Opinionated piece by Stefan Wolff, Professor of International Security, University of Birmingham, UK.
… the EU’s largest and Nato’s second-largest economy, Germany is now also aiming to turn its Bundeswehr (the German army, navy and air force) into the “strongest conventional army in Europe”. Its most senior military officer and chief of defence, Carsten Breuer, has published plans for a rapid and wide-ranging expansion of defence capabilities.
Germany is finally beginning to pull its weight in European defence and security policy. This is absolutely critical to the credibility of the EU in the face of the threat from Russia. Berlin has the financial muscle and the technological and industrial potential to make Europe more of a peer to the US when it comes to defence spending and burden sharing. This will be important to salvage what remains of Nato in light of a highly probable American down-scaling – if not complete abandonment – of its past security commitments to the alliance.
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It needs to be a pan-European “together we’re strong” strengthening of military power, not one with big nation “guarantors” and little nations praying not to be trampled on.
Defense guarantors is always a dangerous game (have we learned nothing from History, including just now with the US!??), and having Germany as such is even more dangerous, not just for Historical reasons but also due to its current trend towards authoritarianism and Genocide-support, both via AfD and the broader political choice for Autoritarian-lite (with that “lite” being ever less so) reactions against criticism of the Gaza Genocide.
I don’t know were Germany will end up, but its current trend is to move away from Democracy and Humanitarian Values, so better for the rest to not rely on Germany for their protection, lest we all in the rest of Europe end up with another German Surprise.