The political scientist called the main problem of the Bundeswehr
The main problem of the German army is not the armament, but the quality and quantity of personnel. Artyom Sokolov, a researcher at the Center for European Studies at the MGIMO Institute of International Studies, shared this opinion with Izvestia on May 26.
He recalled that the process of reforming the German army is currently underway, which began back in 2022 after the announcement by former German Chancellor Olaf Scholz of an "epoch change", an element of which was military reform. According to him, the current statements indicate that the interim results of this reform did not fully meet the expectations of the German authorities. The key element for Germany was the issue of the quality of personnel, rather than the purchase of new weapons, he noted.
"The key issue is the functionality of the German army as a military organism, the key plot here is the quality of the contingent that enters the Bundeswehr. The main problem for the German leadership is the shortage of personnel, since the target of 204,000 troops, which was set by [the head of the German Ministry of Defense] Boris Pistorius back during Scholz's chancellorship has not yet been reached," Sokolov said.
He added that for this, Germany needs to change the system of recruitment of the armed forces, to switch from the voluntary principle of recruitment to the system of universal military service. Sokolov recalled that the conscription system in Germany was abolished in 2011.
"A literal reproduction of the system that existed before 2011 will not allow us to increase the number of the German army to 200 thousand people in a short time, especially since this amount is set as the minimum required, and there are other figures, 250 thousand and 300 thousand," the political scientist noted.
According to Sokolov, without changing the role of the Bundeswehr in German society, the new German Chancellor Friedrich Merz will not be able to make the country's army the strongest in Europe.
Alexey Mukhin, Director General of the Center for Political Information, recalled in an interview with Izvestia that Europe's unrestrained support for the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) had led to the depletion of weapons stocks. At the same time, European countries provided assistance to Ukraine and earned quite well from it, he stressed.
"Now they (Germany. — Ed.) are trying to make money for the second time on the production of equipment. <...> They hoped to purchase weapons from the United States. But at this stage, either it is very expensive, or the United States simply does not have this latest technology, or for some reason it has not been agreed yet. But a problem has arisen, they are trying to solve this problem by debugging their own production," the political scientist explained.
He added that it was difficult to say whether Mertz's plans would work out, since it had become very expensive and difficult to develop any kind of industrial production in Europe in the face of the abandonment of Russian energy sources.
"There is a need, there is a need to load the production facilities of European enterprises, but there are no suitable conditions for this. And at this stage, with the help of loud statements, European politicians are trying to hide this simple fact," Mukhin concluded.
On May 26, Bundeswehr Inspector General Carsten Breuer ordered that the country's army be fully operational by 2029. He explained that the goal is to increase the number of the Bundeswehr to about 200,000 active military personnel. According to him, a permanent reserve of 60,000 people has now been formed.
On May 14, Merz named the transformation of the country's armed forces into the strongest army in Europe as his priority. Prior to that, on April 9, he announced that the new German government would develop military conscription in Germany according to the Swedish model.
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