Change is coming to the European military landscape.
And not in the way you might expect.
For years, the same countries have stood atop the index for Europe's strongest military
powers.
With eight military satellites in orbit, 13 naval frigates, eight submarines, and 850
aircraft, Italy consistently ranks high on the list.
France is no walkover, either.
With three hundred nuclear weapons in its arsenal and an aircraft carrier, three helo-carriers,
and ten military bases from which it can project one of the world's best counter-terrorism
strike forces into the corners of the globe, there is reason to believe France will remain
one of the preeminent European powers for years to come.
Then there's the UK.
Consistently viewed as one of the world's strongest military powers, not just in Europe,
it possesses 25 overseas military bases, 2 aircraft carriers, 10 excellent nuclear submarines,
and 663 aircraft--even if its reserves of tanks (of which it has only 227) and artillery
(215) remain comparatively low.
In a few years these rankings might all be about to change.
Finland and Sweden, NATO's newest members, look poised to play a central role in European
deterrence measures against Putin's Russia and are preparing accordingly.
The countries along NATO's eastern European flank--from the Baltics down to the Black
Sea--have long maintained respectable rapid-response forces as part of a robust collective military
presence.
Poland, too, is committed to flexing its own military muscle.
For several years now, it has been steadily replacing its Soviet stockpiles with modern
Western weapons systems and munitions in a bid to become Europe's strongest land army
by 2026.
It has an ongoing deal to acquire almost 500 HIMARS long-range missile systems, has been
steadily integrating the latest U.S. M1A21 SEPv3 Abrams tanks, Apache helicopters, and
F-35s.
It has also branched out, importing the latest in South Korean armor and artillery whose
global reputation is growing.
And then there's Germany.
Yes, the European country which for decades now has routinely fallen well short of its
defense goals now seems eager to jump to the top of Europe's military spending leaderboards.
It may seem like a shock, but last year German politicians finally read the room and realized
that with one of the world's largest GDPs it was high time to pull its weight in NATO
and revamp its armed forces.
Indeed, the war in Ukraine seems like it has cast everything into the proper perspective.
Today, Germany is not only gearing up to overhaul its armed forces--it wants to do so by becoming
the world's third-largest military spender.
I'm sure none of you had that on your bingo card a year or two ago.
It's been some time since German leaders expressed this desire.
Naturally, it's worth following up to see how bad things had actually gotten in the
German armed forces, how the military overhaul is currently going, and whether Germany will
be able to keep on track to achieve its lofty military goals in the near and long-term future.
Prior to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, it was fair to say that the reputation of
what, on paper, should undeniably be one of Europe's most feared militaries was...poor,
to put it mildly.
At the tail-end of the 2010s, reports began to emerge documenting the unexpected devolution
of "one of the fiercest (and most brutal) fighting forces on earth" into what one observer
likened to a glorified "volunteer fire department," one whose venerated mountain troops were routinely
deployed to "shovel snow from roofs in Bavaria" rather than conduct cutting-edge military
exercises.
What went wrong for the once-vaunted Bundeswehr?
Well, a lot, actually.
So much that it is sort of hard to know where to begin.
Like most things, Germany's current situation didn't unfold in a vacuum.
The problems trace back to the end of the Cold War, a period of renewed hope and opportunity
for the German people.
The fall of the Berlin Wall, the reintegration of East and West Germany, and the collapse
of the USSR as a regional military rival changed Germany's security outlook virtually overnight.
Suddenly, money the German Parliament had funneled into military expenditures had better
use revamping the country's economic, political, and social institutions.
There was simply no proximate military threat worthy enough to merit continued military
spending at Cold War levels.
Knowing that NATO and, more importantly, the United States could collectively guarantee
Europe's long-term security, the country and its people--still struggling through the memories
of two world wars--felt like it could afford to draw down its military capabilities without
imperiling its overall safety.
This process started in the early 1990s.
Few realized at the time that it would continue practically unabated until 2022.
This, then, is the root of Germany's modern military weakness.
Germany's decision to focus inward propelled it to incredibly prosperous economic heights.
Yet this choice came at the expense of a significant chunk of its military funding.
The result been endemic shortages--of manpower and materiel.
By late 2018, Germany could boast 68 Tiger attack helicopters.
Yet just 20% of them could fly.
It had plenty of Eurofighters, 136 in all--but only 30 percent of those were airworthy.
The state of the German air force got so bad that its pilots started to quit in droves.
On top of that, Germany's aging Tornado fighters, the country's only aerial platform that can
carry its nuclear warheads, were scheduled to be decommissioned.
The state of military disrepair extended to the infantry, who, according to reports, has
suffered from shortages of everything from ammunition to underwear of late.
As of 2019 the main battle rifle of the German armed forces, the Heckler & Koch G-36, was
in the process of being scrapped after studies revealed "serious defects in its accuracy"--in
other words, that "the gun misses its target if it's too hot."
In a visit to a Lithuanian outpost where 450 German soldiers were stationed as part of
a NATO mission to protect Europe's eastern flank, American officials "were dismayed to
discover Bundeswehr personnel communicating on unsecure mobile phones due to a shortage
of secure radio equipment."
Equipment deficiencies and shortages were paralleled by increased recruiting difficulties.
Germany's recent goal to raise its recruitment thresholds by 20,000 troops foundered as many
of its potential enlistees discovered the "pitiful" living conditions at its military
barracks.
As a result, Germany has been forced to contemplate a seemingly unimaginable alternative: Filling
empty recruitment pools with foreign nationals.
The problem it now faces is a legal one, since German law only allows those with citizenship
to serve in its military.
At a certain point, Germany's military shortcomings became so apparent it led high-ranking Bundeswehr
officials to declare, "No matter where you look, there's dysfunction."
Meanwhile, Germany's allies were likely wondering in private, "Why are the Germans only terrible
at war when they are on our side?"
The most vociferous of Germany's critics was the leader of the ally it could ill-afford
to antagonize--the United States.
At the tail-end of Donald Trump's four-year term as President, the mercurial American
began pressuring Germany to up its defense spending and meet the suggested NATO obligation–2%
of GDP.
The problem was that even if Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor at the time and leader
of the center-right bloc of politicians most critics placed blame for decades of diminutive
military spending, decided to try to affect some sort of change, it was simply impossible
to overhaul the Bundeswehr overnight.
That is because power stems from many overlapping variables, like industrial capacity, financial
and organizational strength, research and development, and political and social support.
“This is a battle on multiple fronts,” German Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen
said as she tried to fend off Trump's criticism in 2019.
“I also wish things would move more quickly, but 25 years of shrinkage and cuts can’t
be reversed in just a few years.”
That was the goal to which Germany set itself at the dawn of the 2020s--to reverse 25 years
of "shrinkage and cuts."
And so, Germany did probably the most German thing it could: It decided to spend hundreds
of millions of euros on outside consultants to try to clean up the army's mess.
When their findings and recommendations were clearly failing to correct course, the German
parliament took matters into their own hands, forming a special investigative committee
"to look into irregularities involving procurement and accusations that the consultants were
given sweetheart deals and too much influence."
Hundreds of millions of euros didn't even put a dent in the GDP of arguably the world's
most heavily industrialized country.
Yet it did reveal perpetual mismanagement and an overall lack of strategic thinking
on the best way to modernize the nation's military forces.
"Everything takes too long and costs too much money," remarked Hans-Peter Bartels, who between
2015 and 2020 served as Parliamentary Commissioner for the Armed Forces.
"It's as if time and money were endless resources, and in the end no one takes responsibility."
Which begs the perennial question--why?
Why, given Germany's geopolitical standing and its awareness that Russia and China posed
a far greater threat by the early 2020s than they did a decade earlier--did it continue
to sit on its hands?
More German media bandwidth was focused outward on Trump's threats of withdrawing from NATO
than inward on its own military potential.
Germany had an intractable problem: It was at once reliant on the United States' 33,000-soldier
forward presence and its robust nuclear umbrella for its own defense, yet extremely critical
of anyone who called its NATO commitment into question.
It had an intense public disdain for armed engagement–logically rooted in its recent
past--yet had formed strong economic, technological, and energy interdependencies with its ideological
rivals.
The German populace had, by all measures, been lulled into a false sense of security.
Everything changed on February 24, 2022.
Putin's invasion of Ukraine pulled the carpet up from under the German political establishment.
Concurrent with Putin's military buildup, Chancellor Olaf Scholz announced--to the world's
surprise--that Germany would up its 1.46% defense spending and fulfill its 2% of GDP
goal for the first time since 1990.
Three days after Putin greenlit the first large-scale ground war in Europe since World
War II, Scholz went even further than before, characterizing the moment at the Bundestag
rostrum as a "change of era," making a commitment to reversing its decades-old minimalist defense
policies in lieu of the type of sweeping overhaul befitting Germany's economic stature.
The announcement was met with fanfare in Parliament.
The Chancellor set aside a veritable war chest to achieve this goal--a €100 billion special
fund authorized to modernize its military forces.
The decision was met with a 75% approval rating.
There have been several encouraging developments since Scholz's proclamations.
Germany has been one of Europe's most generous suppliers of military aid to Ukraine since
the start of the conflict, doling out serious arms packages from its Federal Arms Forces
that include infantry fighting vehicles, Leopard main battle tanks (though they certainly dragged
their feet for months longer than they should have), mine-resistant armored vehicles, IRIS-T
air defense systems, howitzers, munitions, drones, and smaller items like helmets, mobile
antennas, night-vision goggles, and logistics vehicles.
The process of donating old equipment has incentivized German politicians and arms industry
leaders to fill the vacuum.
Yet old patterns are starting to emerge.
After two decades of neglect, critics are now repeating an old complaint: That Berlin
still lacks an overall strategy for its defense industry.
Spending €100 billion euros will not guarantee military might.
While many hoped that Germany would use the money to reinvest in its own defense industry--something
the United States has been doing since the start of the conflict in Ukraine–Berlin
has come under fire for...also investing in U.S. defence companies.
In July 2023, a leading tank gear box manufacturer claimed that nearly half of the €100 billion
special fund had gone to American defense companies.
"Germany does not have a strategic compass for the defense industry," claimed Susanne
Wiegand, chief executive of Renk Group.
"This is something the French are handling much better."
Essentially, Wiegand believed the special fund should be used for more than "plug[ging]
short-term gaps in the German military's inventories, but also to help develop technologies of the
future."
This makes a lot of sense.
But a year after Scholz promised to use his special fund, little seemed to have changed.
Over the last twelve months, a flurry of reports have continued to shed light on German military
unpreparedness.
"Strangled by bureaucracy," one headline reads.
"Germany's army is so under-equipped that it used broomsticks instead of machine guns,"
read another.
In February 2023, a prominent foreign policy spokesman for the Christian Democratic Union
told a German news outlet that "The military [had] lost a year and is barer than it was
at the start of 2022."
Sure, the German Defense Ministry had placed several new orders for F-35 fighter jets,
heavy transport helicopters, and a new program designed to digitize the apparently obsolescent
digital communications and networking capabilities of the Bundeswehr.
Interest rates on the loan Parliament took out for the €100 billion
special fund rose from €8 to €13 billion euros, leaving only €87 billion to spend--to
say nothing of inflation and value-added taxes, which looks set to strike another €15 or
so billion from the ledger books.
"The longer you have this money sit around somewhere, the longer factors like inflation
and interest payments have to eat away at this pile," one economist stated.
Recently, however, German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius has been arguing that the
€100 billion special fund is far from enough to meet the Bundeswehr's eye-opening needs.
While he has modestly asked for budgetary increases in the realm of €10s of billions
of dollars--likely to escape severe political and public censure--others have estimated
that to make Germany the "backbone of Europe's defense," it needs to do much more.
In February 2024, Pistorius argued that overturning two decades of minimal military expenditures
may require Germany to surpass its 2% target, which it met for the first time this year.
"The development of our industry all has to fit together," he recently told the German
parliament, "we might reach 3%, maybe even 3.5%, it depends what is happening in the
world."
Germany is at a serious inflection point.
In 2021, the country spent 52.8 billion euros on defense--7th in the global rankings, certainly
ahead of France, but still behind Russia and the UK.
As a percentage of its GDP, among the twenty largest global economies it came in far lower–just
fifteenth.
As Germany hits its renewed spending targets, it looks set to catapult itself higher into
the rankings.
Spending an annual amount of €76.1 billion euros would put it ahead of Russia, India,
and the U.K.
It would lead the EU by some distance--though it would still pale in comparison to the U.S.
and China.
More importantly, increased military spending will finally enable Germany to back its rhetorical
and economic leadership of the European community with cold, hard, steel.
In the past, Germany's allies and adversaries alike were slow to take it seriously in matters
of defense.
Today this looks set to change.
Germany has expressed its desire to build a modernized, high-tech, powerful military--the
F-35s represent a step in the right direction, as do the future combat air systems it is
developing jointly with France, its attempts to modernize its naval fleet, and its attention
on changes in drone warfare.
But if it wants to become a true military superpower, Germany must continue to spend
wisely for the foreseeable future.
It must give equal weight to the tail-end of the spear--logistics, intelligence, cyber
warfare, training, and experience--as it gives the tip--high tech weapons, vehicles, and
equipment.
As mentioned before, Germany is still getting the basics wrong.
To be able to secure itself--not to mention its European and regional allies and partners--it
must address what it has neglected for years.
It needs to get its existing helicopters, aircraft, and tanks operational.
It needs to get the 50% of military hardware found to be dysfunctional back into working
condition.
And it must find the funding and the social support to raise public respect for the German
armed forces--so it can overcome its chronic personnel shortages and material deficiencies.
"A job in the military does not have the kudos in Germany that it does elsewhere, owing to
the country's wartime past" Pistorius has recently claimed.
This would have to change--and would require by most accounts "a unique cultural change"
that amounted to more than "business as usual, but with more money."
Germany has a clear opportunity to prove its naysayers wrong by wholeheartedly picking
up the baton of European security.
It is a moment of severe uncertainty for Europe--a time when the West could truly benefit from
Germany's steadfast commitment to building a credible military with true deterrent potential.
Today, American support for Ukraine is more uncertain than ever.
There is a very real chance that depending on the way the American presidential election
pans out in 2024, European figureheads like Germany and France will have to put their
money where their mouth is.
If the invasion of Ukraine reinforced the gravity of the threat at their doorsteps,
dwindling American political and material support may leave them with no choice but
to shoulder an increased burden of defense spending, revamp its arms production, and
help Ukraine in areas where it is falling short.
The Estonian Defense Ministry recently estimated that "Western countries would need to invest
just 0.25 percent of their GDP in military assistance to Ukraine in order to enable the
country to continue defending itself in 2024 and prepare a new counteroffensive in 2025."
Europe must show that it is committed to its own defense--and Germany, as the richest European
power--has to stand at the front of the line.
To succeed, it has had to overcome its bureaucratically encumbered procurement system, one that an
expert described as suffering from "a 'perfectionism' in its regulations that often means the troops
don't actually get what they need."
This manifests itself in German tank crews not receiving standardized radio equipment
as their NATO allies, Germany's various political coalitions at loggerheads over the degree
of urgency to approach military modernization, and more.
Germany can be pleased that, by and large, its penchant for perfectionism in the field
of procurement has been ironed out.
The arms industry has been working harder to increase capacity, namely in the creation
of a new Rheinmetall munitions factory that can churn out 200,000 artillery shells a year.
Yet this may still fall short of ideal.
Germany is set upon a "generational task not only to restructure, but in a first step to
simply fill the gaps in the German armed forces."
Germany's actions in the defense sphere since Russia's invasion, in light of its own past,
have been nothing short of revolutionary.
The question is: will Scholz and Germany's coalition government be able to establish
a viable modernization strategy that can guide its military agenda for decades to come?
Or if this process will bend and wither according to the changing political winds?
What do you think?
Let us know in the comments!
Now go check out How Poland is Becoming Europe's Next Military Superpower or click this other
video instead!