Damning reports are emerging from Germany’s military forces in Afghanistan, claiming that cooperation with civilian agencies is abysmal, equipment is lacking and training is insufficient. With the US preparing to pressure Berlin to send more troops, there are now increasing calls for “urgent improvements.”German Defense Minister Franz Josef Jung is not a big fan of change. When he speaks about the Bundeswehr, Germany’s military forces, and their missions abroad, he has a tendency to always use the same expressions. They seem to somehow keep him grounded.
For example, one of his favorite ways to describe the German soldiers operating in Afghanistan is to say that they are “well-trained and well-equipped.” He also likes to say that the Bundeswehr’s collaboration with elements of the Foreign Ministry, the Interior Ministry and the Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) stationed in Afghanistan has been so successful that Germany’s “networked approach” has even been “adopted in its entirety by NATO.”
The problem with these standardized expressions is not that they have been learned by heart. The problem is that they have so little to do with reality.
For once, Jung should be forced to read his military’s confidential reports. Some of the internal documents written by troops serving in Afghanistan, which were viewed by SPIEGEL, describe the situation as “critical.” They complain about the severe lack of vehicles, weapons and aircraft as well as about the paucity of supplies and replacement parts. They lament the “deficiencies” in the training of the soldiers and bemoan the fact that the much-praised collaboration between the military and civilian agencies in reconstruction efforts is actually functioning pretty terribly.
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Running an efficient military is contradictory to a liberal or socialist government mindset. ” Why waste money on the military when you need it for the cradle to grave nanny state social programs? Besides the USA will cover for us.” They are in for a huge shock because Obama is certainly not interested in his own military, let alone carrying the can for others. It is reported he will scrap the missile defense pact with Poland within days.
Maybe Germany is still frightened of the legacy of its military’s
strength and efficiency under Hitler, that they intentionally cripple it’s effectiveness today.
mid island mike
Sounds very much like what the CF lived through in its “peacekeeping deployments”. Anybody remember 1997, when we were swapping helmets between the incoming and outgoing contingents, because we didn’t have enough to go around? All the while paying hundreds of thousands for the “Flight Plan 97″ , better known as the “Learn to Love Change” program.
The CF did not even start to re-equip until Chretein and Martin decided to move into Afghanistan. The Germans are just further down the curve than we were. They will take longer to recover their pride in their military.