Posted on 03/06/2005 11:34:34 AM PST by Grzegorz 246
Russia Looks to Germany for Military Ties
Russia and Germany are building up close military cooperation. Last week, Russia’s Defense Minister Sergey Ivanov and his German counterpart Peter Struck have agreed on combined maneuvers, railway transit to Afghanistan and canvassed plans to launch German military satellites by Russian rockets, RBC news agency says.
In the course of negotiations, the parties have agreed to hold combined maneuvers both in German and Russian territories. Germany got the go-ahead to widen its military transit. Russia had already sanctioned free transit of German planes delivering military cargo and manpower to Afghanistan. Now, the railway transit is also possible. Thus, the Germans may materially beef up their presence in Afghanistan in case of need.
Moreover, defense ministers went through the future cooperation in the rocket-and-space field, in particular, Ivanov and Struck considered the plans for launching German military satellites by using Russian missiles. Development of the European Anti-Ballistic Missile System was also in the limelight. To this effect, Russia intends to use already existing and well thought of technologies, “including antiaircraft missile system S-300 in different modification, besides, it will soon apply the S-400 Triumph. At the same time, this system is to be built up based on several components, and not only the Russia’s ones. It is important to tie all of them to the already available efficient technologies,” said Ivanov, adding regular Russia-NATO maneuvers on establishing the anti-ballistic missile system are slated for June of 2005.
The experts root such military closing-in movement of the two countries to the breach occurred between the United States and Germany in the course of the European tour of the U.S. President George W. Bush. Germany is evidently displeased with its failure to become a dominant force in the EU, despite its obvious leadership in economy. To achieve this purpose, the Germans need to boost their military potential. The analysts see obvious analogy with the 20s-30s years of the past century, when the Soviet Union had been providing raw and training personnel for Germany, humiliated by the Versailles Treaty. Then, Moscow had been counting on reinforced Berlin to balance London, as well as today Russia is looking to Germany to oppose the United States.
Besides, Russia and Germany may again start chumming up against Poland, which eyes not only the orange Ukraine and Moldova, but also Belarus. Such friendship may lead to the split-off of revived Rech Pospolitaya between Moscow and Berlin, the analysts say. “The situation is very much alike. We must remember that geopolitical games will end once. Then, they ended on June 22, 1941,” RBC quoted Dmitry Evstafiev, an expert at PIR-Center, as saying.
yeah but that wont happen again, at least under that name, just because of the word Holy :)
Thanks for the post, Grzegorz.
longjack
Germany and Russia have had military ties since Katherine the Great. Where do you think Russian soldiers learned to goose step?
Didn't they do this in the late '30s?
Not surprising. Hitler and Stalin were allies before June of 1941. Soviet forces even participated in the invasion of Poland in 1939.
Don't worry, UFOs are on our side.
http://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1310867/posts
Such comments are typical rather for internet forums and not for newspapers.
You could have promoted yourself to "major."
"You could have promoted yourself to "major."
I prefer the tactical level
Germany will not be a major power again; agreed. At least not in the near future. And they won't rattle any sabers; the Russians aren't worried about that because the German saber-ratting gene was purged from the German gene pool on the road from Stalingrad to Berlin.
This is just a case of the Russkies wanting some western technology, just like the EU is selling to China. I'd rather think that Russia is keeping an eye over it's shoulder to the east rather than looking west.
Actually not true, the one thing that can be said for Stalin is he cut the German training program in 1933 when Hitler came to power. Of course, by then it was to late.
Eastern Europe has always been stuck between Empires: Russian, Swedish, Prussian, Austro-Hungarian, Turkish. At one point (1100-1600s) it was dominated by the Polish and then Polish-Lithuanian empire.
They were allies but out of necessity. In 1937 Stalin went to Britian and France to form a new alliance to curtail Germany. When he was rebuffed by Chamberline and his ilk, he went to Germany to buy himself time to build up and attack them. Not excusing Stalin for his crimes and those are legion, but a lot of WW2 could have been avoided if France and England had had a spine.
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