Thank you for this sobering analysis. It's unfair to ask this, I know, but what is the explanation for such societal stupidity? It's easy to critique what went wrong, but how could it go right?
I'm American, but live in Sweden, and similarly, I wondered as soon as I moved here why the Swedes had completely dismantled their military capacity. Wasn't Russia, their historical enemy, right next door? I know that Sweden hadn't fought a war for two centuries, but they certainly *experienced* one during WWII. And they took the Cold War quite seriously, for decades fielding a national draft mobilization, the world's 4th largest air force, and even a clandestine nuclear weapons program (6 months from the bomb!).
And then came the "peace dividend." But there was time to wake up since. At least since Russia invaded and occupied parts of Georgia. At least since the first time Russia invaded and conquered parts of Ukraine in 2014. And there has been a expansion in military spending. There has been speeches and dialogue and a restart of the nation's civilian defense programs, etc. But it's all just been so very deficient? Why?
The Swedish and worldwide media wrote breathless stories about Soviet submarine incursions into Swedish waters. One minor detail, other than Soviet submarine that ran aground in 1981, these were largely NATO submarines:
The first inquiry concluded that it was Soviet submarines. The second concluded that this could not be proven. Then a few years went by and an interview came out with Caspar Weinberger, the US Secretary of Defense, who clearly said that the US was involved in this.
Caspar Weinberger, the US Secretary of Defense: There was no direct insertion or testing of Swedish defense without consultation.
Keith Speed, the British Navy Minister: There were exercise attacks. Could the submarines infiltrate their waters and emerge at the port in Stockholm? Well, that’s not quite the thing, but it was something like that. How far could we go? During my administration, we had Oberon-class and Porpoise-class diesel submarines for that purpose.
Narrator: It’s quite clear that Swedish Naval Forces’ leadership knew NATO’s submarines were in Swedish territorial waters. Why had they kept silent back then? And what part had the Americans and British played?"
Yes I have read there was a Russo-Swedish war over 200 years ago (as you noted), but as a person not from the Baltics or Poland I don't understand how those countries can't move on from the 1940s. How many Balts and Poles were killed by Russians post-Stalin? I know the occupation was bad and they deserved independence, but there sounds like a never-ending cycle of bitterness and self-pity.. As an aside I am American went to Vietnam twice, where we killed 1.5M people, and never sensed any resentment.
Prior to WW2, Poland was run by a small landowning and military oligarchy that kept the vast majority of the population poor and uneducated. The three decades after WW2, under communist rule, provided incredible opportunities for the majority to better their lives. That stagnated from the 1970s onwards, but the majority of Poles were vastly better off under the communists than under the pre-WW2 oligarchy.
That oligarchy came back with the collapse of the Soviet Union, and has worked very hard to poison the population against the Russians. Just as the Ukrainian fascists have done in that country, with much help from the West. Same with the Baltic states. Kaja Kallas' father did very well for himself under communism.
Thanks a lot for this stellar analysis!!! I would like to have this particular Chartbook-newsletter sent out to each and every person in charge of any political decision whatsoever in my incredibly phlegmatic country of origin 👏 Nobody understands this... Let's kick ass, make a plan, reform the idiotic, backward debt brake and solve the problem...
Love the article, but I will say that the chart on inter-country train delays seems to be cherry picking its borders pretty seriously. Nowhere in the list are trains from France or Belgium, and we can be quite assured that those entries are:
* Regularly late
* Messing up all the traffic at least to the left of the Rhine, if not further.
This is not to say that DB hasnʻt degraded in efficiency over the years (I miss my bahnpass even so!); but a cherry picked dataset always undermines my confidence in a cited article.
Thank you, Adam, for presenting all these data on delays - my own experiences tend to confirm these. Before Brexit I also travelled by train in Britain and my experiences were that trains were expensive, the different train companies did not cooperate in any way - thus making it a nightmare to use several on a trip. But maybe things there have changed for the better?
The second part of the article fits very well into all this war mongering that is going on in Germany - but maybe it is a consolation to our neighbors that we Germans are no longer a threat to them?
Yes, I know - we are not supposed to use this dirty word "peace".
It would be interesting to know how the Russian railways compare on all these metrics. Same point (for different reasons) re. Poland. I am beginning to be persuaded that we are worse off vis-a-vis the enemy than were Britain and France in 1938, and maybe that Chamberlain was right to buy time for further rearmament. As Andrew Sullivan says today, Trump is losing no time in building his new alliance with Russia, and less in destroying the old alliance of NATO (the cracks of which are even more apparent than I had thought).
Germany is an ageing society, median age 45 or 46. and it society cannot be "maintained" via immigration like say France, UK, or US who can draw from a pool of graduates from English/French speaking countries. It depends largely on underclass immigration via asylum seekers and family reunion, which is financially quite disadvantageous as we know eg. from Australian government publications regarding immigration outcomes. Therefore eg. Australia and Canada avoid this type of intake. Under the chancellorship of Schroeder ca. 2010 Germany had a programme to attract better skilled immigrants, which failed. Indians rather go to the US or the UK where they speak the language. German is not easy.
What debt and economic growth is concerned: the rules for the US and the rest of the world are somewhat different, as the US has a business model that cannot be easily implemented elsewhere, to put it this way. Apart from this the US model also seems to have arrived at kind of an end point. Let's have a brief look at some state debt to GDP figures:
Greece 158.2%, Italy 136.3%, France 113.8%, Belgium 105.6% and Spain 104.3%, UK 101.15%. Canada 107%, USA 120%. Germany 64%.
What these considerations concerning wars is concerned: the only country leading wars like there is no tomorrow is the USA. Therefore Russia felt compelled to intervene when the US continued to transform Ukraine into a deployment area and flatly refused any negotiations on that topic. The risk of war is pretty low where populations are basically dwindling and the number of pensioners is going up and up.
And what the German elections is concerned: yes the choices for the German people are woeful. But which "liberal democracy" (a term that reminds me of the term "Corinthian leather") has had better options in recent times? BTW, the largest age group of eligible voters in Germany is 70+ (23%) followed by, yep, 60-69 (19%)![1]
Things will not be getting better in the West at least not anytime soon, and certainly not in the long term. Literature recommendation of the day: Bas van Bavel: "The Invisible Hand? How Market Economies have Emerged and Declined since AD 500" (2016).
Ukraine seems to have broken Tooze's brain, perhaps he is simply too immersed in the pathologically Russophobic British political scene. There isn't the slightest hint of evidence that Russia has aggressive designs on Europe, and Tooze knows full well that European governments have no ability to put such military investments into place without shredding their social contracts and getting thrown out of power. This is a piece of fantastical angst leading at a cavalier pace straight to WW3 and is a serious disappointment. Tooze should start speaking more to people who don't already recite this particular catechism.
One gets why you introduce military considerations into your critique of German railways, but there's no sign or reason why they'll be sending troops into Ukraine. Calculations about how to 'deter' Russia or even the need to do so are hugely speculative. You could just as well argue that weak transfer capacity in Germany improves its security as it improves Russia's. Tell us instead how the new peace dividend could unlock German infrastructure investment logjams.
I’ve written an analysis of Germany’s fiscal situation and what one needs to watch out for on election night to gauge whether more fiscal spending can happen:
Germany's failure to invest in public infrastructure is a national embarrassment. One wag put it thus: Germany didn't want to take out a mortgage so it chose instead to live in a dumpster.
Regardless, I remain unpersuaded that Russia poses a threat to Germany, much less France or the UK. But hysteria has its uses for any number of political entrepreneurs ...
Germany's commuter railway system need upgrading now, and the failure to do so shows how old and bankrupt the German ruling class has become, However, Tooze's comments go beyond that, like a to prepare for WWIII.
A Scary Enemy is useful to the German ruling class for several reasons:
1. As a pretext for crackdowns and demonizing dissent
2. As an way to get the chumps to rally round the flag
3. As a reason why the chumps also can't have nice things
4. As a way to stall discussion of reform or even a more equitable share of economic or political power
We see all of the above in europe and germany.
Thank you for this sobering analysis. It's unfair to ask this, I know, but what is the explanation for such societal stupidity? It's easy to critique what went wrong, but how could it go right?
I'm American, but live in Sweden, and similarly, I wondered as soon as I moved here why the Swedes had completely dismantled their military capacity. Wasn't Russia, their historical enemy, right next door? I know that Sweden hadn't fought a war for two centuries, but they certainly *experienced* one during WWII. And they took the Cold War quite seriously, for decades fielding a national draft mobilization, the world's 4th largest air force, and even a clandestine nuclear weapons program (6 months from the bomb!).
And then came the "peace dividend." But there was time to wake up since. At least since Russia invaded and occupied parts of Georgia. At least since the first time Russia invaded and conquered parts of Ukraine in 2014. And there has been a expansion in military spending. There has been speeches and dialogue and a restart of the nation's civilian defense programs, etc. But it's all just been so very deficient? Why?
The Swedish and worldwide media wrote breathless stories about Soviet submarine incursions into Swedish waters. One minor detail, other than Soviet submarine that ran aground in 1981, these were largely NATO submarines:
https://dennisriches.substack.com/p/the-submarine-deception-of-the-1980s
The first inquiry concluded that it was Soviet submarines. The second concluded that this could not be proven. Then a few years went by and an interview came out with Caspar Weinberger, the US Secretary of Defense, who clearly said that the US was involved in this.
Caspar Weinberger, the US Secretary of Defense: There was no direct insertion or testing of Swedish defense without consultation.
Keith Speed, the British Navy Minister: There were exercise attacks. Could the submarines infiltrate their waters and emerge at the port in Stockholm? Well, that’s not quite the thing, but it was something like that. How far could we go? During my administration, we had Oberon-class and Porpoise-class diesel submarines for that purpose.
Narrator: It’s quite clear that Swedish Naval Forces’ leadership knew NATO’s submarines were in Swedish territorial waters. Why had they kept silent back then? And what part had the Americans and British played?"
It is also discussed in some depth here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zUqFyNI09WY
Yes I have read there was a Russo-Swedish war over 200 years ago (as you noted), but as a person not from the Baltics or Poland I don't understand how those countries can't move on from the 1940s. How many Balts and Poles were killed by Russians post-Stalin? I know the occupation was bad and they deserved independence, but there sounds like a never-ending cycle of bitterness and self-pity.. As an aside I am American went to Vietnam twice, where we killed 1.5M people, and never sensed any resentment.
Prior to WW2, Poland was run by a small landowning and military oligarchy that kept the vast majority of the population poor and uneducated. The three decades after WW2, under communist rule, provided incredible opportunities for the majority to better their lives. That stagnated from the 1970s onwards, but the majority of Poles were vastly better off under the communists than under the pre-WW2 oligarchy.
That oligarchy came back with the collapse of the Soviet Union, and has worked very hard to poison the population against the Russians. Just as the Ukrainian fascists have done in that country, with much help from the West. Same with the Baltic states. Kaja Kallas' father did very well for himself under communism.
Because the leadership knows that Russia has no and has never had any desire to attack Sweden.
Trump is arguably improving Swaden's security now much more than anything they've done to arm themselves.
Thanks a lot for this stellar analysis!!! I would like to have this particular Chartbook-newsletter sent out to each and every person in charge of any political decision whatsoever in my incredibly phlegmatic country of origin 👏 Nobody understands this... Let's kick ass, make a plan, reform the idiotic, backward debt brake and solve the problem...
Love the article, but I will say that the chart on inter-country train delays seems to be cherry picking its borders pretty seriously. Nowhere in the list are trains from France or Belgium, and we can be quite assured that those entries are:
* Regularly late
* Messing up all the traffic at least to the left of the Rhine, if not further.
This is not to say that DB hasnʻt degraded in efficiency over the years (I miss my bahnpass even so!); but a cherry picked dataset always undermines my confidence in a cited article.
Thank you, Adam, for presenting all these data on delays - my own experiences tend to confirm these. Before Brexit I also travelled by train in Britain and my experiences were that trains were expensive, the different train companies did not cooperate in any way - thus making it a nightmare to use several on a trip. But maybe things there have changed for the better?
The second part of the article fits very well into all this war mongering that is going on in Germany - but maybe it is a consolation to our neighbors that we Germans are no longer a threat to them?
Yes, I know - we are not supposed to use this dirty word "peace".
It would be interesting to know how the Russian railways compare on all these metrics. Same point (for different reasons) re. Poland. I am beginning to be persuaded that we are worse off vis-a-vis the enemy than were Britain and France in 1938, and maybe that Chamberlain was right to buy time for further rearmament. As Andrew Sullivan says today, Trump is losing no time in building his new alliance with Russia, and less in destroying the old alliance of NATO (the cracks of which are even more apparent than I had thought).
Germany is an ageing society, median age 45 or 46. and it society cannot be "maintained" via immigration like say France, UK, or US who can draw from a pool of graduates from English/French speaking countries. It depends largely on underclass immigration via asylum seekers and family reunion, which is financially quite disadvantageous as we know eg. from Australian government publications regarding immigration outcomes. Therefore eg. Australia and Canada avoid this type of intake. Under the chancellorship of Schroeder ca. 2010 Germany had a programme to attract better skilled immigrants, which failed. Indians rather go to the US or the UK where they speak the language. German is not easy.
What debt and economic growth is concerned: the rules for the US and the rest of the world are somewhat different, as the US has a business model that cannot be easily implemented elsewhere, to put it this way. Apart from this the US model also seems to have arrived at kind of an end point. Let's have a brief look at some state debt to GDP figures:
Greece 158.2%, Italy 136.3%, France 113.8%, Belgium 105.6% and Spain 104.3%, UK 101.15%. Canada 107%, USA 120%. Germany 64%.
What these considerations concerning wars is concerned: the only country leading wars like there is no tomorrow is the USA. Therefore Russia felt compelled to intervene when the US continued to transform Ukraine into a deployment area and flatly refused any negotiations on that topic. The risk of war is pretty low where populations are basically dwindling and the number of pensioners is going up and up.
And what the German elections is concerned: yes the choices for the German people are woeful. But which "liberal democracy" (a term that reminds me of the term "Corinthian leather") has had better options in recent times? BTW, the largest age group of eligible voters in Germany is 70+ (23%) followed by, yep, 60-69 (19%)![1]
Things will not be getting better in the West at least not anytime soon, and certainly not in the long term. Literature recommendation of the day: Bas van Bavel: "The Invisible Hand? How Market Economies have Emerged and Declined since AD 500" (2016).
[1] Nice charts for the last four elections her: https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/1498/umfrage/altersstruktur-der-wahlberechtigten-bundestagswahl/
Great clarifying comment.
Ukraine seems to have broken Tooze's brain, perhaps he is simply too immersed in the pathologically Russophobic British political scene. There isn't the slightest hint of evidence that Russia has aggressive designs on Europe, and Tooze knows full well that European governments have no ability to put such military investments into place without shredding their social contracts and getting thrown out of power. This is a piece of fantastical angst leading at a cavalier pace straight to WW3 and is a serious disappointment. Tooze should start speaking more to people who don't already recite this particular catechism.
One gets why you introduce military considerations into your critique of German railways, but there's no sign or reason why they'll be sending troops into Ukraine. Calculations about how to 'deter' Russia or even the need to do so are hugely speculative. You could just as well argue that weak transfer capacity in Germany improves its security as it improves Russia's. Tell us instead how the new peace dividend could unlock German infrastructure investment logjams.
I’ve written an analysis of Germany’s fiscal situation and what one needs to watch out for on election night to gauge whether more fiscal spending can happen:
https://open.substack.com/pub/thinicemacroeconomics/p/germanys-fiscal-election-a-users?r=1oa8fn&utm_medium=ios
Germany's failure to invest in public infrastructure is a national embarrassment. One wag put it thus: Germany didn't want to take out a mortgage so it chose instead to live in a dumpster.
Regardless, I remain unpersuaded that Russia poses a threat to Germany, much less France or the UK. But hysteria has its uses for any number of political entrepreneurs ...
Germany's commuter railway system need upgrading now, and the failure to do so shows how old and bankrupt the German ruling class has become, However, Tooze's comments go beyond that, like a to prepare for WWIII.
Quite. It would have been better to include a discussion of the Deutschlandsticket, it's financing and impact on rail use.