German troops to get US attack helicopters...
......I found this interesting given the Tigre/Tiger attack helicopter programme looked pretty solid a fews ago (i.e., before the recession). IMO it's a pretty capable platform. Back when the UK needed an Attack helo Euromil offered Britain 90 odd Tigers for the price of the 67 AH-64D's we eventually got (I remember arguing for the Tiger at the time at Uni!). Anyway, according to the English language German newspaper The Local German troops to recieve US "combat" helicopters. The article provides no indication of which helicopters Germany is aquiring/borrowing; "combat" helicopters doesn't necessarily mean "Attack" (although it is implied in the headline) and could also mean "assault" (i.e., UH-60), "medium transport" (i.e., Ch-47). I know the French and German governments are looking to/or are already co-operating with Russia on the Mi-38 programme (as part of the Euromil consortium) for a medium assault transport/lift helo (IMO much more cost effective than Britain's EH-101 for a similar capability). Defence Minister Guttenberg also ...
Quote:
...promised to provide soldiers with
two new
PzH 2000 armed [sic]vehicles "as soon as possible" during a surprise visit with troops stationed at headquarters in Northern Afghanistan
Politics, Economics, and Security...
Firn, Igel, Fuchs, and Mike,
Many projects have at least three parts, a political part, a economic part, and a technical one (security in this case). In theory at least, all portions of a project need to be at least somewhat synchronized or harmonized in order to achieve success (defining success, however, can be tough)...
Recent German elections in the Land (or State) of North Rhine Westphalia, the most populous state with ~ 18 million out of ~82 million people, point towards a democratic dissatisfaction with the direction of Germany's course under the current political coalition. Does this particular Land represent the national consensus across all 16 of Germany's Lander?
The majority of the reporting seems to focus upon economic (Euro) issues at this point, but as we have discussed previously over 60% of German voters seem to be against the Afghanistan expedition.
From the May 13th edition of the Economist, Now what?
Quote:
MAY 9th is not a day Angela Merkel will soon forget. First voters in North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW), Germany’s most populous state, booted the chancellor’s allies out of office, meting out her worst political drubbing in more than five years in office. That evening European finance ministers meeting in Brussels armed a financial bomb to deter speculators threatening the stability of the euro (see article). It seemed to work, but may also demolish Germans’ long-term trust in the single currency. Both events will transform Mrs Merkel’s chancellorship.
The setbacks are at least partly of her own making. In NRW voters unseated a coalition between her Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and the liberal Free Democratic Party (FDP) akin to the one she leads nationally. That was in part a slap at Mrs Merkel’s seven-month-old government. Jürgen Rüttgers, the defeated CDU premier, had struggled against a “headwind” from Berlin, she acknowledged.
From the 9 May edition of the German Newspaper/Magazine Stern, Warum NRW Berlin erzittern lässt
Quote:
Dort leben knapp 18 Millionen Menschen, deutlich mehr als in den Niederlanden, Belgien oder der Schweiz, von Dänemark ganz zu schweigen. Von diesen 18 Millionen Menschen sind 13,5 Millionen wahlberechtigt. Allein deswegen werden die Landtagswahlen in NRW völlig zu Recht als "kleine Bundestagswahl" bezeichnet. Darüber hinaus ist NRW eine Art politischer Seismograph: Die Ergebnisse spiegeln auch die (Un-)Zufriedenheit mit der Bundesregierung.
Slight change of plan in Kunduz
Within this pre-deployment article on a US Army battalion is the news to me that they are being deployed in Kunduz Province, in Northern Afghanistan:
Quote:
...the First Battalion, 87th Infantry of the 10th Mountain Division from Fort Drum, N.Y....Forward Operating Base Kunduz...Just months before, the base, on a plateau overlooking the city, housed fewer than 200 National Guard soldiers......Intelligence officers with the alliance say that five of Kunduz’s seven districts are contested or controlled by the Taliban.
They are mentoring the ANP, note no mention of the ANA and I'd overlooked that the taliban had made inroads in this former Northern Alliance territory and short briefing, with map:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kunduz_Province
Link:http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/27/wo...on.html?ref=us
Response is actually the wrong word: Kunduz NGO attack
Hat tip to Free Range International pointing at this news article on the death of NGO staff in Kunduz recently:http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...Tabs%3Darticle
Quote:
When Taliban militants invaded the towering Kunduz villa of an American development agency in July, employees say they were trapped, besieged and soon were dodging indiscriminate rocket fire from their would-be rescuers—the Afghan army and police.
From FRI a comment:
Quote:
If you are a German citizen you may want to skip this because it is about the response to the Taliban attack on DAI in Kunduz earlier this year by the German military. Response is actually the wrong word, inaction bordering on gross incompetence is a better description of this disgraceful story which should be causing national outrage in Germany. The only bright spot for Germans in this saga was the senior security manager, a German national, who was killed while fighting to protect his clients. I spent hundreds hours of my professional life studying the innovation and professionalism of the German military during the First and Second World Wars. It gives me no pleasure to highlight this story of incompetence and indifference from a military which was once the best the world had ever seen.
This article could fit in other threads, on the Afghan security forces for example and the situation in the north.
The FRI article covers other topics: http://freerangeinternational.com/blog/?p=3656