Germany investing in ‘spy cockroaches'
The outlet spoke to two dozen executives, investors, and policymakers to examine how the EU's largest economy aims to play a central role in the rearming of the continent.
Chancellor Friedrich Merz recently announced plans to increase Germany's overall military budget to €153 billion ($180 billion) by 2029, up from €86 billion this year. He pledged to allocate 3.5% of GDP to defense under a new NATO framework to counter what he called a direct threat from Russia.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has dismissed Western concerns about Russian aggression as 'nonsense,' accusing NATO of using fear to justify increasing military budgets.
According to Reuters sources, Merz's government views AI and start-up technology as critical to its plans. This week, the cabinet approved a draft procurement law designed to streamline the process for startups developing cutting-edge technologies, from tank-like robots and unmanned mini-submarines to surveillance cockroaches. The law aims to help such companies quickly contribute to the modernization of Germany's armed forces.
Публикация от Cerebral Overload (@cbrovld)
Startups like Munich-based Helsing, which specializes in AI and drone technology, alongside established defense contractors such as Rheinmetall and Hensoldt, are now leading Germany's military innovation, the article said.
Critics of the German government's policies warn that continued military spending could strain the national budget and further damage the country's industry, already burdened by rising energy costs, the fallout from sanctions on Russia, and trade tensions with the US.
Germany has been the second-largest arms supplier to Kiev since the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in February 2022, surpassed only by the US. Russia has consistently denounced Western weapons deliveries, saying they prolong the conflict and risk escalating tensions. Moscow has warned that Berlin's policies could lead to a new armed conflict with Russia, decades after the end of World War II.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Russia Today
3 hours ago
- Russia Today
Over 400,000 demand end to new UK internet rules
A petition to repeal the UK's stringent new internet safety rules has surpassed 400,000 signatures within just five days of their enforcement. Critics claim the legislation restricts access to legal content and erodes digital privacy, although the British government has insisted the measures are necessary to protect children. The Online Safety Act, adopted in 2023, grants communications regulator Ofcom broad powers to oversee user-generated content, enforce moderation, and mandate age checks on platforms likely to be accessed by children. A key provision came into force last Friday, requiring pornographic websites to introduce ID-based age verification. The same rule applies to search engines, social platforms, and other services deemed high-risk. Xbox has already begun rolling out checks, with full enforcement due in 2026. Reform UK leader Nigel Farage called the rules 'state suppression of genuine free speech,' while his aide Zia Yusuf slammed the legislation as 'massive overreach' that 'plunges this country into a borderline dystopian state.' Others argue the measures will restrict content based on vague risk assessments and establish a censorship regime under the guise of child protection. Technology Secretary Peter Kyle responded by accusing Farage of siding with sexual predators such as the late Jimmy Savile. Farage branded the remark 'absolutely disgusting' and demanded a public apology. The government has claimed enforcement will be proportionate but stressed that platforms must apply controls even if they appear low-risk. Civil liberties groups warn the law undermines privacy and could force adults to share biometric data to access legal content. VPN usage in the UK has surged since the law came into force, with Proton VPN reporting a 1,800% increase in signups. Officials warn that platforms promoting VPN use to bypass safety rules could face penalties. While most provisions have only just taken effect, the Online Safety Act has already been used in court. A man was jailed for cyber-flashing under a new offense created by the law. Others have also been prosecuted for posting false or harmful content on social media – raising further concerns about its impact on freedom of expression.
Russia Today
3 hours ago
- Russia Today
Kremlin denies seeking to ‘control' EU candidate state
The Kremlin on Wednesday rejected accusations by Moldovan President Maia Sandu that Russia is attempting to interfere in her country's parliamentary election by covertly funding opposition candidates. A staunchly pro-EU politician who frequently accuses her opponents of being 'pro-Russian' in order to justify their exclusion from politics, Sandu claimed this week that Moscow planned to channel more than €100 million ($115 million) to her political rivals ahead of Moldova's parliamentary election, scheduled for September. 'This is not true. Russia does not interfere in the domestic affairs of other states,' Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Wedensday. Peskov added that Moldova should focus on addressing its own alleged restrictions on democratic participation, both domestically and abroad. During Moldova's 2024 presidential campaign, Moscow accused the Sandu administration of excluding opposition candidates and limiting ballot access for Moldovan citizens in Russia, in order to sway the outcome in her favor. Sandu in turn has accused Moscow of attempting regime change, claiming Russia sought to 'take control' of Moldova and derail its aspirations for EU membership. As part of her government's response, Sandu claimed her government has worked major social media platforms to flag 'suspicious activity' but admitted that her officials received no response from messaging platform Telegram. The EU granted Moldova candidate status alongside Ukraine in 2022. The move was widely interpreted as a geopolitical signal to Russia rather than a reflection of Moldova's readiness to meet membership criteria.
Russia Today
4 hours ago
- Russia Today
The art of the kneel: How Trump's ‘deal' brought Brussels to heel
In history, some things become clear only in hindsight. For instance, German unification all over again – good thing or bad thing? That jury is still out. At this point, it looks as if we'll soon look back with regrets from yet another very bleak postwar situation to ponder that question. But there are also things that are obvious from the moment they start happening. For example, Israel and the West's Gaza genocide, no matter that many talking heads now pretend they've only just noticed. Something else that's as in-your-face obvious as a concrete wall you've just run into is that the EU has just suffered a catastrophic, crippling defeat. As usual with America's European vassals, the defeat is strange. First, it has been inflicted not by an enemy, but by an 'ally' and big-brother-in-'values': This is the moment the NATO-EU underlings are falling over each other to keep paying for the US-instigated and failing proxy war in Ukraine while also building the equivalent of a dozen new Maginot Lines (this time including a 'drone wall') against the big, bad Russians. Yet it is Washington that has struck its eager-to-please sycophants in the back. The EU has also done its very worst to assist in its own trouncing. As Trump retainer Sebastian Gorka – himself, ironically, a European slavishly serving the US empire – has correctly put it, Europe has 'bent the knee.' And once it was all over, with the blood not yet dry on the floor, the EU picked itself up, dusted off its pantsuit and said thank you, in the best tradition of German chancellors who grin and scrape when American presidents tell them they will 'put an end' to Germany's vital infrastructure. We are talking, of course, about the so-called tariff and trade 'deal' just concluded at the Scottish luxury golf resort of Turnberry, between the US, under self-declared 'tariff man' and elected, if by very messy rules, President Donald Trump (also owner of that golf resort) and the EU represented – no one really knows on the basis of what mandate – by the pristinely unelected head of the EU Commission, Ursula von der Leyen. The same one who promised us a 'geopolitical' Commission and EU. If this is your 'geopolitics,' it's suicidal. It was a bloody affair, but we can't even call it the 'Battle of Turnberry' because there was no fight before the EU went down. The gist of what really was an economic massacre is simple. After months of negotiations, seven trips to Washington and over 100 hours of empty talk by its touchingly useless trade commissioner Maros Sefcovic alone, the EU has brought home not a bad deal but pure, total defeat, as if it had been busy distilling the very essence of being on the losing side at Cannae, Waterloo, and Stalingrad: While Trump could enumerate a substantial list of big, expensive concessions made by the Europeans, von der Leyen got nothing, strictly nothing. This is not a 'deal' at all. It is unconditional surrender. Without a preceding war. In essence, the US will now levy 'baseline' tariffs of 15% on most of its massive imports from the EU, including on cars. But there are exceptions! Already punitive American tariffs of 50% on steel and aluminum will remain in place. In return, for the US, selling in the giant if decaying EU market will be, in essence, free, at an average tariff rate of zero or, at best, below 1%. And to show its appreciation of such a fine, evenhanded 'deal,' the EU sweetened it by throwing in some extras as if there is no tomorrow. Like at one of those late-night TV direct sales shows. Only that the EU slogan is not 'order immediately and…' but 'ruin us right now and get an extra $1.35 trillion just to make us even poorer and you even richer!' That $1.35 trillion consists of two promises of direct EU tributes (yes, that is the correct, real term) to Washington: an additional – as Trump stressed – $600 billion which EU companies, surely dizzy with gratitude, will invest in the US; and $750 billion of especially dirty and expensive American LNG (liquefied natural gas) which they will buy to feed into whatever will remain of European industry. Meanwhile, Trump is making concessions – again – to China. China, of course, being the sovereign country and economic powerhouse that did what the EU completely failed to do: fight back against the Washington bullies. And now imagine what the EU could have achieved if it had worked with China to check US aggression. Instead, the recent EU-China summit in Beijing has shown that the EU is still not ready to abandon its arrogant stance of hectoring and threatening China, in particular in a futile attempt to drive a wedge between Beijing and Moscow. The other thing the summit has made clear is that China will not budge. And why would it? The absurdity of all of the above is staggeringly obvious, even if there already are quarrels about the details. Because between Team Trump and Team von der Leyen, two card-carrying egomaniacs and narcissists, there was of course no one to take care of those. Regal von der Leyen – with aristocratic nonchalance – besides, never cared to check if she even has a right or the practical means to promise away $1.35 trillion that, actually, only specific companies could make available. Hint: she does not. But what does it all mean? Here are three take-away points: First, we must, for once, agree with American regime change and war addicts, such as Anne Applebaum and Tim Snyder: European appeasement is a real thing. But not of Russia, which has never been appeased but provoked, needlessly fought, and, mostly, systematically denied even a fair hearing. No, what the Europeans appease is, obviously, the US, their ruthless and utterly contemptuous hegemon and worst enemy, from letting America and its cut-outs blow up Nord Stream to the Turnberry Fiasco. Look at the feeble official attempts to sell this exploitation and devastation pact with Washington to the European public: German Chancellor Friedrich Merz – only recently the undeserving recipient of exorbitant praise at home simply for not having been humiliated too crassly at the Trump White House – has officially thanked the EU negotiators, especially Sefcovic and von der Leyen, and praised the 'deal' for averting an even worse outcome and providing 'stability.' Likewise, von der Leyen has praised herself for giving us 'certainty in uncertain times.' What a channeling of Neville Chamberlain, the interwar British premier who gave appeasement its bad name by caving in to Hitler! Dear Tim Snyder: We know, for you it's always 1938 somewhere. Here you have a full re-enactment: 'Certainty for our time!' von der Leyen virtually shouted raising not an umbrella but her thumb, while still at the American leader's golf club Berghof in Scotland. Second, there goes the new German 'Fuhrungsmacht' (meaning leadership, and with extra oomph). And we hardly ever knew it. Because – pay attention now, Berlin – here's the catch: One cannot claim leadership in Europe and initiate full self-destruct mode just to please the US at the same time. I know, this is complicated. But people just don't like being led by those who sell them out. In this regard, it is, of course, important that it will be two Germans, von der Leyen and Merz, who will be most associated with the Turnberry Fiasco. They have made sure that Germany does not stand for leadership but for submission to the point of self-harm. The rhetoric of collaboration – 'We are betraying your interests only to avoid even worse things, please be grateful!' – will either not work at all or not for long. In the end, it's the De Gaulles who win, not the Petains. Third, there is a difference between a trade war and economic warfare. Merz may claim that a trade war with the US has been avoided. In reality, we will never know, of course: If the EU had stood its ground – and it had the means and even some plans to do so – there might not even have been a trade war or it might have ended quickly, and with a better outcome for the EU. China, again, is the proof. But one thing is certain: there is ongoing economic warfare, namely by the US against its own European vassals. They have submitted to their own impoverishment and ongoing deindustrialization, but the American laying waste of their economies has not stopped but accelerated again. Europe is under massive economic attack – and it is not fighting back. In an ideal world, the Europeans would now finally see sense: For starters, they would rebel against the EU Commission and its power grab, get rid of Ursula von der Leyen and her team, and disavow their 'deal.' Then they would stop taking over America's proxy war against Russia, cut their ties with the corrupt Kiev regime, and normalize their relationship with Russia – and with China, too. In other words, they would find partners to help them emancipate themselves from an American overlord that is not merely dominating but devastating its 'allies.' None of the above, however, will happen. Witness the sorry spectacle of the last, recent attempt to chase von der Leyen from office. Real change to save Europe from the EU will require tectonic shifts in the continent's politics. Indeed, the EU is probably hopeless and will have to be abandoned first. Europe's current 'elites,' who behave as if they serve the US and not their fellow Europeans, will have to lose power. But how? In late 1916, a Russian politician gave a famous speech. Enumerating the then tsarist government's failures, he kept asking the same simple question: 'Is this stupidity or treason?' Less than half a year after that speech, Russia's Ancien Regime fell. Europeans must wake up at long last and ask the same question about their leaders.
