Apps and booklets are offering advice on how to build a bunker, stockpile food and live without electricity in case the worst happens
Germany is developing an app to help people locate the nearest bunker in the event of attack. Sweden is distributing a 32-page pamphlet titled If Crisis or War Comes. Half a million Finns have already downloaded an emergency preparedness guide.
If the prospect of a broader conflict in Europe seems remote for many, some countries at least are taking it seriously – and, in the term used by Germany’s defence minister, Boris Pistorius, taking steps to get populations kriegsfähig: war-capable.
Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine has dramatically raised security tensions across the Baltic region, prompting Finland and Sweden to abandon decades of nonalignment and join Nato. Military capability, however, is not all: citizens have to be braced too.
It's a disgrace really. He is going to end up pulling a "deal" with his "business Sav" and end up with appeasement for a directly authoritarian regime.
TBF, the introduction of the new uniforms was already decided in 2018 by the prior government under the MoD Ursula von der Leyen, and the new uniforms will be implemented step by step until 2032.
Er erläuterte, dass die Modernisierung der Dienstbekleidung 2018 entschieden, dann aber zurückgestellt worden sei, um vorher wichtige Kampfbekleidung und -ausrüstung zu erneuern und zu modernisieren. Dies sei in den letzten Jahren geschehen, so dass nun auch das Vorhaben bei der Dienstbekleidung weiter umgesetzt werde.
Zudem erstrecke sich die Finanzierung des Gesamtvorhabens bis 2032.
Yeah, it's just striking how everything has so much inertia. Ukraine has been holding the fort for 3 years now, and we're looking at those immense budgets for useless stuff.
Same with the bunkers, let's make an app to see where you can take refuge in one of the bunkers ... let's see... that can hold short of 500 thousand people country wide. That's fine, 1 citizen in 160.
Important context: Sweden and especially Finland have long had a defense model based around literally everyone contributing to defending against an occupation. The real change is they don't consider that enough of a deterrent anymore, hence joining NATO, after seeing Russia bloody itself against Ukraine for several years.
Had the same thoughts on this. Other countries in Europe take this responsibility a bit more serious, for instance Finland.
Also why an App? I'm sure checking my phone is very far down in my priorities list in such a case. I prefer Swedens approach, better to have info material printed out and ready with a bunch of other important documents.
Because you can send an alert on the phone, get the coordinates and the person to the next shelter. There are early warning systems, so that is somewhat possible. Ukraine and Israel use such apps very successfully.
The netherlands have decided to ignore the problem of civil defence till it goes away. But at least we're investing in the military again, and we won the allied-military geographic lottery, so I do see the logic.