Bulletins and News Discussion from February 24th to March 2nd, 2025 - Fascists? In Germany?! - COTW: Germany

Image is a map of the German election results made by Andolu Agency.

The results are in from the German elections, and the outcome is pretty unsurprising for those who have been paying attention to the German socioeconomic situation, and prove our predictions from years ago correct. The conservatives (CDU/CSU) won the plurality of votes (28%), representing a slight gain from 2021. Meanwhile, Scholz's party, the SPD, collapsed from first place in 2021 to third place this year, almost halving their number of seats; the Greens had a less dramatic collapse but still lost many votes. The coalition of CDU/CSU + SPD seems like the most likely end result of this election; something something nothing ever happens but everything keeps getting worse.

Outside the main coalition, there's three important takeaways IMO.

First is that AfD - the far-right Euroskeptic party - has skyrocketed into second place, achieving a full 20% of the vote. This is definitely very concerning and does not exactly bode well for the future, but it isn't necessarily immediately disastrous, because the CDU/CSU (as well as the SDP and Greens) has vowed that they will not form a coalition with the AfD.

Second is that Die Linke - the pro-NATO, pro-Israel socdem party - has mostly reversed its awful performance in 2021, increasing its vote share from 4.9% to 8.8%. What this suggests is that while Germans are fleeing from the center, a very significant minority are going leftwards (though still aren't particularly anti-imperialist).

Third is that the BSW under Wagenknect, who split off from the Die Linke (absolute classic), appears to have barely fallen short of the 5% vote share needed to get seats in the Bundestag. The BSW has some good foreign policies (peace with Russia, for instance) but pretty awful domestic policies; quite patsoccy.

Last week's thread is here.
The Imperialism Reading Group is here.

Please check out the HexAtlas!

The bulletins site is here. Currently not used.
The RSS feed is here. Also currently not used.

You're viewing a single thread.

1.3K comments

I can't tell you how I know this but there are currently British troops on the ground in Ukraine in civilian gear on a secret "we're not supposed to be there" one month mission.
I know this for a fact from my own sources. Not second hand. Not rumour. 100% true.
- British troops have been on the ground in Ukraine doing the Quality Control (QC) for the loading of Storm Shadow/SCALP-EG air launched cruise missiles since they were delivered to Ukraine. We know this because of the leaked German Taurus missile phone call.
  When it comes to mission planning [for Storm Shadow missions], for example, I know how the British do it, they do it completely in reachback [not in Ukraine]. They also have a few people on the ground [in Ukraine], they do that, the French don't. So, they also QC the Ukrainians when loading the SCALP, because Storm Shadow and SCALPS are relatively similar from a purely technical point of view. They've already told me that, yes, for God's sake, they would also look over the shoulders of the Ukrainians when loading the Taurus. But the question is, how do we solve that? Do we let them do the mission planning and give them MBDA [private defence contractor that manufactures missiles] as a reachback and then put one of our people in MBDA?″
  Ingo Gerhartz, German Air Force head commander.
  With regards to MBDA, the plan was to transport the data file with the flight path and targeting information by car from the German divisions headquarters, to Poland, and then into Ukraine, where it would be uploaded to the missile. Yes that was the actual plan with regards to Taurus missiles for Ukraine.
  Also, the Russians do target these troops with Iskander ballistic missile strikes. Multiple hotels have been hit in recent months that were rumoured to house foreign troops.
  
  I don't think this mission is Stormshadow related. The secret mission they've sent these troops on are not Engineers or Technical Specialists.
  I have to be real vague about this but these troops sent would know nothing about using these missiles. It can't be that.
  
  My comment was more on the fact that British troops have been doing missions in Ukraine for years now, not on the specifics of any future missions.
  
  Yeah i'm not fighting with you or anything. It's just an interesting situation for me to be in to know this. We will find out publicly eventually I think. Something is happening and wheels are turning because of the peace negotiations. Factions that don't want it to end or are concerned about civil war kicking off are up to something.
  
  Yeah maybe they're trying up some loose ends? Boris Johnson also made it to Kiev and in a public interview essentially told Ukraine to hurry up and sign the minerals deal today, after waffling about misinformation on the start of the war of course.
  
  These dudes aren't special forces so I don't know. I really thought that would've been left to SAS or the Royal Marines or something. These are standard army. Maybe it's escort operations or something? Might be some UK VIPs sent over there and they're doing protection detail? Some of these people usually work protecting the royal family.
  
  They're going to lead Boris and the UK embassy staff all the way to Moscow so he can tell Putin to go home! Russia defeated!
  Honestly I have no idea. Probably protection of UK embassy staff and government officials for the next month in case things start spiralling out of control with the negotiations, given that you say these people usually protect the Royals.
  
  Perhaps. Very weird that this kind of thing isn't special forces given they're doing it out of uniform. Maybe special forces are all occupied? Would suggest to me that the UK is over committed between the various things it's dipped into.
  I don't even think the UK has much to gain as a whole. Blair has some projects in Ukraine and Israel that he's been working on for decades but it's not obvious who gains what out of them. I mention Blair because I think his influence and contacts heavily affected his acquisition of party leadership, and Starmer probably sees him as a reason he's in power. That and the Labour Friends of Israel group would explain Starmer's commitment to these if he sees pleasing those groups as integral to his remaining in power. I can't for the life of me see what the UK is getting out of it so these decisions seem more personally influenced.
- Simultaneously surprising and 100% unsurprising.
- I guess what remains to be seen is if both NATO and Russia are content with denying and ignoring (respectively) this fact in order to avoid going to all-out world war. Trump's moves actually give me a little bit of hope that that situation will hold. But the world is fucking chaos at the moment, so....
- rip z man

1299 comments