#MODERN GERMAN AIRCRAFT PLUS#

The causes can be found in decisions made in connection with the Bundeswehr reform of 2011. The problems of managing shortages, overlong servicing times and the systematic lack of spare parts affect the navy, army, air force and joint support service equally.

And among these 9, the periods at dock keep getting longer as the ships get older, spare parts are lacking and project management вЂ“ both on the Bundeswehr side and that of GermanyвЂ™s arms industry вЂ“ falls short of expectations. Instead of the forceвЂ™s official plan strength of 15 frigates, only 9 now exist. The decommissioning of old ships works smoothly, but activation of their replacements is years behind schedule. Whether using Eurofighters, Tornados, Transalls, CH-53s, Tigers or NH-90s, air units lamented inadequate flight hours for crews, as too many aircraft were unusable on too many days of the year. At times, not one of the new A-400M transport planes could fly. At the beginning of 2018, all six of GermanyвЂ™s combat submarines were out of service. The material situation remains dramatically inadequate and in some ways has even worsened. Three years later, nothing has changed in the practice of back-and-forth borrowing. There on the grounds of the Bergen Training Area, I was handed a list of 15,000 items of equipment and weapons systems that had to be borrowed from other parts of the Bundeswehr so that at least the 1,000 German Panzergrenadiers would be available for immediate action. I deliberately made my first official troop visit as the BundestagвЂ™s new Bundeswehr commissioner in 2015 to the German contingent of NATOвЂ™s rapid deployment unit, the VJTF (Very High Readiness Joint Task Force). New initiatives have been introduced that target human resources, hardware and expenditures, but have yet to be felt. Meanwhile, the German forceвЂ™s military capabilities and effective hardware have generally deteriorated in recent years. This means maintaining the forceвЂ™s 13 current external deployments, from the Balkans and Mali to Iraq and Afghanistan, while joining in the collective defense of Europe with the NATO Response Force, NATO naval task forces, the air policing over the Baltic region and the German-led NATO battalion in Lithuania. The German military must now fulfill both tasks equally.

Today, some 180,000 troops serve in the Bundeswehr, which has since become an all-volunteer force, although the smallest Bundeswehr of all time no longer has just one chief mission, as it did before 1990 (NATO defense) or following that year (foreign deployments). Downsizing was thus a binding commitment. The old West German Bundeswehr numbered 500,000 soldiers, East GermanyвЂ™s National PeopleвЂ™s Army 160,000. The army of reunified Germany, it was agreed, would not exceed a strength of 370,000 troops.

#MODERN GERMAN AIRCRAFT PLUS#

This was enshrined in the Two-Plus-Four treaty involving West and East Germany plus the four victorious powers of World War II вЂ“ the US, the UK, France and the Soviet Union. No state disarmed as thoroughly following the end of the Cold War in 1991 than reunited Germany. Instead of fearing German military aggression, as they did in 1914вЂ“18 and again in 1939вЂ“45, they fear the countryвЂ™s military weakness. ThatвЂ™s what the Poles say, and the French, and the Brits, and the Americans.

Modern german aircraft