On the very day that Russia invaded Ukraine in February, a brief post on the LinkedIn network by the head of the German army, Lieutenant-General Alfons Mais, immediately made the headlines in Berlin.
“The Bundeswehr, the army that I am privileged to lead, is more or less bare. The options that we can offer the politicians to support the alliance are extremely limited,” said a “pissed off” general, furious both that no lessons had been learned from Russia's annexation of the Crimea in 2014 and that the German military or 'Bundeswehr' was incapable of carrying out its core mission - that of defending the country and its allies. This is despite an annual defence budget that has gone from 32.44 billion euros in 2014 to 50.33 billion euros in 2022.
The revelation that the Bundeswehr was something of a “ragtag army” may have come as a shock to the general public in Germany or other countries, but it is something that has long been acknowledged by those in the know.
Colonel Jürgen Schmidt, head of the Combat Directorate at the weapons system supply agency, the Federal Office of Bundeswehr Equipment, Information Technology and In-Service Support (BAAINBw), explained the situation back in September 2021, months before the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Speaking at the discreet and select Rü.Net weapons salon in Koblenz, Colonel Schmidt said that the German government's long-standing policy for the Bundeswehr had been to ensure its capability to conduct two overseas “stabilisation” operations at any one time. “For 30 years we scaled back the Bundeswehr based on this conceptual assumption: of two areas of operation,” he said. “The entire Bundeswehr enterprise was shrunk and all national and alliance defence efforts were scaled back.”
Enlargement : Illustration 1
German is thus currently unable to respond to the NATO requirement for its members to be able to mobilise heavy weapons and thousands of soldiers – at least 15,000 in Germany's case – within a few days while ensuring logistical support for at least 30 days. “There's a lack of logistics battalions,” Colonel Schmidt said at the Rü.Net event. “Defence of the nation and the alliance needs to be based here again.”
For munitions - bullets and shells – alone Germany would have to spend close to 20 billion euros to meet NATO criteria. But deliveries of bullets, grenades and 155mm shells to Ukraine are already starting to seriously deplete existing stocks.
Three days after the Russian began their invasion on February 24th, German chancellor Olaf Scholz said that the government fully grasped the extent of its policy failure and announced the setting up of a special fund of 100 billion euros to invest in the military. The German leader also said the annual defence budget would rise to 2% of GDP.
“To be fair, it should be acknowledged that when Germany sends troops somewhere in an international mission such as Afghanistan, off the coast of Somalia or to Mali, they are well-equipped and well-trained,” said Carlo Masala, professor for International Politics at the Bundeswehr University Munich. “But that's only possible on a small scale. For in truth, the Germany army was conceived as, and remains, a peacetime army.”
If a new state-of-the-art tank arrives five years late and cost 30% more, it doesn't change anything as no one has any intention of using it!
In practical terms, up until 2014 - when the military budget started to increase - every reform that followed the post-German reunification merger of the West German Bundeswehr and the East German National People's Army (which led to a reduction in troop numbers from 500,000 to 183,000) has been motivated by budget austerity rather than strategic vision.
“What has to be understood in the logic of an army that is not really there to fight is that, alongside the absence of any strategic vision, if a new state-of-the-art tank arrives five years late and costs 30% more, it doesn't ultimately change anything as no one has any intention of using it!” said Carlo Masala.
The German weapons industry, which employs 55,000 people and had a turnover of 11.2 billion euros in 2020, works along similar logic. The federal government only really intervenes to control arms exports or, at best, to stop a particular technological capability moving aboard; indeed, without that it is possible that German submarines would in fact be Franco-German submarines.
“As for the rest, as far as federal members of parliament are concerned it's about regional industrial policy and that takes place in the Bundestag [editor's note, the German federal parliament] and the Länder [editor's note, the federal states],” said Carlos Masala. In fact, the Bundestag's budget committee has to authorise every public weapons order for more than 25 million euros. This leads to some lively battles and also some unexpected alliances between lobbyists, political parties, MPs and ministries. “The aim being to win contracts and defend jobs in a constituency, no matter the price and the delivery date,” said Carlo Masala.
New equipment orders
The result has been that the Germany navy's proud new F125 frigates were delivered six years late and at a cost that had gone up by 51%. The first NH90 helicopter entered service with the Luftwaffe more than eleven years behind schedule and the massive Airbus A400M transport plane was delayed by thirteen-and-a-half years. Meanwhile it has just been revealed that the Medium Extended Air Defense System (MEADS) missile defence system, a project Germany signed up to in 2005 and which cost several billions just to develop, is to be abandoned by Berlin. While it awaits a new off-the-shelf system, Germany will have to find ways to plug any gaps in its existing defence capabilities.
But now the war in Ukraine has changed things. “We are living through a watershed era,” Olaf Scholz told the Bunderstag at the end of February. “And that means that the world afterwards will no longer be the same as the world before.
“The issue at the heart of this is whether power is allowed to prevail over the law. Whether we permit Putin to turn back the clock to the nineteenth century and the age of the great powers. Or whether we have it in us to keep warmongers like Putin in check. That requires strength of our own. Yes, we fully intend to secure our freedom, our democracy and our prosperity,” the German chancellor declared.
“This fund enables us to equip our armed forces so they are capable of carrying out their core mission to the full – namely to defend our country and our allies. We are ensuring that the Federal Armed Forces are fully operational,” said defence minister Christine Lambrecht after the announcement of the new money for the armed forces. And the first large-scale purchases are already in sight.
The military will soon receive 305,000 ballistic underwear which protect from shrapnel. The German navy will have its own naval shipyard, with plans to take over the MV Werften shipyard at Rostock which has just filed for bankruptcy. That should enable it to reduce maintenance time on its fleet. The Luftwaffe will receive 35 F35 Lightning combat aircraft from Lockheed Martin at a cost of 8.4 billion euros, to replace its old Tornado jets, and 60 heavy-lifting Boeing CH-47 Chinook helicopters for 5 billion euros.
The challenge is enormous.
These orders mark a new pragmatic approach which shows a desire to buy proven equipment that is, above all, quickly available even if it does not come from domestic suppliers. In any case the massive rise in energy prices and raw materials is likely to increase the bill markedly. Moreover, the effort that still needs to be made is of a different order altogether. “The timetable for the redeployment of the Bundeswehr is based on the strategic reorientation recently set out by NATO for which the deadline is the end of 2024,” explained André Wüstner, chairman of the German armed forces association, the BundeswehrVerband, a kind of 'union' for the German military.
The Atlantic alliance is now facing a Cold War 2.0 with a long front to secure, countries to protect and with armed forces which must be capable of being deployed within a few days. “NATO's rapid reaction force is going to move from 40,000 to more than 300,000 men. Germany already has 15,000 soldiers available and that will go up. But we also need to deal with 65 aircraft and 20 ships, and this at a time when the Bundeswehr has never been so small. In short, it's an enormous challenge,” concluded André Wüstner.
How will the 100 billion euros in the special fund be used? Will that amount be enough, given that energy prices are soaring and inflation is increasing fast? Who will fund the operational cost caused by the increase in the Bundeswehr's size, at a time when the current defence budget is due to go up very little? Finally, could national military service be reintroduced soon? All these and many other questions now need a swift response if, in line with Olaf Scholz's plan, Germany is to have any time soon the “largest conventional army within the NATO framework in Europe”.
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The original French version of this article, part of a series on Germany's farewell to pacifism, can be found here.
English version by Michael Streeter