A short piece came up via ARD (Channel One, public TV) this morning. After a long talk and various debates....NATO came up and finally recommended the location of the new logistical headquarters 'hub'....Ulm, Germany. Ulm? If you drew a straight line from Stuttgart to Munich....it's about halfway. Driving-wise, it's about an hour southeast of Stuttgart.
There were two German locations in the discussion. One was up in the NW of Germany, near Bonn. Politically, folks were hyped and pushing for that site.
Ulm already a German Army post there and it'll simply take a couple of acres to build this complex and then draw in a couple hundred NATO folks to be part of this headquarters.
As for the necessity of another headquarters? Well....some folks would say that logistically.....virtually every member of NATO has some problems going on. So the idea is sitting there....if you just had a headquarters to manage things....it'd all get fixed. Yeah, it's a weak solution but everyone agreed on it. The one positive? Germany basically agreed to pay for most of the structure. You can figure at least 100 million Euro minimum.....maybe even going up to 400 million, to get the whole thing built and operational.
In three years, as the structure is completed and ready to go.....some US Army logistics officers are going to get some 'gold-ticket' assignment to Ulm for three years of duty, and a chance to travel over Bavaria.....ski.....hike....and enjoy Octoberfest in a personal way.
Oh, and the final plus-up here? Well....all the money spent on this by the Germans.....goes toward that 2-percent goal which they have failed at for more than a decade.
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