriously, you are so damn ignorant thinking American free-market bla bla is the fix for everything. It's probably tough to swallow, but quality of life matters here. Why aren't you paying your field and gastronomy workers 100k instead of exploiting illegals?
People here got other options to improve their lives. It's a democracy, the root issue can be fixed politically. Nurses are also organized in unions. So there isn't even "free market" shit all anyway. These unions demand better working conditions not higher wages.
Maybe you should first check basic foundational truths about economics in your own country, before lecturing others?! Despite all the riches, the median income in the US is lower than Germany. You should pay people better over there.
Wow, I would first like your definition of a credible source before bothering even discussing further - it seems you have some extraordinary high standard that neither media nor government sources or international analysts nor satellite imagery nor some of the photos of the crashed aircraft can meet.
Tom Cooper has now been relegated to an idiot by you. How about John Spencer then ? He is a US military analyst who has also confirmed the efficacy of the S-400 and Operation Sindoor. Is he also an idiot ?
What about (Retd) Pakistani Air Marshal Masood Akhtar who was reported as saying an AWACS was destroyed ? Is he also an idiot ?
> To start with, I'd love to see some substance for your original claim
What would even be the point ? I would point to indian/russian sources and you would immediately shoot them down as propaganda. First, you should confirm what you mean by "substance" and "evidence".
FPV drones? You don't need good defense against them, it'd be nice to have, but EU military doctrines broadly assume aerial superiority enabling effective combined arms operations and maneuver warfare. Hostile operators of fiber optic drones aren't going to have a great time in such an environment.
But sure, EU would have a bad time without US support given that EU ammunition stocks probably aren't deep enough for proper DEAD.
But it’s not. That’s why we’re having this discussion. And whether you want to have a free market or not, the labor market is still driven by money. People will go into fields that pay more money. People will go into fields that pay more money, even if conditions are bad. Yoy seem to think I’m a free markets guy - economically in most respects it’s fair to say I’m a socialist.
Your political solution right now is total nonsense and it doesn’t seem to be getting any better. Following ideological commitments right off a cliff and doing it better than anyone else seems to be the German way. Of course, the degree to which Germany or most any modern country could be said to be a “democracy“ is highly questionable.
Certainly if the German people don’t want to pay Germans what makes it worth it for Germans to become nurses, they have a huge intractable problem.
> Despite all the riches, the median income in the US is lower than Germany
According the the US census data, median income in the US is 81k. In Germany, median income USD appears to be 60k.
> Why aren't you paying your field and gastronomy workers 100k instead of exploiting illegals?
I agree employers should be be imprisoned for hiring illegals and even that most migrant worker visas should be abolished. I made great money for many years working in a restaurant and I was shocked to see in other parts of the country it’s just a matter of course that this goes on, undercutting wages and causing all sorts of problems.
Relitigating the India-Pakistan conflict with someone who seems to have deeply held nationalist beliefs is just not all that exciting to me.
>Wow, I would first like your definition of a credible source before bothering even discussing further - it seems you have some extraordinary high standard that neither media nor government sources or international analysts nor satellite imagery nor some of the photos of the crashed aircraft can meet.
Credible source? Someone who doesn't have a documented track record of repeatedly reporting false rumors as facts would be a nice start.
>How about John Spencer then ? He is a US military expert who has also confirmed the efficacy of the S-400 and Operation Sindoor. Is he also an idiot ?
I think John Spencer is generally a decent source, but with a quick search I couldn't find anything resembling serious analysis by him on this topic. He does in fact have a post where he quickly states that "one [Saab 2000 AEW&C] was destroyed—likely by an S-400 system", but no explanation as to how he arrived at that conclusion.
However, I find it odd that John Spencer is commenting on this anyway given that his expertise lies mostly in urban warfare.
>What about (Retd) Pakistani Air Marshal Masood Akhtar who was reported as saying an AWACS was destroyed ? Is he also an idiot ?
It took you only a couple of minutes to go from the AWACS being shot down in a record breaking engagement by the s-400 to it being damaged on the ground by Indian strikes, I've never suggested that the latter did not happen.
And for what it's worth, here's another hilarious detail about IAF claims https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/four-air-launched-...
Hindustan Times reports that IAF claims to have destroyed a C130J in Pakistan. Pakistan does not and did not ever have a single C130J. Up to you if you want to blame Hindustan Times or IAF for this obviously false claim.
That depends on what you personally take as rumors vs facts. No doubt you would take all Indian/Russian media reporting the S-400 used in drone slaying as rumors. If you wish actual video evidence, it is extremely difficult as obviously the S-400 was only one component of an air defense system used in Sindoor. Its efficacy was confirmed only later by several sources.
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/bought-in-defiance...
https://www.businesstoday.in/visualstories/news/game-changer...
> Hindustan Times reports that IAF claims to have destroyed a C130J in Pakistan.
The IAF did NOT claim that. ACM Singh described it as "A C-130-class plane - i.e., an American-made, military transport aircraft dubbed 'Hercules' - may have also been hit". No mention of the "J" variant.
I linked multiple examples of your "analyst" reporting Ukrainian successes that did not happen as facts.
> No doubt you would take all Indian/Russian media reporting the S-400 used in drone slaying as rumors
Hey, I'll happily accept that claim from any of the decent Russian milbloggers. You know, the ones that are not consistently reporting things as fact that later turn out to be false.
But you're shifting the goalposts again, we're moving from Russia shooting down thousands of drones using the S-400 to India shooting down some drones using the S-400.
It was a brief period in 2022 where russia was forced to conscript to save itself from total loss.
> In Austria, people are to be obliged to be vaccinated against the Coronavirus from 1 February 2022. This measure includes a mandatory booster vaccination for people who have already been vaccinated. Compulsory vaccination is nothing new in Austria, as the Federal Act on Smallpox Vaccination of 30 June 1948 was accompanied by a measure that sanctioned non-compliance with vaccination with an administrative fine. Administrative penalties are also foreseen with regard to the Corona-Vaccination obligation 2022. Fines of up to EUR 3.600,-- are foreseen for vaccination refusers and up to EUR 1.450,-- for people who do not attend a booster vaccination. Furthermore, vaccination refusers face prison sentences of up to four weeks if they do not comply with the new Federal Law.
Pakistani air force pilot captured during operation Sindoor: https://www.businesstoday.in/india/story/pakistani-air-force...
No Indian aircraft lost in operation Sindoor: https://www.businesstoday.in/india/story/rafale-jets-hit-nin...
Pakistan did not shoot down a single Indian jet: https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/no-degree-of-drama...
Pakistani C130-J shot down during operation Sindoor: https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/new-updates/iaf-mi...
That's household income.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_income_in_the_United_...
Which makes sense otherwise a lot of males would be able to opt out by claiming that they are women in their minds or souls or in enactment of gendered stereotypes or whatever it could possibly mean to identify as the opposite sex.
Men are the ones used as cannon fodder mostly because from a reproductive point of view they are more disposable. They also tend to be physically stronger so are more suited to many combat roles that require raw strength.
> But you're shifting the goalposts again..
Not really - S-400 efficacy in Operation Sindoor was in my original post too. You questioned that and hence the digression. Your goalposts changed into other utterly unrelated statements made by analysts you don't believe and media you don't believe. (I did not respond to those, because it would completely sidetrack the topic and anyways one of your claims is wrong). Please direct the "moving goalposts" accusation to yourself.
Please note that ria.ru and tass.com has many, many articles regarding shooting down drone swarms, but only mention S-400 as again a component of an overall defense system, so that won't convince you.
Here is a Russian source on specifically only the S-400 being used to shoot down a Ukrainian drone:
S-400 "Triumph" used to shoot down drone. https://www.gazeta.ru/social/2024/01/31/18205855.shtml
Nevertheless, the article you’re citing still cites American personal income as pretty close to German median income. Subtract taxes and/or adjust for PPP and…
Of course she couldn’t say what she means while she was in politics, that would be suicidal. Merkel kept buying Russian gas for decades, German money indirectly responsible for killing thousands if not millions of Ukrainians…
And then there’s Shroder literally working for Gazprom - https://www.ft.com/content/f6814055-26ac-4a48-8dff-c295a1a1b...
https://www.ft.com/content/366fad8a-d680-4b11-b7dd-ebe28fe04...
The result has been fairly inconclusive. What happen is that people generally keep their views about in-groups and out-groups, but then add exception for the person they get exposed to. A good experience/friendship do not translate to a change in definitions for the in-group, nor does it change existing negative generalizations of the out-group.
What has shown to be effective is demonstration of shared values by the out-group, while at the same time avoiding display of different values. When people share the same values, and more importantly, do not display a difference in values, then the in-group can be expanded.
If I remember right, the book Behave by Robert Sapolsky goes through this.
Here is the explanation from a big law firm https://www.fwp.at/en/news/blog/austrias-covid-vaccine-manda...
(not the news)
The question is not whether or not the S-400 is capable of doing that, of course it is. It's not going to be very good at it, but if someone was willing to waste absurd amounts of money by using the wrong equipment they could certainly reach numbers like that.
Russia isn't stupid, they're not using the S-400 to shoot down thousands of drones. They have equipment better suited for that purpose. Russia does not currently, and will likely never have sufficient numbers of S-400 interceptors to routinely intercept cheap little drones with them.
If anything military service should have been kept everywhere in europe. Not for war, but for national cohesion, for some people it was the only time they'd get out of their little social bubble and stereotypes.
This depends on the missile being used. 9M96E/E2 are the high-maneuvering ones used to shoot down UAV's which have ranges of upto 40/120 km. Multiple 9M96 missiles can be carried per launcher container, making them more far more compact with operational efficiency.
You are right that you wouldn't use this against a basic "quadcopter" drone as it is still too expensive, but Ukraine does indeed have far more sophisticated, speedy/evasive "strategic" drones. They are the undisputed world-leader in drone warfare. Many times the Russians have no choice.
All of the layered Russian air defenses shooting down Ukrainian drone swarms do mention the S-400, but unfortunately they don't give exact target count to each system, so it is difficult to correlate numbers.
Is there anything in the constitution that forbids the government from requiring citizens to perform some kind of service to the government?
I'm talking about Ukrainian shahed-equivalents here.
9M96E/E2 can be used to shoot down shahed-like UAVs, but it's not something you'd generally want to do. They don't exist in sufficient numbers and are far better suited for shooting down missiles. It's something you'd do as a last resort, when necessary. Not something you'd do to shoot down thousands of drones.
That said, for the first half of my life, much of Europe was under a literal occupation by Russia.
As a reminder: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlin_Wall
Given how insistent the international community was on making sure those nukes were disposed of, and how economically devastated post Soviet countries were, I don’t think Ukraine stood any chance of having a nuclear deterrent.
That said, it is still insultingly wrong to blame even America and the USSR together for starting 'all wars on the planet' since WWII.
To quote the great historians Chris Hughes and Roland Orzabal: "everybody wants to rule the world"
When what people get (using their labor to subsidize politicians & boomers via taxes & rent) is the same thing they can get in effectively any country or even under the invader's rule, the incentives to fight said invader become quite scarce.
This isn't even specific to Germany; a lot of people are fleeing conscription on both sides of the current conflict for the same reason - they just don't get enough benefit to make it worth putting their life on the line.
Some of Central-Eastern politicians were warning the rest of the continent but they were ridiculed, portrayed as populists or blinded Russian-haters, and "only" full-scale invasion of Ukraine was needed so Western countries would finally understand that imperialistic aspirations of Moscow never went dormant.
I'll ask you again.
For how long has NATO been on russia's border?
I know you've seen this comment. I know you've downvoted it and ignored it because it's at odds with your sympathy towards terrorists.
And all this from a guy who has never actually even been to russia.
palm_penetrating_forehead.gif
When I was sitting in my home in Odesa, Ukraine, on February 23rd, 2022, one side was saying that the russians were going to invade, and the other side claimed that this was Western russophobic hysteria.
Do you remember what happened next? Do you? Tell us. What happened? Was there an invasion? Was there a war? Were there drones and tanks and missiles and rapes and tortures and hundreds of thousands of people dead and cities razed and millions displaced?
Who could possible know these things!?
HuuRR DuuURrR YoU HaVe aCtUaAllyt no WaY oF kNoWiNg ThE TrUtH DuyrrRR
I'm not sure if anyone remembers the song 'Russians' by Sting anymore, but that's a good example.
This is like someone correcting me for saying 'an LP' instead of 'a vinyl' despite my being an analog native :)
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19-Impfpflicht_in_%C3%96...
Listen, I don't want to defend Merkel or Schröder. They both did a lot of damage to Germany. But I do believe, they genuinely thought Russia could be checked by economic integration. This was evidently false in hindsight. Merkel's politics is characterized by inaction and aversion, so not going into conflict with Russia absolutely tracks. Gas dependency and collapsing bridges have this in common.
Did you know Merkel is fluent in Russian and Putin is fluent in German? They never spoke the same language in any meeting. Then there was the dog incident. Merkel for sure was no friend of Putin, and certainly did not entertain any late soviet imperial fever dreams.
Do you realize how insane this statement is considering the wealth and economic power of America? And as cited above, cost of living is higher, quality of life is lower in the US too. Also why isn't the market correcting itself, hm? You had market deregulation under Clinton, super successful, wasn't it? And where is the money for higher wages coming from?
Listen my point is, before lecturing others on paying people more, mindlessly replaying red scare ideological brainwashing scripts, maybe fix your own damn economy, pay your own people right. You evidently know very little about life in Germany, maybe you should consider possible details and nuances you miss for a strong opinion.
Russians are locked in Ukraine and are barely making progress. Also with which army is this takeover of Europe supposed to happen with? Russia lost millions of its young men in Ukraine. Fake fears, being prepared is always nice but the paranoia is ridiculous. Even a US China coaliation couldn't threaten Europe domestically let alone Russia.
I would be far less annoyed with paying very high taxes and social contributions (around 50% of my income), if the services provided worked. But this just hasn't been the case for me. The healthcare system is close to breaking apart, and after moving to a new city 6 months ago I have been unable to find doctors willing to take me in. Childcare is constantly closing down due to staff shortages, buying a house is unrealistic unless both partners have good jobs or you inherit, and the jobs market is incredibly rigid and inflexible.
Every single one of these points are worse for young people then for older ones, and the only thing the government seems to get done is giving weapons training to young people and gifting pensioners 180b$/year extra.
How many russian soldiers died in order for them to undermine European security by persuading the British electorate to vote for Brexit?
How many russian soldiers died in order for them to have a US administration that is trying to force an allied country to capitulate to a genocidal terrorist regime?
The Ukrainians are fighting a hot war today because they recognised and wished to release themselves from the shackles of russian soft power.
War isn't only fought with tanks and bombs and guns.
When was the last time germans lined up to enlist in the army? How much good was it for their country?
Total population: RU=140M, EU=370M
Population available for mil: RU=70M, EU=170M
Present active mil: RU=1.3M, EU=1M
Reserve: RU=2M, EU=1.4M
Paramil: RU=250k, EU=380k
Combat Aircrafts: RU=4k, EU=4k
Tanks: RU=5.7k, EU=2k
Armored Vhc: RU=130k, EU=340k
Artillery: RU=16k, EU=2k
Large combat vessels: RU=100, EU=80
Subs: RU=60, EU=40
Looking at those numbers, I do not believe that the sentiment that "Russia is going to invade the EU unless massive expenses in weaponry" holds a lot of water.
The tremendous amount of efforts and finance that's been thrown at the military during the cold war was not aimed at invading the other side.
I would even add that spending that much on the military is probably what the strategists in the Kremlin are hopping EU will do. After all, if they know the history of their own country, they must know what caused the fatal financial crisis that brought down the USSR in the 80s.
But I think it's a general trend in Europe and much of the western world who went all in for socialized everything/government control.
Of course, logically it makes no sense, since the whole point of a socialized system is to adjust the wealth of everybody depending on current situation (economic output).
But it was obviously a lie and our social democracy are deeply flawed because they allow anyone to vote regardless of stakes.
Sending young people to military service/war make for a nice distraction because meanwhile they don't get to think about taking the stuff of the elders by force.
We've tried that after the end of the cold war, now there is an active war in Europe. You can not unilaterally stop military spending if there are other countries ready to take advantage of it.
>When was the last time germans lined up to enlist in the army?
That would have been during the height of the Cold War, the resulting Reunification does have its drawbacks, but certainly beats getting overrun by the Soviet Union.
Very recent Ukrainian drone self-defences prove otherwise - far away russian refineries are not so far away anymore. And, are very difficult to defend. Throw in an additional few partisans to mess up the railway system (russian lifeline) and I rather suspect a coup to happen soon.
Why fight for a nation that is keen on giving away your taxes to random immigrants? Then forcing you to fight and die?
I am fully informed about conditions in Germany. Perhaps you are not fully informed about conditions in America. Even us Americans in flyover states, even solidly working class Americans, even some people I know in trailer parks, have more conveniences and luxuries than the average German. Aside for my preferences for most German social norms, I would prefer to live in Mississippi than anywhere in Germany for the greater material comforts.