Germany is unlocking billions to supercharge its military at a seismic moment

Actually, Germany has "Sondervermögen", they not printing the money, they just have in their bank accounts. So no inflation.

In german its called "Schuldenbremse" - that translate: "Dept break" and more better: Agree on no debts

It depends on how SPD vs. CDU. For now they say its infrastructure and social. Never the less, we should tax the rich and not talk about having a public holiday less.

> The political class is now debating ways to increase pressure on the population

Could you share links to those discussions?

The money system is owned by the Central Banking cartel (BIS club). The major holder of German debt is the ECB. This is not owned by states. It’s very enlightening to learn how it came to be.

Next big buyers of German debt are individual European banks (members of the cartel) and pension funds (also known in Wall Street as “Dumb money”).

It's still just debt. Framing that as "unlocking" just because it's done by someone the press likes is wrong and abhorrent.

The words would have been different if the proposal came from the political opposition.

> Imperialist Russia is in its final throws prior to becoming "a normal country," like the rest of Europe. From the European point of view, keeping those insane throws to a minimum is worth every penny, both in human and economic costs.

That is about as likely as "they're not going to invade" -- the guys picking up the piece after Putin look to be as, maybe even more, hardline and aggressive.

There is a reason someone tried to assassinate Dugin.

Not a single NATO partner has consistently met the 2% GDP spend mandate historically outside the US. The US spends aorund 50-60B a year for our 40+ bases in europe. But this is offset by nato expenditures. For example, Germany gives us a $1B a year for our bases.

We only have to defend Germany/Europe + shipping routes with our military. Idk what the plan is with the US military. Occupy Canada and Panama?

If you're not using your defense assets to fight your enemies, but start siding with your enemies, your defence budget is a sink of which I wouldn't be proud that it is big.

Europa spending on defense was around 280 Billion in 2023. IIRC this is the second highest after the US. But this is just changing now, without the US as a partner anymore.

I previously cofounded a miltech startup in the US (as a foreigner), and have currently funded a European-based one (again as a foreigner). Nothing big, although we were able to exit the first one at a good-enough situation via an IP sale (which was practically forced upon us).

The US and European defence markets are very different. USA has a larger pie, but it's also very fragmented. More fragmented means more contractors and subs, which keep adding more layers of pricing into the contract. European defence is more consolidated - you have the few big players who get all the contracts, so there's very little room for new entrants to come in but that also means less layers to work with. This makes the final product less expensive compared to the American ones, at the cost of fewer specialized features added in by niche contractors. That's in part due to the nature of the militaries too - the American military will request frequent changes and new features to new battle conditions on the go, to the point of making your product the equivalent of military SAP - very flexible and usable for any battlefield situation, but also very bloated to develop and operate. On the other hand, European military contracts are usually relatively static in comparison, which means that the burden of knowledge acquisition and operating under different situations falls on the operator and not the technology itself. The last bit is also what translates into budgeting - American products are delivered with significant delays and higher costs due to back-and-forth bureaucracy internally, while European products can be delivered sooner if there is a pressure to deliver - like if the customer is a priority customer who has paid significantly upfront (read, Arab militaries).

I would argue that the US military sector is artificially inflated, because it's a significant jobs programme for the huge network of firms, contractors and subcontractors. In a way, it's a military budget that's adjusted for the economy size and not for the actual needs of the military. That lets the US military also fund a ton of whacky pioneering technology that's at the forefront of the innovation (like the internet, or drones, or even social media manipulation), but it also leaks a lot of money through the cracks for ostensibly results that are only marginally better than European countries with comparable militaries such as the UK and France.

That being said, it's much easier and more lucrative to start up in the US than anywhere else, at least till now. Second would be the UK, although with their exclusion from the recent European defence loans programme, that's questionable now. France is increasingly pulling its weight now, and I'm expecting a lot of growth here. The French government has been exceedingly friendly for miltech companies for a while now.

The US defense complex is large but it’s also inefficient and sclerotic, partly as a direct result of those fat budgets that have created a many decades old culture of graft and waste.

A country with less of this cost disease could probably be competitive with 1/4 the spend or less, especially if they skip big heavy Cold War era tech in favor of faster cheaper stuff like drones and smart munitions. Aircraft carriers and manned fighters look cool but I’m not sure how much they matter anymore.

What I see from the EU is that while they do also have cost disease, it might not be as entrenched in that sector. They also have Russia directly adjacent to them, which motivates people to actually care.

If Mexico were belligerent with a history of imperialism, had nuclear weapons and a huge army, and had just invaded and taken Cuba, we’d be in a similar situation and similarly motivated. As it stands we have a “big beautiful ocean” between us and Russia and do not face a direct threat. The US is almost uninvadeable unless you sterilized it with nukes first, and we have those too.

There's a lot more to this equation than defense spending.

Also it's not fair to compare the US to Germany. The US compared to the combined EU spending is more of a fair comparison.

The big difference is if you are comparing the situation of a German citizen in Germany to a US citizen in the US or to a German citizen in the US. If you are an immigrant in a country where you don't have a subjective right to live, you obviously have fewer basic rights than a German citizen in Germany.

Thats not true. There are another 1000 Billion going into social and infrastructure in germany right now. It's not like in the US, where you only can have military or social spending. Overall the military spendings was 280 Billion in 2023 in the EU. This is just increasing since the US is not a trustworthy partner anymore. FR and Germany just building up a stronger nuclear defence system for the EU and stronger borders to the east.

There are certainly some problems in Germany that need to be solved, but you're painting a very extreme and absolute picture here that is pretty far from the truth.

Free speech is different in Germany than the US, that doesn't mean we don't have free speech in Germany. The US doesn't have the one and only true definition of free speech. And right now Trump is assaulting free speech in the US, so those lectures from Vance and others are just blatant, partisan rethoric.

We're not returning to coal. The economy could be better, but it's not as terrible as you imply.

Germany is more democratic and freer then USA. Except maybe for nazi where in fact, sigh Heil is not allowed in Germany and admired in USA.

But, that is bad news for freedom if everybody else, so.

Germany seems like a better country to live in for most people. Plus, affordable Healthcare system and public education system.

That sounds true to me, at least related to the MAGA-adjacent people I know from the US.

The thing is that I never expected the US to just willingly throw away what I (and many others) perceived to be its actual greatest source of strength. The US had built, along with its impressive military, an equally impressive web of friendly nations that allowed it to project its power to a degree that was impossible to match. Even in a world where China kept rising, they would have trouble to compete with the US in this field, because the window of opportunity to build this was like 70 years ago.

China was trying for the next best thing, wooing countries in Africa and Latin America to slowly build a web of friendly nations of its own. Not the same, if you ask me.

That the US would freely squander all their multi-decades investments in a matter of months was unthinkable.

I personally enjoy what is happening. As someone that lives in an EU country, I thought the EU needed this kind of nudge to further integrate, and the US influence always irked me. I am cautiously optimistic for the next few years here.

We understand the schtick, it just seems like a grave miscalculation of the return on investment for the US.

This is largely what I believe to be true also.

"We have a lot of leverage, and even if we don't, then we don't have to pay to be the worlds police" - is largely how I (also a european) have seen Trumps actions.

The "issue", is that this is a populist take.

It's weirdly not in Americas interest to take that stance, because they are a defacto world government with the amount of soft power they are able to exert, militarily and in trade.

So, the GP is quite right, people are waking up to the idea that this soft power was running kinda deep and we shouldn't just allow ourselves to get soft too.

Just like an insurance company will find a way not to pay: the US may never have actually come to the aid of Europe; and nobody thought about that, they just accepted most of what the US was asking in the hope that they would.

The lesson will be painful in the short-term, but I'm also hopeful that we take it seriously and start investing in ourselves.

> So while the left and center of the US largely views this whole saga as a catastrophic loss of the US brand and foreign policy aims, this kind of rearmament is exactly what Trump promised his base he'd make happen.

It's a catastrophic loss of influence. It's a good thing for Europe but terrible for the US. I think that Trump will end up fulfilling his promise is co-incidental. Trump's a lose cannon who's alienated all of America's friends, that he achieved some relatively minor goal is like being proud of losing weight because you have cancer.

Europe has a chance here to become a political superpower, strongly eroding the US centric world view and having influence though something other than brute force of money or military power, which is what China and US are trying to project.

One promise i would love to see him keep is turning the liabilities in europe into an asset. Instead of paying for european security, if we can charge them for security and sell them weapons and tech from our big contractors, the US wins.

But i think the states should take responsibility of the casualties of the wars they started. The people seeking shelter here wouldnt knock on our door if foreign people funding their rebel groups or religious extremists. Ever wonder why they got so many weapons and ammo? Russia and china was also interfering there so they grab the assets. We provided airbases and barracks for the us-army, time to cash in the rent for so many years. We dont have to take the risk getting our cities bombed because our lords and saviours found it funny to start a war in a foreign country... I would suggest Trump should seek another country housing his war gear...

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Have european arms races against a real or perceived russian threat historically led to stability in europe?

When I read this, as an American it really strikes me what a trade-off the implementation of social democracy is. It does seem like they are correlated.

I wish that the USA did better on taking care of people, (because it sucks right now) but some on the left act as if there are no consequences to deciding to implement these things.

Yes the planet got destroyed. But for a beautiful moment in time, we created a lot of value for shareholders.

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The term you're looking for is privelege.

They should have strengthened their military and supported Ukraine joining NATO instead of opposing it publicly at the Bucharest Summit.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Bucharest_summit

> The Alliance did not offer a Membership Action Plan to Georgia or Ukraine, largely due to the opposition of Germany

US govt warned Merkel to wind down purchasing gas and oil from Putin:

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/trump-scolded-germany-for...

Currently as it stands for all great chest thumping for "supporting Ukraine" EU as a whole is spending more money funding the war by buying gas and oil from the Russian than helping Ukraine. But somehow in the media domain, they managed to position themselves as great friends and supporters of Ukraine. It's quite baffling.

https://foreignpolicy.com/2025/01/03/europe-russia-ukraine-w...

(https://archive.is/1ULVQ)

I suggesting doing it faster and acknowledging it was a mistake not doing it sooner.

> bowing out or actually switching sides.

Isn't the opposite actually the case? Hegseth has called it a "division of labor." [0]

Ultimately when war breaks out with China, and a year in to that conflagration Russia (ever the opportunist) decides to take a few bites out of the Baltic states, who's going to defend Europe? The US military isn't omnipotent.

[0] https://www.defense.gov/News/Speeches/Speech/Article/%204064...

The agenda after WW2 was to not allow germany to militarize itself again and to keep the soviets out. Now it seems that germany is allowed to take it's safety in it's own hands again. Maybe there is more trust (western values?), maybe americans want to pull out? I still find it an astounding development. Maybe because it is an european project. Becoming adult. And the US has a bigger fish to fry.

The difference in Germany is that they made a historic change to their consitution where they are now able to grow their military by borrowing way more money. They are not moving money away from healthcare and infrastructure, they are actually creating a way to increase their military budget without having to move money away from healthcare and infrastructure (because in Germany, the money is sorely needed there as well).

> EU’s combined military budget is already far bigger than Russia’s.

But it is much smaller than the US' military spending, who is at this point a hostile foreign nation.

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In a way it is his very openly stated goal. He has mentioned that it's a national security issue, since Russian and Chinese ships are passing through the arctic route, and as the ice melts greenland and canada will become increasingly important.

So… maybe, but to my mind counterfactuals don’t really help clarify thinking about this kind of thing. The range of futures available to us today doesn’t really depend too much on alternate futures that may have been available had we done things differently in the past.

I understand the political necessity of setting a concrete 1.5 degC warming target and messaging it as an all-or-nothing kind of goal, but “we missed it” isn’t an absolute. It’s not the line between “hellfire and brimstone” and “salvation”: there’s still a range of outcomes and behavior still matters.

The fatalism strikes me as counterproductive and paralyzing: people can and will continue to try to survive, even if there are wildfires now, or hurricanes, or heat waves, or worse. Better, it seems to me, to focus on what actually is changing, how people are responding, and how to mitigate and adapt.

This ironically applies both to climate change and being a decade too late to react to Russia's expansionist actions.

Its much worse, just look at the map. Global warming would be massively beneficial to russia - north sea would be better used by navy (whatever remains out of it) and shipping lanes, permafrost disappearing makes much more land usable. They have massive oil and gas reserves that they need to sell, half of their economy runs off this.

If Europe gets conquered by russia and we too go back to drawing donkey carts with cowshit, we might actually slow down climate change.

Europe was also principally buying American weapons. That’s now changing.

The “benefitting from being friends with the US” is exactly the frame Trump would love for you to use. It’s a little more nuanced than that imo.

After WW2 the US wanted the European powers under its wings rather than rebuilding their own militaries to the level of a global power. There were to be two powers: the US and the Soviets.

It suited the US interests to force Europe in a dependent position. Partly for good reasons like preventing us fighting amongst ourselves starting another war. Which we’d just done twice, so fair enough.

But also to stop us from coming under communist influence voluntarily. And, just for imperialist reasons. They were just more modern and subtle about it than the empires they replaced, most notably the British Empire. The almost-century of western Europe being effectively part of an US empire culturally, financially and militarily is now coming to an end. How we’re gonna deal with that? No idea. It’s going to be pretty damn hard in a lot of ways.

> US non-interventionism was the norm for the longest time.

US practised non-interventionism when wasn't the dominant world power. It's existed for 229 years, only in the 75 years after 2 world wars dethroned Britain did it become dominant. Since then its pretty much continuously projected it's power using miliary means across the world.

Look around, and you'll notice most countries are non-interventionist. That includes countries that were once attempted to colonise the world - like Britain, France and Spain. I guess once it was clear they could not take on the USA single handedly, they stopped spending on their military. Looked at as an asset that generates a return, what use is it if you have to ask the USA for permission to use it?

The corollary is if the USA loses it's "dominant military power status" military spending will probably drop back to the levels of other countries. It's held the position for 75 years, but if current trends continue it won't make 80 years.

I guess the obvious candidate for taking on the role of "dominate power" is China. Given they way they've been building up their military, it's almost like they are preparing for it. Their major competitor for the position will be India.

Surely he understands the interplay between the usd being the world reserve currency and the importance of allies and military bases set across the world and how this aids US prosperity

Threatening annexations is getting involved. Starting trade wars is getting involved.

He is involved a lot ... just more on the fascist side then on the Democratic side.

Because those people around the world are smarter than him and look down on him. He's plenty interested in being involved with places that flatter and pay him money.

Losing the EU as an ally against China is disastrous for US chinese containment policy. Trump wont be able to bribe Putin either if China starts a war.