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Article reinforces the new aim of part of government around vd Leyen, #Merkel to raise #German defence budget to 1.5% GDP by 2025. NATO "target" of 2% will likely not be doable with Social Democrats (and there is very much the question of how all that cash would be spent anyway).
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by @RikeFranke view original on Twitter
A raise to 1.5 % GDP would be a very substantial move, moving the German defence budget to about 60 billion USD (51 billion Euros) and comfortably take it past both France and UK in absolute numbers (two nuclear weapons states with respective expenses).
I already see opinions popping up to the effect of "its not enough". I'm sorry, but with all due respect and seeing the reports I have seen, these assessments are not based in reality. Even a raise to 1.5% will be challenging to absorb into an actually useful force structure.
Just a reminder that one of the major challenges for Bundeswehr presently is staffing. No point buying shiny toys you cannot crew. And no, its not just an issue of pay. Unless people want to reintroduce the draft, this will be a complex problem.
So what are IMHO the two major priorities? A) Solving the recruitment issue. Money will help here but as said, more things need to happen. B) Extra funding first and foremost needs to go to sustained logistics effort, stocking parts, ammunition etc. Next on list is training.
I'm pretty hesitant to engage in "fantasy fleet"-games of naming what should be bought etc, but again, lots of stuff most desperately needed isn't "sexy". Comms equipment, updating/fixing/hardening IT infrastructure (which btw is urgently needed to order all those parts).
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