I'm surprised this news is stalling at 24 points. Everybody has to understand that even if this law isn't impacting you; this is a signal in the noise. Germany is a major part of the industrial military complex together with the US and still the 3rd largest economy in the world after US and China. This is meaningful as it sets course for war in Europe. And for Germans it means soon to be enforced limitations of civil…
The law was the status quo from the 1950s up to 2011. This is reverting to that era, for good reasons, given the state of the world.
German men 18-45 need military permit for extended stays abroad
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Re: German men 18-45 need military permit for extended stays abroad
#712Are homo sapiens the only species that organizes themselves into tribes and work towards the destruction of other tribes of same species?
Not even close. Territorial disputes are incredibly common in nature. Humans are relatively rare in that we're capable of understanding that depriving competitors of resources will eventually lead to their deaths, but that is the ultimate result of winning a territory dispute in nature too.
While instinctive behaviour can be observed in humans too - like the urge to protect small children and cute animals from harm - all of us grow into a culture with its own constructed logic (and paradoxes).
To return to the topic of the article: If drafting is a thing or not is a question of the culture you are living in. As long as a society is administering itself by voting for those who decide about the set of rules (laws) for everyone, it is the responsibility of everyone to discuss the rules, ask for adjustments and vote accordingly.
As I am a late child my parents were both born in NAZI-Germany. My mum in Düsseldorf (Germany) and my father in Innsbruck (Austria). Their fathers and brothers were drafted to fight the Allies. No matter what their actual believes were. My grandfather was the only child of many to survive the first world war. He was orphined as a toddler.
You can imagine that "calling to arms" has no positive reputation in my family. And still I see a point in drafting, if it is about defence. But (and that is a huge BUT): Going to war means to violate existing international laws (remember: human made). Therefore it can't be won (it is not a game, there is no judge or score that defines the rules for winning and loosing). It can only be ended by decision! That's why it is called peace treaty and not win-certificate.
As both - peace and war - are not natural laws but human constructs, it is the responsibility of those who (co)decide about the culture they are living in.
Most people on earth will agree that breaking peace is a bad thing and the ability to keep peace is a sign of strength. To change the mood of a population to pro-war a lot of time and money has to be invested in lies and propaganda.
If our government is weak and struggles to keep peace we can vote for a better one. If your society doesn't allow votes, there is the right to revolt to (re)establish a government that serves everyone (not rules everyone). (It's not a human right per se, but e.g. Germany has the right to revolt in its Grundgesetz/constitution due to what its people learned from the past).
As the executive power (police) needs to be counterbalanced, I am strongly pro professional armies and vice versa. Police must be strong enough to protect the government from the army, just in case of an attempt to establish a dictatorship via armed forces. (Power makes corrupt, societies have to be resilient against corruption).
But what I find lacking in all those discussions about drafting, (re)arming and warfare, is an honest discussion about peace keeping.
Peace keeping needs all of us. It is the true sign of a powerful society. It needs the ability to listen to everyone, no matter how far left or right, to identify the actual needs and find solutions that don't involve the abuse of power. It is easier as it sounds. Most societies are (still) peaceful even when facing many (resource based) challenges.
Humans don't like to kill other humans, if they know them. If our societies would agree to include spending for peace keeping into the budget for wars (let's say half of it), I am sure (opinion!) most conflicts wouldn't result in open war.
Just imagine what would happen, if the EU would invite the whole russian youth for a summer holiday at host families within all EU countries? Would they return and confirm that "we" are all evil fascists" as the propaganda states? I doupt it. Naive, you say? Take an example from history: After WWII the French and the German decided to end the centuries long Erbfeindschaft (inheritance of being enemies). One of their measures was to establish pupil and student exchange programs. Also cultural "clubs" like brass music groups established exchange programs. It didn't matter that they were not able to speak each others language. Food, drink, music, socialising, playing games and sports together - there are many ways to interact even without a common spoken language. With todays technology even (simple) conversations are possible between "strangers" (or "aliens" as the current wording tends to frame it).
Just look at this platform: many people from many countries interact respectfully. Why? Because it is each persons decision to keep peace.
So much from me. Sorry if my contribution happend to be a bit long. May peace be with you.
Re: German men 18-45 need military permit for extended stays abroad
#713Earlier quoted context omitted.
Germany participated in the NATO military campaign/occupation of Afghanistan, including ground forces, naval activities and special operations units. Its seems a total of 150,000 German soldiers (and police officers?) were deployed overall (not at the same time of course); of them, 62 were killed and 249 wounded: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Armed_Forces_casualties... Germany was also directly involved in the…
To put the number of 150000 total deployes soldiers into perspective, the Bundeswehr contingent in the end had a ceiling of 5350 troops.
Re: German men 18-45 need military permit for extended stays abroad
#714Note that this law still exists because it requires a constitutional change to include women (well, or to be abandoned). A constitutional change of the Grundgesetzbuch requires a 2/3rd majority in the parliament. That almost never happens these days, especially with green/left/social party being not really united anymore in their votes and the conservatives allying themselves with the far right. The last time Germany…
> The last time Germany had that much of a majority, it was under Bundeskanzler Kohl and Schroeder if I remember correctly. So like ~25 years ago. This is not true. After the last election the old parliament made a deal to change the grundgesetz with 2/3rd majority to allow the new parliament to take more debt.
Re: German men 18-45 need military permit for extended stays abroad
#715Earlier quoted context omitted.
They have a job and they are paid for it. They also do have pensions and social security benefits: through their husbands. If the husband remains alive, they continue to be paid as they were before retirement. If he dies, they often inherent his pension and assets. It's a terrible system and we need to modernize it but you're still wrong on all of your points.
No, they are not paid. Their husbands get paid, they have all the pensions and social security benefits, not them. Means total dependence on their husbands. If they get a divorce they have nothing.
In a divorce, they typically get half of all assets, child support and alimony. Like I said, it's a terrible system, but you're also terribly misinformed.
Re: German men 18-45 need military permit for extended stays abroad
#716Earlier quoted context omitted.
It’s also discriminatory on the basis of the gender, “weird” that nobody’s complaining about that.
Men are biologically disposable. If a nation lost 90% or better of its adult male population, it could still bounce back within a generation or two. Women have no incentive to change that, and the small fraction of men powerful enough to change it can already exempt themselves from the meat grinder. The remaining men's opinions don't matter.
A nation wouldn't lose anything for not having personal to do all those comfy PR, HR, "therapist", etc, etc, jobs created for modern "progressive" societies to pretend women are just as indispensable in the work place as men.
But it would be completely wrecked if there weren't enough men to build and maintain houses, habitation, do the all the heavy jobs, take care of waste, infrastructure maintenance, work on the energy industries, etc, etc, etc.
Re: German men 18-45 need military permit for extended stays abroad
#717Earlier quoted context omitted.
NATO has days/weeks of ammunition, so it's woefully under-resourced. NATO doctrine is basically air superiority against any invading force, with the ability to wreak destruction far behind the front lines. Conveniently the Iran war has depleted stockpiles of almost everything. The reality is NATO is vulnerable on two fronts. The first is that NATO has no defences against the kind of drone and missile waves Russia has…
> If France stops being a deterrent Russia would be able to nuke Brussels - and perhaps a few other capitals to make the point - and likely force immediate surrender. Ukraine isn’t under anyone’s nuclear umbrella, but Russia hasn’t done more than threaten to use nuclear weapons in that war. Probably because it’s not at all clear that it would actually force a surrender.
Re: German men 18-45 need military permit for extended stays abroad
#718Earlier quoted context omitted.
Some countries in the EU, like mine, have funny discrimination laws that say a positive discrimination is not considered a discrimination under the law, so it cannot be challenged. It is used as the basis for all women-favoring regulations.
Such laws are unconstitutional in Germany. I'd be interested in which country you live in and an example of such a law.
Re: German men 18-45 need military permit for extended stays abroad
#719Nobody's going to bring up the sexism? I thought feminism was for equality. Why then no complains of not having equal responsibility here? Just like when Ukraine did this, nobody cared. No complaints in the media at all. They always want more women in the offices too, never in the coal mines.