Given that for today's election here in Germany actual problems barely played a role. Not just that, over the last two decades very little was done. For example, we have skyrocketing rents due to a general lack of housing, which leads to all kinds of problems apart from affordability. For example worker mobility. Who dares to move to another job and city when it's so hard to find a flat?
That's par for the course for almost all big problems.
I think the probability is high that the new German government is going to try to sit this one out. After all, they survived Trump the last time, and it's only four years, right? Worse, they would have to do many things that will be very unpopular with one or the other interest group.
Unless somebody puts a gun to the heads of all those in government they will procrastinate rather than make any big changes.
I see little chance that they will cancel the order for US military hardware. They might actually buy a lot more, to appease Trump. After all, not getting the F-35 would have repercussions for the nuclear sharing agreement with the US. They need the F-35 to have a certified platform for nuclear bombs they are supposed to get from the US, stored in Germany for that purpose.
That would mean they would need a European approach to nuclear weapon sharing and weapons. The German government regularly has trouble even just to work together with only France, due to wildly different philosophies and interests.
Europe is far too divided, and the German government sees its role in doing as little as possible when it comes to radical change.
I think part of it is that the leadership of all our big parties mostly consists of politicians whose whole life is just that. They don't have anything else. Even if they get a job at a company it's for their political connections. They won't risk this, and they barely have any strong opinions! They look at polls and change what they stand for accordingly and easily. I'm not saying this to sound mean, I think that this is a mostly accurate description.
Opposing the US would take spine! It's a lot of trouble and uncertainty. They will try to avoid that if at all possible.
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By the way, it's not just F-35. Germany also ordered the Israeli-American Arrow 3 long-range missile defense system, sixty CH-47 Chinook, and 380 other contracts worth 23 billion just from the "Sondervermögen" (special fund) of 100 billion. Surely that will just become more, given that Germany continues to need to purchase things like Patriot missiles.
The strategy was - to the chagrin of the French if I understood the news articles written at the time right - to rather buy something proven and quickly available from the Americans rather than start a lengthy inter-European development process.
Given that for today's election here in Germany actual problems barely played a role. Not just that, over the last two decades very little was done. For example, we have skyrocketing rents due to a general lack of housing, which leads to all kinds of problems apart from affordability. For example worker mobility. Who dares to move to another job and city when it's so hard to find a flat?
That's par for the course for almost all big problems.
I think the probability is high that the new German government is going to try to sit this one out. After all, they survived Trump the last time, and it's only four years, right? Worse, they would have to do many things that will be very unpopular with one or the other interest group.
Unless somebody puts a gun to the heads of all those in government they will procrastinate rather than make any big changes.
I see little chance that they will cancel the order for US military hardware. They might actually buy a lot more, to appease Trump. After all, not getting the F-35 would have repercussions for the nuclear sharing agreement with the US. They need the F-35 to have a certified platform for nuclear bombs they are supposed to get from the US, stored in Germany for that purpose.
That would mean they would need a European approach to nuclear weapon sharing and weapons. The German government regularly has trouble even just to work together with only France, due to wildly different philosophies and interests.
Europe is far too divided, and the German government sees its role in doing as little as possible when it comes to radical change.
I think part of it is that the leadership of all our big parties mostly consists of politicians whose whole life is just that. They don't have anything else. Even if they get a job at a company it's for their political connections. They won't risk this, and they barely have any strong opinions! They look at polls and change what they stand for accordingly and easily. I'm not saying this to sound mean, I think that this is a mostly accurate description.
Opposing the US would take spine! It's a lot of trouble and uncertainty. They will try to avoid that if at all possible.
----------
By the way, it's not just F-35. Germany also ordered the Israeli-American Arrow 3 long-range missile defense system, sixty CH-47 Chinook, and 380 other contracts worth 23 billion just from the "Sondervermögen" (special fund) of 100 billion. Surely that will just become more, given that Germany continues to need to purchase things like Patriot missiles.
The strategy was - to the chagrin of the French if I understood the news articles written at the time right - to rather buy something proven and quickly available from the Americans rather than start a lengthy inter-European development process.