Who will fill former Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock’s role in the new German government? Officially, that title now belongs to Russia hawk Johann Wadephul, but what about Annalena’s unofficial role?
The former trampoline competitor might have been in over her head, but that often provided a useful window into the thinking of the government in Berlin—if not capitals across the “Collective West.” Although she’s gone, her previous statements help preview what’s to come with the new Christian Democrat (CDU)-led government in Berlin.
Back in 2023, as she made an attempt to rally anyone growing wary of the mounting costs of Project Ukraine, she said the quiet part out loud when she declared, “we are fighting a war against Russia and not against each other,” which at the time contradicted the official lie.
Maybe nowhere was her gift more evident than in September of 2022 when she exposed the sham of Western democracy. That’s when she explained the following:
But if I give the promise to the people in Ukraine, “we stand with you, as long as you need us,” then I want to deliver. No matter what my German voters think, I want to deliver to the people of Ukraine. And this is why it’s important for me to be very frank and clear. And this means, [with] every measure I’m taking, that they remain in place as long as Ukraine needs me.
And so those measures did remain—and look set to remain—even as Germans’ standard of living circles the drain. The decisions to forego pipeline Russian gas and start shifting public expenditures towards “supporting” Ukraine didn’t cause all Germany’s economic problems, but it exacerbated them.
Real GDP and real wages continue to flatline and are respectively ten and eight percent below where they should be according to pre-pandemic trends. While Germany embraced its role as a forward operating base for American empire, Barbock also had the gall to champion what she called a “feminist foreign policy” at the same time Berlin greased the meat grinder in Ukraine, backed genocide in Palestine, and cozied up to the Al Qaeda regime in Syria.
And yet she still made a habit of lecturing, threatening, and insulting other countries, most notably China, on their foreign policy, oblivious to how out of touch with reality is the idea that Germany can dictate terms. Unsurprisingly, she was not well received:
How Russian foreign minister Lavrov was welcomed in India vs German foreign minister Baerbock……
🤔 pic.twitter.com/u8mlsXvMC2— Richard (@ricwe123) March 4, 2023
More of the Same, Less Transparent
There might be new actors in Berlin now, but the movie is a remake. The new foreign minister who differs little on substance reportedly prefers to operate more behind the scenes, although he’s not showcasing that ability in the early going. He recently declared that “Russia will always remain an enemy for us” and is making statements about tribunals and criminal courts for the Russians:
On Thursday, he unexpectedly came out in support of a dramatic increase in defense spending to five percent of GDP, which is already dividing the new ruling coalition.We’ll see if five percent comes to pass, but Berlin has already agreed to exempt defense spending from Germany’s constitutional debt brake and is planning to pour hundreds of billions into armaments.
The government is accelerating weapons deliveries to Ukraine while planning to shield future deliveries from public view. According to reports, the primary goal behind the latter is to “deprive the aggressor of an advantage in the war in Ukraine.” From Defense Express:
While this reasoning may sound declarative, it is not without merit. The lack of public data on weapons shipments will likely force russian intelligence to invest far more effort into assessing the capabilities of Ukraine’s Defense Forces.
But it’s almost certainly more about keeping it removed from the public eye. After all, Merz’s popularity is already sinking:
‼️🇩🇪 Disillusionment Sets In: Majority of Germans Already Unhappy with Chancellor Merz — BILD Reports
Just four days. That’s all it took for the German public to turn sour on their new chancellor.
According to a fresh INSA poll, only 23% of Germans view Friedrich Merz’s… pic.twitter.com/rmdUW25gux
— Zlatti71 (@Zlatti_71) May 11, 2025
Despite Merz’s rocky start and the record unpopularity of the previous coalition, the mania gripping German elites shows no signs of abating. Indeed, it is growing. Consider the following from NachDenkSeiten:
The Second World War, instigated by Germany, has been over for 80 years. But on the very anniversary of the liberation from Hitler’s fascism, Armin Papperger, head of the Düsseldorf-based arms company Rheinmetall, announces magnificent business figures to the public. His celebratory news is immediately euphorically reported by the media, and the trade press of stock market journalists can’t contain itself. What’s more, Papperger is already thinking about the future and what it would be like to convert civilian production capacity into military one. For this, too, he receives applause from civil society.
And Rheinmetall continues to deepen its relationship with Ukraine. While Rheinmetall’s fortunes improve, the country’s vaunted auto industry keeps sliding into oblivion and other manufacturing suffers. German industry has come under such strain in recent years as decades of complacency came home to roost at the same time Germany energy costs became uncompetitive due to the decision to refuse cheap and reliable Russian gas, and the state is now being propelled into the past with a military keynesianism hail mary.
The Shift in Manufacturing
Despite setbacks in recent years, German manufacturing still makes up 20 percent of the country’s economic output (compared to 10.6 percent in France and 17.5 in the US).
The 800 billion euros the Merz government plans to spend will help prop up the nation’s manufacturing while shifting production to weapons—a process already underway. While demand for Das Auto might be sinking, there’s plenty for ammunition and other killing toys. Last year, auto parts giant Continental and arms company Rheinmetall signed a memorandum of understanding to retrain auto workers affected by layoffs in the shrinking auto industry. In February, Rheinmetall announced it was repurposing two factories in Berlin and Neuss that previously made car parts to produce products for war. More from Defense News:
Other defense players are getting involved, too, with sensor specialist Hensoldt reportedly in talks to hire 200 workers from auto parts suppliers Continental and Bosch, according to Reuters. And German-French joint venture KNDS recently acquired a historic rail car plant in Görlitz from French train maker Alstom. The factory will be retooled to produce components for military vehicles, including the Leopard 2 battle tank and Puma infantry fighting vehicle.
In an email to defense news, Hans Christoph Atzpodien, the head of the German defense industry lobbying group, said he expected “wholly new dimensions to the question of arms demand,” including the need for faster deliveries, not just higher volume.
The military keynesianism is unlikely to be a success or produce benefits for workers, however, as Isabella Weber and Tom Krebs point out in Foreign Affairs:
Merz’s far more generous approach to military spending will not boost domestic growth in the coming years as much as its advocates suggest. The defense sector is already operating near capacity, and in the short run, increasing government spending on weapons and tanks will have only a limited effect on production. Arms companies such as Rheinmetall have seen soaring profit margins, revealing their market power and the lack of competition they face even amid rising demand. Significant additional public spending may go into boosting their margins further. Rheinmetall’s 15-fold stock surge reflects expectations of continued windfall profits.
Of course, the government has insisted that this military spending will create well-paid manufacturing jobs. Yet Merz’s cabinet is full of business executives and lacks a strong voice for labor issues, an absence that has drawn criticism from the CDU itself. Moreover, the defense build-out will not likely compensate for the impending loss of jobs in ailing industries such as the automotive sector. Rheinmetall’s profits almost doubled between 2020 and 2024, but the number of its employees based in Germany rose just 25 percent in that period. The conversion of civilian plants to military use does not offer much more hope. In the East German town of Görlitz, a former Alstom train factory was taken over by the German-French defense company KNDS and now produces tanks, but the factory’s workforce has been slashed in half. The arrival of KNDS was clearly better than nothing, but it is unlikely to turn things around in a place such as Görlitz with a high unemployment rate of 7.7 percent. In this year’s federal election, the far-right AfD candidate Tino Chrupalla won nearly 49 percent of the vote in the town.
Indeed, Germany’s linking of weapons production and its economic livelihood are not inextricably intertwined. Since the great financial crisis, Germany capped its deficit at 0.35 percent of GDP. The new government is only carving out an exception for military spending, and to get the Social Democrats and Greens on board, minor boosts in infrastructure and climate spending. Meanwhile it’s austerity for the rest, which will produce a restless populace. The elite plan appears to be to blame the immortal enemy Russia for any social problems.
And so where do we think this is going to end up?
The new government continues to plod along the same path as the previous. Merz is threatening more sanctions, and the Europeans have found another economist to say that Russia is on the verge of collapse.
On May 14, Merz delivered his fantastical agenda to the Bundestag, including restarting the locomotive of economic growth through deregulation and striving for the strongest military in Europe, and endless support for Ukraine.
So the political movie is stuck on repeat. It is not, however, on the battlefield where Russia continues to advance.
Zeitenwende 360
The European Council for Foreign Relations declares that Merz—”the über-Atlanticist and fiscal conservative”—might be the only German politician who can credibly bury the debt brake and pave the way for a truly independent Europe. But what is that independence anymore aside from preparations to fight Russia? Or at least redirect money upwards in the name of such a goal?
If truly wanted independent Europe, they’d be making peace with Russia and finding a deal with China embracing Western edge of Eurasia. Weber and Krebs present a lot of paths Germany could be taking instead, including:
- Deficit financing of public investment spending—not just in the military and a few other sectors.
- Investments that create public ownership of critical infrastructure come at a lower cost than investments owned by private equity since public infrastructure does not have to generate profits.
- Investment in clean technology and elder- and childcare, which has a far greater economic effect than it does in defense; compared with military spending, every euro spent in nonmilitary sectors generates four times as much growth.
- Firms should receive subsidies only if they pay decent wages and maintain domestic production sites. For large companies coming from China and other countries outside the European Union, joint venture agreements that require strong labor standards can be made a requirement for market access in key sectors—much as China requires joint ventures for foreign firms to access critical areas of the Chinese market. This could help secure jobs and technology transfers where Germany has fallen behind.
- Germany should strengthen domestic demand for goods and services. High labor standards, including minimum-wage laws and broad union coverage of all sectors of the economy, are key to boosting the incomes of the majority of households. The government should raise the minimum wage from its current level of around 13 euros to 15 euros and give preferential treatment in procurement to companies that pay union-level wages.
- The government must also help keep down the price of essentials, such as housing, food, and energy, so that they do not eat up people’s purchasing power. Authorities should craft an ambitious program to address the cost-of-living crisis through effective national rent control, energy price stabilization, and strict antitrust enforcement in the food processing and grocery sectors to reduce food prices.
None of these prescriptions are under serious consideration by the German political class, however, and in most cases, Berlin is moving in the opposite direction.
Beyond the headlines like Merz telling the US to stay out of German affairs things appear to be on track between Washington and Berlin:
This dual buildup of the Russia threat and quest for “independence” from the US is intended to sell a public weary of further energy price hikes, inflation, loss of standard of living, disruptions of standard of living, and collapsing health and education systems.
As John Helmer said on Gorilla Radio at the beginning of May:
Basically, Trump is saying, you will continue the war against Russia. I will be the peacemaker. You will come along with me. We will establish that Russia is not a genuine peacemaker and deserves more war, deserves a continuation of war. The United States will continue to support the Ukraine with arms. with financing, with intelligence sharing, and will continue to act in partnership with Germany, France, and the UK on the battlefield and in the rear, in Poland, for example.
That partnership will be paid for to Trump, to US arms suppliers, to US businesses, and so on by the Europeans, so that’s underlying the arrangements is a war plan but a war plan that’s sequenced in time and uh the there have been very clear indications in Washington that trump’s advisors are following a sequencing plan reduce the US commitment in the war against Europe in order to do more in the war against China, one war at a time, but the Russia war to be paid for by the Europeans and not simply by the Europeans.
What Trump is encouraging is increased rearmament of Germany, a rearmament that’s as big as Hitler’s 1920s, 1930s rearmament of Germany. Rearmament of Germany under the new chancellor, Friedrich Merz, and the new foreign minister, Johann Wadephul, a combination of Russia haters, Russia warfighters, who intend to rearm Germany to fight Russia again. And that will be funded by Germans and the Europeans. The money will flow to the United States and Trump will support it. In that sense, I would say Trump is doing in secret the rearmament of Germany to fight Russia again.
Even for the current crop of German leaders, such levels of delusion would be reaching rarefied air. A September report from the Kiel Institute found that “given Germany’s massive disarmament in the last decades and the current procurement speed, we find that for some key weapon systems, Germany will not attain 2004 levels of armament for about 100 years.”
Onward, march.
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Thank you, Conor.
At the turn of the year, I noticed this office, https://www.engelvoelkers.com/mu/en, a few miles down the road and mentioned it to a friend, an EU Commission official married to a German. The official, who had worked in Germany, said many Germans are quietly emigrating.
Ever since Schröder’s “Agenda 2010”, Germans have been emigrating to nearby countries with better career prospects and wages — notably Austria and Switzerland. Now they are looking further afield, as the whole of Europe appears to be steaming ahead towards the reefs.
Thank you.
I often worked in Switzerland from 2007 – 14 and noticed, especially in and around Zuerich.
Wirecard had an office in Port-Louis, a few miles in the opposite direction.
Baerbock’s lasting legacy – 360 degree turns.
Well, if ya’ build all these weapons, the only profitable way is to use them…create a demand for the supply.
“The essential act of war is destruction, not necessarily of human lives, but of the products of human labor.” -George Orwell
what better way to create demand for weapons and collateral infrastructure than the demolition of war?
Yes, but I have a doubt there will be that many takers:
“The factory will be retooled to produce components for military vehicles, including the Leopard 2 battle tank and Puma infantry fighting vehicle.”
1) The Leopard 2 is a tank designed 50 years ago. Despite a variety of upgrades, it is basically obsolete (e.g. no autoloader). Germans have been fumbling around the design of a new tank, which from what I gather will basically consist of a new turret atop a Leopard 2 chassis — in other words, nothing that looks like a novel vehicle incorporating the lessons of the recent wars (Nagorno Karabakh, Tigray, Ukraine).
So who will really acquire those new batches of Leopard 2, whose performance in Ukraine was not catastrophic (contrarily to the Challenger 2), but nothing to write home about either?
2) The Puma IFV is an embarrassment for the German designers and builders. Too expensive. Too heavy. Too fragile. In manoeuvers a couple of years back, all 18 vehicles put into use broke down. There seems to be something fundamentally wrong with the Puma. Unsurprising: it was designed 40 years after the last comparable vehicle, the Marder; all that elapsed time means a loss of know-how amongst German engineers in charge of designing IFVs.
So who will buy that lemon (apart from the Bundeswehr)?
Thank you.
It will be interesting what Anglo-German and other collaboration emerges from the announcement today. I’m old enough to remember when the Tornado jet project was announced.
Uschi and Kaja were at palatial Lancaster House in sunny London before lunch.
I believe Greece will be happy to buy a huge number as a payment to the mob style protection sold by Germany. The same goes with all purchases from the US and France.
Many systems bought lately were not approved by Defence Staff. They were announced by the PM’s office. Will these systems work in step with each other? Are these weapons any good, will they have provision of ammo when urgently needed?
I’m sure this, more or less, is the case with many small countries.
What are the most reliable and honest estimates on the loss of the various Western heavy tank systems?
And where to find them in your view?
With the disadvantage none of us working for RU MoD.
That is a very good question to which I have no answer.
My perspective is informed by episodic reports such as this one and that other one indicating a high attrition rate for Western tanks, but a credibly comprehensive review of losses is something I never came across. From those articles, I just observe a difference between 20% of the Leopards lost and 64.5% of the heavy Abrams.
The tally at the end of the last years according to the Russians was:
– 8 Leopard 1A5
– 22 Leopard 2A4
– 8 Leopard 2A5
– 13 Leopard 2A6
– 2 Challenger 2
– 17 M1A1 Abrams
There was a lot of talk last year that Abrams losses are relatively low because they broke down way before reaching the front lines and Challengers were withdrawn from combat duty (by UK demand) immediately after the two were knocked spectacularly out.
Thanks!
The Leopard figures are huge.
Leclerc were in fact never used in combat?
Never, since France stopped manufacturing them in 2008, closed the production line, and wants to keep the slowly diminishing (because of age) pool of tanks for its own purposes. And Italy did not send any Ariete either, as far as I know. As far as using the Leclerc in combat anywhere in the world, I wonder whether they were used by the UAE against Ansarallah in Yemen.
Notice too that many more Leopards were sent to Ukraine than any other tank model. There were many to be sent, since the Leopard (both 1 and 2) had indeed been a best seller worldwide.
“had indeed been a best seller worldwide.”
Best seller worldwide due to (imagined) quality (legend: “Nazis after all built solid tanks”), or not rather due to soft and hard power of the seller/country?
Or the lack of real competition. Western countries can’t buy tanks from Ruskies, and it makes more sense to buy Leopard 2 than Abrams (same gun, but nightmare engine).
Same gun. Didn’t know that.
Abrams and Leopard 2 are basically cousins, having been developed from the failed 1960s-70s joint project MBT70. The differences were mainly over the engine and the gun. The irony is that US originally didn’t want the 120mm Rheinmetal gun–the early Abramses still had the 105mm L7.
One of the few things NATO tries* to do right is standardization of munitions. Most** tanks use either Royal Ordnance L7 105 mm, or Rheinmetall 120 mm smoothbore, or derivatives of.
* Ukrainian artillery hodgepodge showed that standardized 155 mm shells aren’t fully standardized.
** Notable exception is Chieftain – Challenger 1 – Challenger 2 line, but the “brand new” Challenger 3 is getting back on track (partially because there are no factories making ammo for the old gun).
p.s. France and selling arms reminds me of the gigantic Thomson-CSF frigate affair with Taiwan which seems we will never learn the whole truth about.
Thanks!
Of course in article #1 instead of “more than 200 Leopard tanks donated” I read “detonated”!
😂
“Freudscher Versprecher” I guess…
“National Interest” I believe also had that one item titled like “T-72 the world´s best tank” in response to the dysmal performance of Western gear that you describe and reactions thereof by AFU tank personnel.
p.s. It´s totally insane. I don´t get into https://eng.mil.ru/en/special_operation.htm
With or without TOR doesn’t matter. Those numbers by Oryxspioenkop: 3300 tanks vs. 900 I don’t believe. But I am not sure how many tank AFU did have altogether. If RU MoD on above unreachable link says 23.000 tanks/APCs/IFVs destroyed by SMO how many of those are in fact real battle tanks?
Europe is after Russia’s resources! The arming will pay for itself.
Without Russia resources to plunder the EU is third world.
Why they keep demanding no condition ceasefire to arm up and have another go at Russia across the Donbas.
“Without Russia resources to plunder the EU is third world.”
A gigantically dumb idea of vast delusional proportions put excellently into a nutshell.
Reminds me of the US State Department´s comment on the significance of the oil wealth of the Arabian peninsula as “the greatest prize in history”.
So (Sh)Merz is linking weapons production to economic livelihood? But I remember way back when Ronnie Rayguns claimed that it was the Soviet Union spending so much on armaments, trying to keep up with the US, that led to its downfall. So was St. Ronnie (perish the thought!) wrong? Or is the US trying to take down Germany?!? Is Shmerz delusional? A useful idiot? I’m so confused!
This is all sad reading this. I do not recognize the Germany that I frequently visited back in the 80s. You just know that the whole re-armament plan will be a boondoggle with nowhere enough troops to fill out those formations and to man all that equipment. But that isn’t the point, is it. It is really about creating a huge slush fund that will be totally unaccountable to the German public so that the insiders can make themselves fabulously rich. And if that requires make ordinary Germans impoverished, then it is a price that they are willing to pay.
Ordinary Germans themselves are willing to pray that price. All of this is, maybe not highly, but reasonably popular. Parties promised it, campaigned on it, people voted for them. The average German isn’t the victim here.
not yet.
Not really, Merz is already extremely unpopular.
Is that why he’s unpopular, though? It seems like he has given a lot of people many different reasons to hate him. Waivering between compromise with AfD and the no-compromise line was the worst of both worlds politically, for one thing. Likewise some of the hatred may be due to him not being anti-Russian enough, or going about it in the wrong way from the hater’s perspective.
I tried to read this very interesting article, thank you Conor, under the prism of the paper by Mearsheimer that was liked yesterday titled “War and International Politics” and I have to say that it fits very well with Mearsheimer’s ideas. The Warmongering here looks pretty much the latest survival kit of the Neocon Liberals. They can only survive politically as long as the ongoing and following wars continue and this explains a lot of what we see today in much of the Collective West political classes and why they will try their best to eliminate any political alternative that goes in a different direction. So far this does not seem to be working in Germany if we believe that the AfD would change, in any sense, the current course of action.
That article spurred some interesting musings from Branko Milanovic on inequality, relative inequality, relative strategic positioning, etc.
https://branko2f7.substack.com/p/nothing-to-say
As if the west is investing in increasing relative differences within and without countries because that is thought as potentially a winning game – irrespective if it is pauperizing their own peoples.
Yes, I saw that. Milosevic is clearly correct.
None of what Western – and US elites, particularly- do is going to much work, however. They severely overestimate how much technological, industrial, and military capability their nations have left after forty-plus years of neoliberal financialization.
Milosevic is clearly correct, and that’s why they killed him. I hope they won’t get Milanovic too. :)
In German “legacy” media they of course believe Mearsheimer is dumb, naive or even a “Kremlin stooge”.
Gosh, I just love this country.
A prophetic top Soviet general stated, more or less, after the end of WW2, the exact words escape me: ‘We saved the West from fascism and they will never forgive us’. Oh how true, how really true. Two horrific destructive civilizational events and now the Germans start jockeying up to a third one. What posseses these people? Any suggestions?
That was Marshal Zhukov, according to the memoirs of Marshal Rokossovsky.
yeah…i had remembered that quote and looked it up.
the story so struck me that its written on the bar, for to generate discourse:
“it was we who chased the beast into its lair, and killed it. They will never forgive us for it.”
Genocide to genocide in three generations.
Fittingly the latest report about poverty rising in Germany by Paritätischer Wohlfahrtsverband, the German charity union, was re-published by the medical association on multiple sclerosis a few days ago:
Poverty Report 2025: Poverty is growing in Germany despite prosperity – risk of poverty continues to rise
https://www.dmsg.de/news/detailansicht/paritaetischer-armutsbericht-2025-armut-waechst-in-deutschland-trotz-wohlstand-armutsrisiko-steigt-weiter-an
“(…)
Expensive everyday life, declining purchasing power: How inflation exacerbates poverty.
After experiencing a slight decline between 2020 and 2023, the poverty rate has now risen again for the first time during the observation period. The 2024 Poverty Report of the Paritätischer Gesamtverband reveals the alarming state of poverty in Germany. According to the latest data from the MZ-SILC microcensus subsample, the poverty rate rose by 1.1 percentage points from 2023 to 2024, meaning that 15.5 percent of the German population is now affected by poverty. This figure corresponds to approximately 13 million people living below the poverty line, which is far too high for a rich country like Germany.
(…)
One reason for this is the strong inflation of recent years, which was primarily triggered by the consequences of the coronavirus pandemic and the war in Ukraine. Although the poverty threshold in Germany rose from €1,300 in 2020 to €1,381 in 2024, the reality for people affected by poverty has worsened. Actual income is well below this threshold: just €1,099 on average. If you also look at how much people could actually afford with this income, the situation is even worse: In 2020, goods and services worth €981 were still available. By 2023, this figure had fallen to just €883 – around 10 percent less. Only in 2024 did this figure rise slightly again, to €921. Nevertheless, poor people can afford noticeably less today than they could just a few years ago.
(…)
in 2024, households affected by poverty spent an average of 43.8 percent of their income on rent.
(…)”
Germany is almost top if it comes to rent vs. income ratio. Only Denmark and some other place I believe more expensive.
So the Americans are preparing to confront the Russians via Germany and Europe? Hmm.
Looking at how the age of barbarity has been brought forth by the Israel/US combined with tacit support from UK/EU, I can say we have crossed a treshold. Kind of like the Kosovo precedent created by US/EU when dismantling Serbia, which Russia has put to good practical and legal use in south-eastern Ukraine.
Sooner or later, no matter whether the West pumps weapons to Ukraine, Ukraine population will flatline, irrespective of how many sociopatic youngsters from Europe will volunteer to become drone operators in Ukraine.
As such, European troops will end up beeing needed in Ukraine. At which point the Russians will escalate with hypersonics and maybe even with tactical nukes. There will be no repeat of a WWII attack and distruction of Russia by Europeans. And Lvov for instance could be the test site. And overall will be less destruction than what Israelis have inflicted on Gaza so far.
What will Germany do then with all its conventional weapons? What will the population think with Berliners still passing buildings, bridges, etc that bear the mark of the Soviet retaliatory conquest and occupation?
The final paragraph I think contains the raw truth. While too lazy and too dependent on non-parliamentary actors and corrupted by them Berlin government will never ever implement ideas such as Weber has put them out there.
Btw Weber being one of the very few authors I believe who actually published in FA AND JACOBIN.
So Helmer´s analysis rings true as far as PR and a certain official de facto military committment go:
Putting troops here and there, investing money in some joint ventures, patching up a few bridges and so on. But nothing of that will eventually lead to real war or create a viable military force.
It´s the scheme to push for a diversionary scenario to keep the rabble from looking not fearfully to the East but march with serious demands and threats of opposition against Berlin.
In order to administer the downfall of Europe for the coming decades in a way that the ruling elites and their sponsors can exploit it undisturbed all you need is a facade. RU is this facade. But facades are theatre.
WWIII would destroy that facade. May be “Russia” is our war against terror. After all that too was fought 10.000 miles away and remained a computer game for most people and had zero effect on their lives in a way a real war does. But it achieved the intended economic short-term goals.
In how far Sevim Dagdelen remains correct that it is about China in the real American world we will see.
While they openly talk about RU in public, “China” is the real overarching narrative that is supposed to unite US domestic forces. I assume she still sticks to that analysis. Which is why any Weber-like notion of rapprochement with China, BRICS etc. is absolutely verboten and amounts to treason in Germany. Such deviation would put immense pressure on US elites and crack the West.
Of course there is this issue what will happen if Washington & friends will realized that China is beyond the point of catching up with them and putting them under military threat. Because that´s most likely the way things will go.
Will the US accept that new hierarchy?
In fact the reason that I personally do firmly not believe in a serious intention to go to war by German elites is that only without such a war their robbery of Germany can be pulled off. Did we have war that would upset that plan and cause people ask the right questions. So real war would neuter the scam. It´s totally counter-productive.
IMO the chapter Germany is closed for the coming decades. Without any escape.
Based off my limited engagement with a high-order thinking, Eastern European young woman, who was viscerally opposed to the Russian boogeyman Vladimir Putin, and would fight him tooth and nail, with every last son within her own borders, but especially Ukraine’s… she found my nonpartisan observations on the conflict (the seeming truth, iykyk) highly offensive, which caused a bit of grief – which I recount to mention that Europeans, especially those that benefit from EU access from the East, the nouveau elite, are fanatical about resistance to the Russian invaders. They do not imagine nary a connection between their ongoing socio-political decline and their military alliances, but instead see the conflict, and Russian influence, as an anachronism, to be treated with militant intolerance, and for which sacrifice is to be expected, sons and all. So it figures that the political class in Europe would rather go to war, than suffer the indignities peace would afford them.
If there is to be suffering, let it have purpose.
The daily realities of what you are describing with the young woman are rather unpleasant on a structural level. That is, communication about this either private or even worse in business environment are a mine-field. Survival unlikely. So you choose to stay silent. It is a nightmare frankly. Naturally we get used to everything.
Fuck that.
Now is NOT the time to stay silent.
Now is the time of Mass Persuasion to our cause!
For the People and Glory of the Empire!
If you feel in the position I honestly hope you can do that.
But please consider the powers that be in this war. Leading individuals who have been part of the media and political establishment for decades have come under most severe attack.
Had Sarah Wagenknecht and Alice Schwarzer e.g. not been around for ages on the top of their organisations their careers could have very well ended by now.
Lesser iconic figures like Ulrike Guerot were fired under laughable pretexts. Guerot left the public arena for a year to contend with the fallout of the legal and PR war that had been unleashed against her.
Even an entire party like BSW with a whole set of extremely well connected people and decades of experience in Bundestag as laywers, as diplomats on UN level or members of other international organisations, besides their parliamentary mandates were insulted over and over again. Until they lost 3/4 of their potential popular vote as surveys are concerned.
Almost the entirety of German media clout, all legacy papers, all magazines, and all private media TV companies and above all German state radio and TV which receive over $10B a year are guards of this narrative.
Last line of defence: Law enforcement. If you defend Russia´s war in Ukraine publicly you can be sued in court and possibly end up in jail. Legally.
Those are the stakes for speaking truth to power in the FRG in 2025.
You can observe how activists´ lives are systematically destroyed or threatened in the Gaza case.
There you even have international law on your side, all principles in the history of humanism and what not are with the protesters. And still they are treated like criminals, like thieves, like scum.
Look into what is happening on German TV on day to day basis. Look at what senior editors are churning out in the big papers. Look at how academics slur at others in public. Ask around in private circles how they see matters. How many are willing to contradict? How many of those who could have the means to partake in protest see the necessity and above all the moral urgency?
Nicolai Petro on the issue of Ukraine said a year ago, when he suggested that one should seek conversations with those who have other views, that naturally there is a limit to this. Empathy takes you only so far. The case with the Ukrainian lady above strikes me as one of those countless cases of the majority where any understanding is beyond reach.
If I were 20 years old again I guess I would follow my conscience as I did back then. But there is a price to this. Question remains is one willing to pay it.
And yet despite everything you described, the AFD party continues to grow (who oppose the Ukraine war) and a few weeks ago there were protests in close to 100 German cities against the Ukraine war, in addition to the protests against Israeli genocide. I was shocked that the BSW party didn’t quite get the 5 % vote percentage needed for representation in the Bundestag and how the anemic party Die Linke surged somehow to almost 10 % from about 5 %, with no economic solutions for the average German and changing their position to support the Ukraine war.???
Not an adequate answer but since I just saw it:
German synopsis of the movie “The Master and Margarita”. So this is something completely unimportant and unrelated to high stakes politics, right? But entertainment being part and parcel of imperial PR:
“In his highly topical adaptation of Mikhail Bulgakov’s “The Master and Margarita,” American-Russian director Michael Lockshin tells of oppression, censorship, and state terror. In Putin’s Russia, this mix of love story, political thriller, and fantasy was a box office hit.” – In Putin’s Russia. Any kindergarten child will transfer the terms “oppression and state terror” into the present.
It is in these banal occasions where the depth of madness is revealed.
p.s. As to AfD, to at least address it: My issue, traditionally in the FRG opposition was always articulately left-wing never conservative. Always.
What changed in comparison to the preceding 80 years then?
This is the first time since 1945 that in a major conflict over peace and war the media, academia, the labour unions and the church support imperial suppression.
So if old resistance warriors from the 1980s today are so shocked about the lack of public response (compare today´s peace protests with the 500k against the Iraq War) I wonder why they are so surprised – after all resistance/protest today for the first time in German-post-war history is not rooted in institutions. Yet, there is never viable resistance if the institutions are opposed to it.
And this is the most alarming thing of all. And almost nobody talks about this. Or seems to understand the structural significance of it.
Especially considering that never have formerly leftwing people wielded so much influence over this country´s power. It’s not unlike what happened with US agencies. There must be several among the 3-letter agencies’ staff who have leftwing knowledge and at least familial tradition as of anti-Vietnam and Civil Rights Movement. And still we see what happened in both countries. That´s what depresses me very very much.
AfD is a brainchild of CDU. If they did turn honest and popular they would have long been abolished. The best organized parts are establishment. And above all where is AfD different where it matters?
The difference is that the AfD is the only party, other than Sarah Wagenknecht and the BSW, that opposes the Ukraine war and also has offered policy proposals that address problems working class Germans are currently experiencing. I neither like nor trust the AfD, but when there is no significant opposition from any organization on the actual ( REAL ) Left, then a political vacuum is created, that is exploited by right-wing elements. Lets see what happens if Merz and the elites attempt to begin a military draft and indicate that they want German soldiers to fight Russians in Ukraine. WE will see what happens in terms of hundreds of thousands of people taking to the streets in protest and resistance.
On the issue of media lies an interview with the very good German reporter Renate Dillmann on Neutrality Studies Channel.
English dubbed!
I have not yet been able to listen (it’s from yesterday) but Dillmann’s texts are usually worth especially in comparison to insane views in Germany outside blogosphere.
Research Reveals INSANE Level Of Media Lies in Germany | Dr. Renate Dillmann
50 min.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xM9spnNT0Lc
site info:
“Ignorance is bliss. And mainstream media creates ignorance. That might explain why a good portion of the European population still feels blissfully cared for and protected by their states—rather than attacked and deceived. Today, we want to talk about how the propaganda machine operates in the German-speaking parts of Europe. To do that, I’m speaking with Dr. Renate Dillmann, a German political scientist, media researcher, and journalist who has been studying the power of the media for many years.”
I watched this a few days ago. Good interview.