What is the difference between World War 2 and Germany today?

Answer 1

Germany is a democratic and peaceful country, and enjoys good or excellent relations with all its neighbours. It is also an active and respected member of the European Union and co-operates well with other European countries. It has NO ambition to expand. Many surveys of public opinion over many decades have consistently shown that about half the voters would like to opt out of international politics as far as possible and would like Germany to become 'a second Switzerland'. Joncey

Answer 2

War today is all high tech like in jets they have homing missles but in WWII they did not have high tech stuff like today.

AnswerUp until the late 1970s, warfare didn't look much different than at the end of WW2. Planes were a bit faster, tanks were a bit more powerful, infantry were a bit more mechanized/motorized, but, overall, if a either a General or a Private had been transplanted from 1945 into a 1975 conflict, they would have felt right at home (after about 10 minutes of learning the more powerful weaponry).

However, starting around 1980, the United States lead a revolution in military technology, which has remade how wars are fought. The Gulf War in 1991 was the first such "new-style" war, with this style of warfare coming into full-fledged operation during the Iraq War.

Most military hardware from 2000 is very similar to 1975 or 1945 in concept; it is a bit more powerful, but not radically different in any way. The revolution has come in two forms: the ubiquity of smart weapons, and the implementation of a networked military.

The first revolution in smart weapons started in the late 1960s. It matured with the widespread use of microprocessors in weaponry. Smart weapons allow for very high levels of accuracy and target discrimination - this means that to destroy a target, one plane with one 1,000 lbs bomb is needed, while in 1945, it would have required 100 planes dropping more than 1,000 tons of bombs. This is a increase in lethality of almost a million times. Smart weaponry has slowly shrank in size, to the point where virtually all weapons platforms excepting the individual soldier are now equipped with smart weaponry. This radical increase in lethality has forced a complete revamp of tactical and strategic strategy - striking first is now of critical importance, and even very small units can now inflict huge amounts of damage on opposing forces.

The other revolution is in communications. Only now has the military approached the dream of having instantaneous communications to every single member of the military. Generals can now talk directly to any soldier they command. The collection and analysis of military intelligence has also dramatically sped up - commanders (often down to the lowly platoon commander) now can have real-time video relays, and processing of valuable military intelligence happens in minutes, not days or weeks as before. This has resulted in a massive increase in "situational awareness" - the ability to know what is going on and where, in near-real-time. Once again, this has resulted in a nearly unthinkable change in strategy planning, as the flexibility provided by such capability is enormous.

The other major change that has happened in modern warfare is the massive gulf between the "haves" and the "have-nots". Acquiring the above two capabilities is INSANELY expensive, and also requires a very highly trained military. Only countries which have a professional, standing army and willing to spend hundreds of billions of dollars can afford this new type of military. Prior to this revolution, the main differentiating factor between countries was merely the size of the military - thus, if country A had a military half the size of country B, then it could expect to perform about half as well. So, if A fought B, B would win, while losing about half its military. In the new scheme, if A can't afford the expensive communications and smart weapons, but otherwise can buy very similar technology, it will lose very badly to B (which can afford the equipment). Thus, you can see a stratification in militaries: if a country can afford even a very modest amount of the new tech, it can beat a country that can't afford such tech, even if lower-tech country vastly outnumbers the higher-tech one.

As a consequence of this imbalance, poorer millitaries are shifting tactics towards urban guerrilla warfare, where the immense advantages of the opponent's hitech military can be partially (or mostly) offset. Thus, warfare has shifted from large-scale battles between relatively equal opponents, to "asymetric" warfare where hitech militaries fight in cities against poorly equipped guerrillas.