For decades, Germany has been the target of criticism over its lack of military preparedness, despite its wealth. Now, after much urging by President Trump and the breakout of the war in Ukraine, Germany appears to be moving toward using some of its wealth to build up its military. Lisa Haseldine explains in The Spectator World:

What would happen if Russia was planning an attack on Estonia, Lithuania or Latvia – and the threat was sufficiently great that NATO felt the need to send troops east across Europe to face off against Moscow?

This was the scenario the German Bundeswehr spent several days rehearsing last month, working out how the army would transport its soldiers towards NATO’s eastern flank in the event of conflict in the Baltics. For three days, the port city of Hamburg played host to the exercise Red Storm Bravo: 500 soldiers, along with roughly 300 members of the emergency services and other civilian organizations, took part – the largest military exercise in the city since the end of the Cold War.

In the event of conflict with Russia, Germany would, because of its geographical position, become a “hub” for NATO to coordinate the flow of soldiers and weaponry to the front line in the east. Troops from the US and across western and southern Europe – including Britain – would flow through the country toward Warsaw and on. The purpose would be deterrence in the hope that a show of international force would put Vladimir Putin off an attack that would test NATO’s commitment to Article 5, which considers an attack on one member to be an attack on all.

It would be a huge operation: the Bundeswehr’s Operation Plan Germany, details of which were leaked to the press last year, envisages 800,000 NATO troops and 200,000 vehicles traveling across the country toward the front line. According to one army source, even with Germany’s motorways and ports used to full capacity, this would take close to a week. Red Storm Bravo was a rehearsal of the section of Operation Plan Germany that runs through Hamburg.

The purpose of Red Storm Bravo was as much to familiarize German civilians as the army regarding what to do in the event of a coming war. Only a fraction of the Operation Plan Germany soldiers took part but the scenarios neatly reflected the possible challenges. Soldiers rehearsed setting up and manning checkpoints; the fire service practiced fishing a sinking barge out of Hamburg’s port; and the ambulance service simulated a mass casualty event with multiple victims.

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