armies "all countries, unite!"

Germany and the Netherlands are creating a common army and want to make it the strongest and most equipped in the European Union.

The two states are preparing a merger of armies – a complete unification of their ground forces. This was told by Major Mark van de Beek, spokesman for the Royal Netherlands Army. How writes Bloomberg, quoting him, the country’s ground forces have three combat brigades, already two of them have been integrated into the German armed forces. As expected, the unification with the third, whose number is 3,000 soldiers, “may happen as early as April.” However, the integration will not affect the Korps Commandotroepen, an elite unit of the Dutch army. In total, the joint group will have 50,000 soldiers, 8,000 of them from the Netherlands. Then the plans of the two countries include the unification of military regulations and joint purchases of weapons.

The idea is not new, the integration of the armed forces of these countries began after the end of the Cold War, when they started cutting defense spending. In 1993, the first German-Dutch Corps was created on the basis of the 1st Corps of the Bundeswehr, and its headquarters is located in German Munster. Now he is part of the NATO Rapid Response Force. Then, in 2014 and 2015, two more Dutch brigades were integrated into the German armed forces.

The countries conducting the merger of the armies actually use the same equipment: the German Leopard 2 is the main battle tank of both states, and the main armored personnel carrier of the Netherlands is the Boxer vehicle, jointly developed by the German Krauss-Maffei Wegmann, Rheinmetall AG and the Dutch Stork.

As it became known the other day, Germany plans to allocate 17 billion euros to strengthen missile defense: to create a multi-stage shield from various local, American and Israeli air defense systems (IRIS-T, Arrow 3 and Patriot). This will make it possible to protect not only Germany, but also the territories of neighboring countries.

Boris Pistorius, the new German defense minister, said earlier that his goal is to create the strongest and most equipped army in the European Union.

Source link