“Germany is back,” Friedrich Merz victoriously declared, fresh off securing a historic deal to boost military spending. Once, such a statement might have sent shudders across Europe. Now, it brings cautious relief. With the postwar order in disarray, London, Paris and Warsaw aren’t just willing to accept a rearmed Germany: they’re demanding it. Germany, it might seem, is finally ready, and the continent’s security autonomy on the horizon.
Yet this confidence is misplaced. Years of underinvestment have left Germany’s military and defence industry depleted, while a deeper failure to reckon with the past has drained societal will. The common thread running through the country’s economic, political and social struggles is a lack of cohesion — an underdeveloped sense of togetherness that saps Germany’s ability to act with resolve. Money alone won’t fix what is broken.
The Bundeswehr, once a formidable force, is now a shadow of its former self. At its Cold War peak, the Federal Republic’s armed forces boasted more than 500,000 soldiers, sailors and aviators. Today, that number has shrunk to barely 180,000, with one-in-four new sign-ups quitting within six months. Despite Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Zeitenwende pledge following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, battle-readiness has deteriorated. Just half of brigades are deployable, down from nearly two-thirds in 2022, while soldiers on Nato’s eastern flank lack basic communications gear. A parliamentary oversight report exposed critical deficiencies in weapons, equipment and infrastructure. The head of Germany’s armed forces association put it bluntly: the Bundeswehr is “blanker than blank”.
Part of the blame lies in what Germany is supposed to be so good at: making stuff. But the inconvenient truth is that the country’s defence industry is fragmented. Thyssenkrupp Marine Systems, a maker of non-nuclear submarines and surface vessels, can’t match the scale or capabilities of Britain’s BAE Systems, much less giants such as America’s General Dynamics, Russia’s United Shipbuilding Corporation or the China State Shipbuilding Corporation. Rheinmetall, a manufacturer of land weapons systems and Germany’s largest defence contractor, took two years to open a new munitions factory after the outbreak of the war in Ukraine. So, while Moscow has long since shifted to a war economy, Germany is struggling with logistical and industrial shortcomings.
Beyond military weakness, Germany’s economic entanglement with China presents another grave vulnerability. Volkswagen, BMW, Mercedes-Benz, BASF, along with a host of smaller manufacturers, derive a substantial share of their revenues from the Chinese market. And given that China maintains its strategic alliance with Russia, Germany might struggle to stand its ground with regard to Ukraine. Any diplomatic pressure from China might lead to more Scholzing.
We have already seen Germany’s reluctance to challenge China. The 2022 purchase of the Tollerort shipping terminal in Hamburg, by China’s state-backed COSCO shipping company sparked alarm, but it went through all the same — albeit for a reduced stake — after Scholz intervened, wary of China’s reaction if it were blocked. Duisburg, home to Europe’s largest inland port at the confluence of the Rhine and the Ruhr rivers, is a crucial node in China’s Belt and Road Initiative and over 100 firms from the country have set up offices there. Leipzig-Halle Airport has seen Chinese investment in cargo operations. China’s Huawei has been a major supplier of telecommunications infrastructure to Germany, despite warnings from allies of espionage risk.
Germany’s Western loyalties are also undercut by a rogue’s gallery of Kremlin and Beijing sympathisers. That’s especially true for the Alternative für Deutschland, which doubled support to become the second-strongest party in the February election. The far-Right nationalists want to reestablish normal relations with Russia, including restarting gas imports, and would unwind Germany’s integration with Europe. It’s not just the political fringe though. The Social Democrats have had an ambivalent relationship to Moscow, even after Gerhard Schröder left the chancellery for well-paid roles in Russian boardrooms.
And compounding these political shortcomings is Germany’s fragmented counterintelligence system, a byproduct of the country’s federalist mindset. Unlike the British or American centralised services, Germany’s apparatus is divided across multiple agencies with overlapping jurisdictions. The Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) monitors domestic threats, the Federal Intelligence Service (BND) handles foreign spying, and the Military Counterintelligence Service (MAD) focuses on defence-related espionage. Complicating matters, Germany has 16 regional intelligence services, charged with roles from counterespionage through to monitoring extremists. The result is bureaucratic inefficiencies and inter-agency rivalries that have left Germany vulnerable to foreign infiltration.
These weaknesses were laid bare last year, when a German general inadvertently provided intelligence on the Taurus missile system on an unsecured Webex call. The information was swiftly leaked by Russian media. Former UK Defence Secretary Ben Wallace has warned that German intelligence and political networks are deeply infiltrated by Russian operatives. Carsten Breuer, inspector general of the German armed forces, called the division between internal and external security a “gateway” for hybrid Russian attacks.
Germany’s inability to take clear positions stems from decades of failing to create a cohesive national identity. As we have detailed, only a thin fabric holds the country together: a shared economic prosperity — known as Wohlstand für Alle — and the uninspiring concept of not being Nazis. As the economy sputters, and ethnic nationalism reemerges, the country is left with little consensus. This fragility was evident in Merz having to push his spending reforms through the parliament that was voted out of office in the February election. That’s because in the new Bundestag, the AfD and other fringe parties had enough votes to block constitutional changes. So even if he has the authorisation to raise money, it’s based on a frail foundation that’s ill-suited for long-term military revival.
And the internal divisions run deep. The trauma of reunification left parts of the East with lingering affinities for Russia. The growing ranks of the poor see no reason to fight for a system that has left them behind. The wealthy are comfortable and detached with little interest in the suffering of the broader populace. Immigrants are often treated as outsiders, and show little loyalty to a nation that doesn’t fully embrace them. A broader societal reckoning is needed, and Germany is far from having it.
“A broader societal reckoning is needed, and Germany is far from having it.”
While Germany has been one of the prime beneficiaries of the postwar order, there is scant support for defending it. Despite rising concern about Russia, only about 15% of Germans support a significant increase in military spending or troop numbers, according to a recent study from the Centre for Military History and Social Sciences of the Bundeswehr. While Germans strongly back Nato, they are less supportive of aiding the Baltics or taking a leadership role in the alliance, and most Germans under 50 say they wouldn’t take up arms to defend their country.
Young Germans, in particular, are opposed to the build-up, and are already more polarised than the rest of the population. In the latest election, the two strongest parties among voters under 25 were the Left-wing Die Linke, which is against Germany’s rearmament, and the Russia-friendly AfD. Both parties opposed Merz’s spending plan when it was pushed through the old Bundestag, driving a deeper wedge in society. The entire process of securing the billions for defence creates an existential risk for Merz.
So, at a time when young people face dwindling prospects from Germany’s sputtering economy and are being tasked with paying pensions for a growing number of retirees, a 69-year-old conservative is laying the groundwork for them to fight and potentially die for their country or some vague notion of Western ideals. That was already a foreign concept for a country that embraced demilitarisation after reunification and deepened that post-security attitude after compulsory service was suspended in 2011.
Just how difficult it will be to win over the younger generation is evident in Ole Nymoen’s new book called Why I Would Never Fight for My Country. “Yes, I’d rather live less freely than be dead,” the young German writer told Berlin’s Tagesspiegel, summing up the apathy of his generation. For a country where militarism has brought only pain and suffering, there is no tradition of heroism. No “Greatest Generation” to invoke. No parades celebrating national pride. War memory is dominated by images of gas chambers and collective shame, not the societal effort that’s remembered in Britain.
That means when Merz says, “Germany is back,” he doesn’t mean it’s ready to fight. At best, he means it’s ready to spend, and he seems to be slowly coming to terms with the risks. “We are aware of people’s many concerns,” the conservative leader said recently as he battles to retain support. “A lot is at stake these days. It is about the future of Germany and Europe.”
Merz is right. There is a lot at stake. But without a drastic shift in the country’s culture and debate, Germany will simply be blowing hot air.
