Huge arms packages, an open defense budget, and a constant call to “prepare for war”: in the wake of the Bundeswehr’s transformation into an intervention force, “capacity building” has reached a new level. Under the slogan “a turning point,” the pace of armament has accelerated in an unprecedented way in decades. Seventy years after the founding of the Bundeswehr, this book traces its history: from rearmament, the creation of a “superpower” during the Cold War, and the cultivation of traditions that did not fail to point to the Iron Cross or the Wehrmacht; Passing through the ambitions of the powersNew Greater with deployments in the Balkans, Hindu Kush, and Sahel; All the way to regular participation in large-scale maneuvers - from NATO's eastern flank to China's borders - which, in the face of renewed armament, makes the threat of major wars seem very real. The articles address actors in the geopolitical landscape, as well as the myth of “humanitarian interventions” and mass, even ideological, mobilization that extends to areas such as schools and the health care system. This raises the question of alternatives, noEspecially with regard to anti-militarism attitudes and practices.
The volume, published by the Working Group on Combating Militarism, contains contributions from Jacqueline Andress, Frank Brendel, Renate Dillmann, Ulrike Eifler, Markus Euskirchen, Daniel Fried, Imran Fairouz, Pablo Flock, Martin Kirsch, Jörg Kronauer, Krzysztof Mareszka, Ava Mathis, Matthias Monroy, Jakob Reimann, Andrea Röpke, Jürgen Wagner, and Thomas. Winkelmeyer and Anushka Zak.
