Revisiting German Rearmament in 2025

When in the wake of the Russian invasion of Ukraine I addressed the discussion of German--and Japanese--"rearmament," I argued that some seemed to have an exaggerated sense of the significance of those countries' governments' announced increases in defense spending and other policy changes, for a number of reasons. One was the fact that the remilitarization of both countries began even before they regained sovereignty from their occupiers after the Second World War, and traveled most of the way to being not just relatively large military powers (as the Federal Republic of Germany had become no later than the mid-1960s), but "normal" ones disposing of their forces in the same manner as other nations, with Germany's allies' relaxation of their earlier treaty-imposed restrictions on the country's rearmament, and the German courts' reinterpretation of the constitution, long since giving Germany a pretty free hand to send its forces around the world on combat assignment (as seen in the fact of German soldiers fighting from Mali to Afghanistan). Another reason was that given the state of the German armed forces in 2022, the sums of money then being talked about, and how very, very good militaries and defense ministries can be at making a very, very large sum of money go absolutely no way at all, the boosts to German defense spending would plausibly not translate to great changes in the size or capabilities of German forces relative to what they had been before.

Three years on I see no reason to change that assessment--and indeed every reason to stand by it, because the publicly available information shows just how little change there has been in Germany's position these past three years, with this reaffirmed by how German policymakers in the grip of aspirations to weltpolitik are demanding way, way bigger changes. Instead of talking about working toward boosting defense spending to 2 percent of GDP with a "one-off" supplement helping the process along the way Olaf Scholz did in February 2022, now, amid much talk of "Whatever it takes!" the minimum figure they have in mind is 3 percent, while they discuss exempting defense spending above 1 percent of GDP from the Holy Debt Brake, and talk of a €500 billion "special fund" (five times the supplement of 2022) for "infrastructure" (perhaps a redress of genuine need bolstering higher defense spending through its enabling of industry and stimulus to the economy, but easily imagined as a vehicle for more direct funding of military objectives). They also make explicit calls for conscription to enable the mobilization of a vastly enlarged force. (Germany's military reserve, like that of pretty much every European country, dwindled to nothing after the Cold War, so that even fully mobilized it does not raise the size of German forces amount to much more than 200,000. But the document published by the now parliament-dominating CDU/CSU calls for Germany to, with reserves mobilized, have over 500,000 at Berlin's disposal.)

Meanwhile, German European Commission President Ursula von Leyden is calling for a broader European effort on such lines, her ReArm Europe plan not only calling for a 1.5 percent of GDP boost in European defense spending by the member states (which would see Germany going well above the 3 percent of GDP mark as a spender), but also proposing a new "instrument" for defense investment capable of loaning €150 billion and the use of the EU's own budget, the previously proposed Savings and Investment Bank, and the existing EU member-stated owned European Investment Bank (EIB) to support such efforts. (Indeed, the EIB has already sent a letter to those member state governments proposing policy changes "allow[ing] investments into non-lethal defence products, provid[ing] unlimited loans to the defence industry . . . and measures to motivate commercial banks to follow suit in lending cash to the defence industry.")

Considering the implications of that German policymakers could expect not only to benefit from the direct policy alterations that have EU institutions providing direct support for its defense investments, cooperation with other countries better able to contribute to joint efforts because of the greater sums on the table, and other synergies that might follow from such a situation. Showing every sign of (once more) fancying themselves the "taskmasters of Europe" (Herfried Münkler only said what they were thinking, and how they behaved toward nations like Greece) they evidently expect to lead the combination--elements of which may well be more integrated into their own armed forces than observers of the scene generally appreciate, as with the little-publicized arrangement with the Netherlands' forces. (The Netherlands, which Emmanuel Todd characterized some time ago as having become "the mere outlet of Germany on the Rhine" anticipated by Friedrich List, has the three brigades of the country's one army division each equipped, organized, trained for and committed to, at the discretion of a deferential Dutch government, incorporation into one of Germany's three army divisions, significantly bolstering that country's ready combat capability--an arrangement that could be merely the beginning, as we see when we look at the plans for the integration of the air forces of Germany's close and similarly equipped neighbors Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Finland into a single fighting force.)

In contrast with the proposals of three years ago all this looks much, much more significant--if it is actually acted upon. Still, if with these proposals Europe's political elite certainly make clear their extreme enthusiasm for remilitarizing and rearming, I see no evidence whatsoever of comparable enthusiasm on the part of the European public for the project. Quite the contrary, that public has been increasingly hostile to their governments' dragging them into one increasingly costly "forever" war after another, just as they have been enraged by those governments' refusing to do much about their economic problems, the environment, and much, much else affecting their daily lives, and indeed going into reverse on anything that could be deemed a solution. (Indeed, the idea of repurposing unused funds for dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic's disruptions for rearmament seems entirely symbolic of how the elites think here--and discomfort with the idea a hint of how the public actually feels.)

Of course, as the policy record shows governments have pressed ahead with their preferences in complete contempt of voters' opinions, and often complete contempt of their constitutions as well. (Such is their version of the "democracy" and "rule of law" for which they claim to stand.) However, as governments raise taxes and cut services and inflict added inflation on publics already battered by decades of neoliberalism (all of that borrowing and government demand seems likely to have unpleasant consequences in a context of profound deindustrialization, structurally higher energy prices, lingering and painful inflationary shocks, and governments ferocious in their enmity toward social protections)--and gets rougher with labor and with dissent (and it's pretty damn rough now)--and sends draft cards to its young people as it demands their "sacrifice" of freedom, self and even life itself for the sake of objects they do not support and against which they indeed protested--those elites may find the going less smooth than they imagined in this way, as it may in so many others.