Word: bundeswehr
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West Germans can take scant com fort from the state of their own defenses. The Bundeswehr, which is 52,000 men short of its planned 508,000 force level, showed only two weeks ago, in the Black Lion maneuvers, that it was far too inadequately trained and equipped. Wrote Der Spiegel, the big West German newsmagazine: "The Federal Republic's military situation has never appeared so hopeless as today...
...Minister Lester Pearson of Canada angrily denounced the general's "intervention" in Canadian domestic policies as "unacceptable" and "intolerable." Said Pearson: "I believe the statement distorted some Canadian history, misrepresented developments and wrongly predicted the future." The Frankfurter Rundschau suggested sarcastically that De Gaulle might next order "the Bundeswehr into action for the liberation of French Canadians." Combat, the Paris daily that grew out of the Resistance movement during World War II, sadly observed: "The international reactions to General de Gaulle's press conference have given the measure of the isolation of France: it has never been greater...
...nettled by such touchy issues as the future of U.S. troop commitments in Western Europe, West Germany's attempts to formalize relations with Communist countries in the East, and the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, which many West Germans view uneasily as a Soviet-American scheme to relegate the Bundeswehr to the status of a perpetually second-class army and leave the country open to nuclear "blackmail...
...have been worried about troop cutbacks since May, when the U.S. announced a "redeployment rotation" of its NATO forces that will take 35,000 Americans out of West Germany. On its part, Bonn alarmed the Pentagon in July by reporting that budgetary troubles would force a reduction in the Bundeswehr of as many as 60,000 men, weakening NATO's defenses at the Eastern frontier...
Holding a Grudge. Kiesinger was furious. He went on TV to disavow Schroder, saying that "the Cabinet has by no means decided to cut the troop strength of the Bundeswehr to a considerable de gree, let alone by 60,000 men." While overall cutbacks will be made in projected defense budgets through 1971, he said, the defense budget for the next four years will actually be larger than at present. Kiesinger was joined by Finance Minister Franz Josef Strauss, who holds a grudge against...