German Defence Minister Ursula von der Leyen (L) speaks with German soldiers after a NATO Response Force (NRF) exercise in Zagan, southwest Poland on June 18, 2015. Photo by AFP
The SUN: LAUGHING STOCK Germany’s soldiers forced to use BROOMSTICK for a gun as Donald Trump blasts Angela Merkel over NATO spending
The highly embarrassing episode, revealed in a leaked report, is just the beginning of the country's woes as it fights to reverse chronic army shortages
GERMANY'S military is so underfunded its troops used BROOMSTICKS painted black as mock weapons during a Nato defence exercise.
But the highly embarrassing episode, revealed in a leaked report, is just the beginning of the country's woes as it fights to reverse chronic army shortages.
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Update: German army used broomsticks instead of guns during training (The Telegraph)
WNU Editor: Germany's defense budget is 40 Billion Euro a year .... so where is the money going?!?!?!
4 comments:
I bet they have nice soccer pitches on their bases.
Assuming this is actually true, I cannot begin to fathom how demoralizing this is for the military personnel involved. "....so where is the money going?!?!?!" As I have been pointing out for a VERY LONG time, while how much raw money a country spends on its military is not irrelevant it is the least important stat that should be referenced when attempting to measure how well a country stacks up with another country. Unfortunately pundits and "analysts" tend to treat this as the most important statistic. As such, their "analysis" is often questionable at best.
For example according to Wikipedia the US spends 610 billion on its military at number 1. China is number 2 at 228 billion. Russia comes in fourth at 66.3 billion. The US is spending more than Russia and China combined yet the Russian and Chinese militaries are comparable to America and very likely superior in many ways. I am NOT suggesting that Russia and China are the most powerful countries in the world. The only way to "know" would be through actual conflict. With that said observing how the Russian military has performed in its operations in places like Syria, Georgia, and Ukraine and how China has expanded in the South China Sea the hypothesis that these countries are on par military with America seems to be a sound one. As such, we could ask about America the same question as you ask about Germany.
Saudi Arabia comes in at number 3 with 69.4 billion in military spending. No one would suggest that Saudi Arabia is anything close to a top military power. We can further reach this conclusion by observing how difficult Yemen has been for them is spite of such spending.
Now Germany clocks in 9th at 44.30 billion US dollars. As to where the money is being spent. I suspect like in America some of it is flat out wasted and much of it is spent on fancy projects that have dubious value. Examples of such projects, at least in the US, would be the F-35.
Relax,l doubt this is true.
I suspect it's not true as well. There is no benefit to training with broom sticks along with huge downside risks in terms of lost morale at such humiliation. If the situation truly were that dire, a nation would do better to simply suspend military drills than to resort to this.
With that said where the money is being spent is a legitimate concern. Essentially Russia and China get allot more for much less money spent.
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