Germany Plans On Increasing Its Military Size To Close To A Quarter Of A Million Soldiers

Germany is planning on increasing its military size to close to a quarter of a million soldiers. I did a whole video on this:

According to the report:

Germany's Defense Ministry has announced it will increase the number of professional soldiers by around 10 percent. It comes amid increasing pressure for Germany to reach its NATO-mandated defense spending target.

Since the end of the Cold War, Germany had been reducing its military scope and manpower. Recent years, however, have marked a major shift in its defense policy, as it pledged once again to expand the Bundeswehr.

"The Bundeswehr is under demand like never before," Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen (a Christian Democrat) said on Tuesday, as she announced plans to increase the number of Germany's professional soldiers from 178,000 to 198,000 by the year 2024. "In light of these increasing responsibilities, the Bundeswehr must be allowed to grow accordingly."

As part of its enlargement plans, the Bundeswehr will also expand its non-combat civilian employees to over 61,000 in response to the growing threat of cyber and hacking attacks.

Bundeswehr soldiers are currently being deployed as part of international efforts against the so-called "Islamic State" (IS) in Iraq and Syria, in Mali as part of the UN's MINUSMA mission and in the Baltic States as part of NATO's defense measures along the alliance's eastern flank with Russia. German capacity in the area of cyber defense has also been growing.

Since the end of the Cold War and German reunification, the Bundeswehr has seen sharp fall in the number of full-time professional soldiers. At the time of reunification, the German military boasted a manpower of some 585,000 soldiers. That number had sunk year-on-year up until 2016, when in May the Defense Ministry said it was expanding the number of professional by 7,000 and civilian employees by 4,400. An end to mandatory military service for school leavers, albeit with other options for those who did not want to spend their year in the Bundeswehr, had contributed markedly to the decline.