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If your argument is that a unified German state, which has never existed before 1871, cannot be counted on to uphold peace and prosperity for her citizenry and European neighbours in the long term, what is your assessment of Berlin's current political line, namely that Germany should become the center of a new rearming European alliance which is decidedly anti-Russian and also freed from American influence? Because if my assumption is correct, you should be 100% against it.
I think that the idea of an Europe united under German military leadership has been tried and found wanting.
I also did not say that Germany can not be counted to uphold peace and prosperity for her citizenry, but merely pointed out the fact that the pax americana was better for the thriving of Western Europe (and large sways of Eastern Europe, after the fall of the Iron Curtain) than pretty much anything we had had before.
If the US is not willing to fill their role any more, then we should work with other European nations on a common defense strategy. Personally, I am not keen for us to become a de-facto leader in that role, though, and would much prefer an European army or the Brits or the French to lead this time. Their military forces have more combat experience than the Bundeswehr (though not as much as Ukraine).
I think that completely dissolving our military ties to the US would be premature until Trump invades Canada or Greenland (which I think unlikely), the US seems to have a knack for getting back on track even if you think this time they have finally gone completely off the rails. I am also deeply personally offended by Putin bringing large scale warfare back to Europe and forcing us to spend on defense. As Eisenhower pointed out, [e]very gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.
While I am personally disgusted by nukes, I also recognize that their deterrence value is likely higher than that of conventional weapons. I have not done the math, but I think that the expected loss of QALYs from a nuclear defense strategy might be lower than that from a conventional defense strategy (because the former is more likely not to result in a war).
A conventional army, navy and air force require a ton of different weapon systems for all kind of circumstances, to deliver an appropriate tat for any tit the opponent might play. This is essential for offensive wars.
Think of some self defense enthusiast who knows multiple martial arts and techniques which widely vary in lethality, who could hold his own in a bar fight, a ring, a street fight or (possibly) a knife fight. I don't want to be that guy because I don't find fighting very purposeful. If I felt threatened, I would get a gun instead. This does not allow for a very nuanced response, but I don't really care too much to uphold bar fight culture. If you defect from the rules of civilization, I will not meet you at your chosen level of un-civilization. Instead, I will either tolerate your defection or escalate to the level where at least one of us will die.
Likewise, if you attack a country with conventional weapons, civilization is going to die. It does not matter to me much if it dies slowly in the trenches over the years as the QALY costs accumulate of if it dies in a few minutes of nuclear fire because my only tool is a big red button labeled "DEFECT". This branch of the decision tree is lost either way, the only thing it is fit now is to improve the prior probability of now counterfactual branches, so let's get it over with.
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This is decidedly hard to credit though. Germany is, without hyperbole and measuring it by the standards of the US, France or Ukraine, militarily incompetent. Our military-industrial complex works mostly on the industry side, and that pretty much only because of the export market. The Bundeswehr is barely even a paper tiger and anything touched by the ministry of defence is a bottomless hole of graft.
The current rearmament rhetorics are driven by a political desire to capitalize on anti-Trump and pro-Ukraine sentiments, not by any desire to actually increase the ability of Germany or Europe to wage war. The politicians involved in this latest trend have no interest in, stomach for or indeed resources to spend on rearmament. To be sure they might shake loose a few billion euros in new debt to burn in the name of defence, but that'll be the end of it.
Most Germans still consider anything remotely military distasteful if not utterly immoral, and would rather sabotage rearmament than support it if ignoring the topic is no longer an option.
Germany cannot be relied on to handle defence; neither its own nor anybody elses.
So what if the Americans or the Ukrainians or the Russians call their bluff?
Americans and Ukrainians: We promise to shovel more money at the problem and maybe even do that, but without any determination to make a material difference.
Russians: We shrug and point at Poland. Their problem, if any. Russians are usually bluffing themselves.
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