War in Ukraine sparks German rethink on defense, security

The experts agree: Armed conflict elsewhere will continue to shape life in Germany in the coming year. Questions of war and peace will influence more and more political decisions because, ever since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, the possibility that Russia could attack NATO territory has grown more likely.

Take road construction — just one example among many, as political scientist Christian Mölling told DW. Roads and bridges in Germany, he said, would have to be upgraded because many current roadways and bridges are not designed to support the weight of tanks and other heavy military equipment.  

Mölling, director of the Center for Security and Defense at the German Council on Foreign Relations, recently presented a report that rang alarm bells among Berlin's political elite. The report demonstrated that, in the worst case, NATO countries only have five years to rearm, or else the alliance would no longer have the military power to deter a potential Russian aggression. 

Germany entering a new era

Germany is rapidly entering a new era. For three decades following the fall of the Iron Curtain, Germans trusted that the end of the Cold War had also banished the threat of a major armed conflict. Those days are over, now that Ukraine is experiencing war on its own soil.  

Political considerations that Germany forgot after the fall of the Berlin Wall are now back on the agenda. "A comprehensive defense policy demands especially that civilian infrastructure and society itself be made resilient enough to withstand a war," said Mölling. That could lend military significance to the municipal planning of a new road bridge, especially if the bridge in question would play a strategic role in a war situation.  

Mölling sees an opportunity in the looming effort. He argues that, to restore its overall defense, Germany must "suspend certain regulations for a period of time. In the paper we characterized it as: More investment, less regulation."  

Germany's problem with the 'Zeitenwende'

Yet people in Germany have a problem coping with the new realities. It has been nearly two years since Chancellor Olaf Scholz's historic speech in parliament announcing "a turning of the times," or "Zeitenwende," a term meant to underscore that military policy and Germany's defense capabilities had again become a priority, as they were when the Berlin Wall was still standing.    

Most German security analysts and defense experts, including Mölling, have said Ukraine is defending the rest of Europe's freedom, and even more. If Russia defeats Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin will continue to wage war and eventually attack NATO itself, they said.

But when they were asked about where Germany should cut spending in these times of nearly empty state coffers, 54% of Germans surveyed in an ARD-Deutschlandtrend poll replied aid for Ukraine. In another opinion poll, however, conducted by public broadcaster ZDF, more than 70% said Ukraine should continue to receive weapons, or even greater amounts of military equipment. 

Mölling sees this contradiction reflected in government policy. "Many people, not least in Germany, fail to understand that in defense matters, you cannot push a button and then have tanks rolling off assembly lines the next day," he said.

"It simply takes a long, long time before these kinds of production capacities are established. Germany's government and governments across Europe can justifiably be accused of not having seen the signs of the times and begun producing much more," he added. "Not because Ukraine needs it, but because we do, too."

Preparing for Trump

These realities have gained even more urgency when factoring in the possibility of a US presidential comeback for Donald Trump, who, some fear, could pull the US out of NATO altogether.

"We must prepare now," and not just once it happens, Moritz Schularick, director of the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, told DW. The think tank publishes a "Ukraine Support Tracker" of international military and financial aid to Ukraine, a recent update of which showed that Germany is now the second-most important arms provider to Ukraine after the US.

Yet Germany's military production capacity has not risen significantly, as Mölling pointed out. "We are only plugging gaps. We have not begun to build up the production capacities we will need to meet the deadlines set down in our paper," he said.    

This article was originally written in German.

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