It’s been nearly a year since the Chancellor of Germany stood before the Bundestag and gravely proclaimed a Zeitenwende, a tectonic shift in the nation’s defence policy. There would be a special fund of €100 billion to beef up the hopelessly under-equipped Bundeswehr, or armed forces. Olaf Scholz also promised to ramp up defence spending to 2% of GDP, in line with NATO rules (and, awkwardly, Donald Trump’s demands). Zeitenwende crucially, moreover, implied stepping up for Ukraine. But not much of that has happened since.
Today, around 50 defence ministers from around the world are meeting at the US air base in Ramstein, not far from Frankfurt, to again discuss western military support for Ukraine. Naturally, Germany will be in the spotlight. The US and other allies are counting on Scholz to take on more responsibility, to assume more leadership in Europe’s greatest security crisis in decades. And Scholz has been making the noises that Germany’s allies have hoped to hear: in a recent article in Foreign Affairs he writes: “Germans are intent on becoming the guarantor of European security that our allies expect us to be.” This echoes Scholz’s stated aim of making Germany a Führungsmacht, a leading power. But how close is he to achieving it? Very, very far.
The visiting defence ministers will encounter a Germany riddled with problems. For one, Monday saw the resignation of the incompetent defence minister, Christine Lambrecht. By Tuesday a new one, Boris Pistorius, had been named. He’s in for a baptism of fire. Germany has been under enormous pressure to supply the Leopard 2 battle tanks that Ukraine has been requesting for months — or at least to green light the re-export of the German-made fighting vehicles from countries like Poland and Finland. And that pressure was ramped up a notch this week by Britain’s decision to provide Challenger tanks.
In truth, there’s little willingness in Germany to spare any of the 340-odd Leopard 2s in use by the nation’s army. The government, on this front, has been dithering and stalling — or at least is that how it comes across publicly. Back in October, Scholz’ spin doctor Wolfgang Schmidt had all sorts of strange excuses not to provide the tanks. The Ukrainians wouldn’t be capable of maintaining the sophisticated German machines. Or, even weirder, the iron cross on the tanks would indicate to the Russians that the Germans were an active participant in the war. At which Ukrainians tweeted: “Don’t worry, we have paint.”
As with every German weapons delivery, making it happen would take a solid kick up the arse from President Joe Biden. Perhaps one was delivered in the phone call between the two men on Tuesday. But at the Davos summit the next day, Scholz’s communication on Ukraine was still vague and non-committal. When asked about the Leopards, he dodged the question and rattled off a list of armaments that Germany has delivered so far. It’s true that these armaments have not been insignificant. They have included howitzers, mobile anti-aircraft guns and surface-to-air missile systems. This month, the German government pledged 40 Marder infantry fighting vehicles — but only after dragging its feet for months.
Why isn’t the Zeitenwende happening a little quicker? Partly because Germany’s military structures are sclerotic. Modernising them must be the eternal quest of the nation’s defence minister. Especially bureaucratic is the procurement of weapons and gear. A small example: a pedantic military official once noticed, while purchasing tanks, that they didn’t have mirrors that conformed to the German highway code — so he or she absolutely insisted on getting them installed, complicating and slowing down the acquisition.
Join the discussion
Join like minded readers that support our journalism by becoming a paid subscriber
To join the discussion in the comments, become a paid subscriber.
Join like minded readers that support our journalism, read unlimited articles and enjoy other subscriber-only benefits.
Subscribe