Another Kind of Hollow Army

Germany's armed forces were once a major force during the Cold War that would have proviede the main ground force to repel a Soviet invasion in the early weeks of any war. In the two decades since the collapse of the Warsaw Pact and Soviet Union, the German military has become a hollow army filled with civil servants in uniform capable of sending a pitifully small force abroad to occasionally pull triggers in Afghanistan.

Germany aims to change that by ending conscription (those civil servants wearing uniforms) and creating a smaller but more professional force:

Germany is keeping its defense budget stable next year ($41.2 billion, an increase of 1.2 percent, about enough to cover inflation). More than half that goes to pay and benefits, including $300 million in bonuses for troops going overseas. The size of the defense budget may be stable, but the armed forces have been undergoing an expensive reorganization. Germany is in the midst of cutting troop strength by a quarter, to 185,000. The military is being reorganized to better deal with peacekeeping, and less with conventional warfare. More modern equipment is arriving. Currently, about 7,000 German troops are overseas in nine peacekeeping operations.

So, if the German government and public opinion will allow it, Germany will be able to deploy abroad to fight a counter-insurgency or participate in peacekeeping missions.

What is really disturbing is the notion that the German military will be less equipped, organized, and trained for conventional warfare. How much lower can those capabilities go?

Germany will have a hollow army after this is over. Sure, they could deploy far away with troops capable of fighting in a campaign like Afghanistan or Iraq. But in the core of Europe, Germany will have little capacity to send conventional forces east to support new NATO members against a resurgent Russia, should the Russians get all nostalgic about their former territories in eastern Europe. Heck, the Germans would have little capacity to defend their own country if the Russians marched west.

If we want to keep the Russians moving toward the West, we can't leave a security vacuum in eastern Europe that could temp a Russian leader to grab what he can while he can.

I hope the Germans at least put their heavy forces in the reserves so that they have some residual conventional fighting capabilities just in case. Building such a capability from scratch would be too difficult and take too long in a crisis. Otherwise, the Germans are just building a light army they'll probably never use abroad and abandoning a heavy army that they might desperately need some day.