Europe is unprepared for war with Russia and is in danger of being “washed away” into conflict, just as the Holy Roman Empire was broken up by Napoleon, Germany’s leading military historian has warned.
At a high-level defense conference in Berlin, several German generals also suggested that NATO might not be able to win the “first battle” in a defensive war on its eastern flank because it would struggle to send sufficient troops and equipment to the front line quickly enough.
Sönke Neitzel, a professor of military history at the University of Potsdam and a leading academic authority on the modern German armed forces, described the logistics as a “nightmare” and said it could take at least 15 years before Germany is ready for war.
He pointed out that troop numbers are falling and are at least 30,000 below the target number of 203,000, while the country needs another 60,000 reservists on top of the 34,000 it has.
“We need more money. We need more personnel. And there are limits in politics,” Neitzel told the Berlin Security Conference. “We cannot rule out that the Bundeswehr will have to fight. We will stand by the coffins at the graves of the soldiers and be asked: ‘What did you do?’ We will have to explain to the mothers and fathers why the soldiers could not do their duty. And at present we can only die gallantly if there is war;”
“It is abundantly clear: if our armed forces are going to fight, they will die without drones, without air defenses, without sufficient supplies. Are we clear enough in our message to the leaders of Germany? They will die, and that is your responsibility.”
The Bundeswehr has been rocked by Russia’s attack on Ukraine, prompting the army chief to complain that his soldiers have been left “naked” and unable to fulfill obligations to their NATO allies after years of cutbacks and muddled doctrine. In response, the government is spending €100bn to patch up gaps in its military and last week laid out ambitions to become the backbone and main logistical hub of Nato’s efforts to deter a Russian invasion.
Boris Pistorius, the defense minister, called on Germany to become kriegstüchtig (capable of waging war), a deliberately provocative term in a country where 71 percent of voters reject the state’s new goal of taking a “leadership role” in Europe’s defense.
On Thursday, he told the conference that the idea of creating a European army was “off the table” as the continent’s powers instead sought to take a more serious role in NATO. “It is time to lift the mental block that somehow Germany should not be the leader in defense and deterrence,” he said. “We must all become kriegstüchtig. Deterrence is like oxygen: you don’t notice it until it’s gone. We want peace – we must prepare for war.”
Admiral Rob Bauer of the Netherlands, NATO’s most senior officer, praised Germany’s plans and urged it to support them despite “deeply held anti-militaristic views” among the population.
A number of Bundeswehr generals and military experts pointed to deep structural problems standing in the way, including troop shortages, severely depleted ammunition supplies and the difficulty of moving up to 300,000 NATO troops up to a thousand miles from Germany to the front.
Some insiders also fear that regular military spending and arms supplies to Ukraine could be cut as the country’s political leaders struggle to resolve a budget crisis.
“We have to wake up this country and probably not just this one. I think it’s true for most European democracies,” said Brigadier General Thilo Madler, chief of staff at the Bundeswehr’s internal defense command. “We really need to get over our old optimistic view of final peace after the end of the Cold War in Europe. It was a nice dream, but the dream is over and we have to face reality. This country, and not just this country, has to do much more to the stability of peace and democracy.”
One of the most difficult issues to come into focus is logistics. Many senior European commanders complained about the complexity of building up sufficient stocks of military equipment and moving troops and equipment through a legal system so convoluted that armored vehicles face separate rules and permits in each of the country’s 16 provinces. Germany.
“If we have a bureaucracy that prevents this flexible movement, then we have a real problem not to lose the first battle against Russia,” said Lt. Gen. Alexander Solfrank, the German head of NATO’s new central logistics center in Ulm. “And the other side knows exactly where our limitations are and what our obstacles are.”
Neitzel said he visited NATO headquarters in Brussels last week and was dismayed at the way various allied nations still have mutually incompatible munitions. “It always reminds me of the history of the Holy Roman Empire of the German nation, how they had to respond to Napoleon and couldn’t agree on anything,” he said. “And they were washed away. Historical structures can be washed away. That’s the lesson of history.
“So we have to act and we have to give Alexander Solfrank (in charge of NATO logistics) the opportunity to do his job so that our soldiers don’t die and we can win the first battle.”
Nietzsche added that senior NATO figures were increasingly pessimistic about Ukraine’s chances of recapturing significant territory from Russia after the failure of its summer counteroffensive and were considering a plan to bring unoccupied parts of the country into the alliance.
Brigadier General Vesa Valtonen, commander of the Finnish army’s Pori Brigade, said the situation in Ukraine was worryingly similar to the final phase of his own country’s winter war against the Soviet invasion of 1939-40. After bravely holding off a much larger and more -a well-equipped force, the Finns were oppressed and forced to sue for peace.
“We lasted 105 days on our own,” Valtonen said. “The last third of the war looked like Ukraine now: exhaustion. Our side had no reserves. The other side has them or had them.”
“There are 40 million people in Ukraine. How will the mobilization and the like continue? Are we ready to produce enough ammunition for them to continue fighting? This is a long-term period. We cannot give up. You cannot win a war on attrition against Russia.”
A controversial parliamentary committee set up to investigate undue Russian influence on Polish politics claims that Donald Tusk, who won last month’s general election, would pose a significant security risk if he became prime minister (Paulina Olshanka writes).
The commission, set up by the outgoing government of Mateusz Morawiecki and widely considered constitutionally untenable, released its findings shortly before the newly elected liberal parliament voted to dissolve it on Wednesday.
The report alleges that Tusk, 66, a former prime minister, and several other lawmakers are potentially corrupt by their ties to Russia.
“We got the impression that the politicians responsible for state security do not care about state security,” said Andrzej Zibertowicz, one of the report’s authors. “The commission recommends that they not be assigned tasks, positions and public functions related to state security.”
Tusk rejected the claim, saying “the whole case reeks of politics,” the Polish Press Agency reported.
Working on the post:
2023-12-01 20:34:00
#army #Europe #rusting #withstand #war #Russia
