[Skybird]

It has come about exactly as I predicted a year ago: the turning point in Germany's defense policy does not exist. And it will not come. The Neue Zürcher Zeitung draws this bitter conclusion (markings by underlining by me):
-----------------------------------------------


Lofty goals, hardly any results: Germany's "turnaround" [Zeitenwende] in defense policy is stuck

The Chancellor's big words have been followed by little. True, the government in Berlin backed away from its ban on arms exports to war zones. But the country's defense capability has not improved one iota.

The change was felt immediately when the war began a year ago.

The German navy launched everything that could float, when the Russian attack on Ukraine was just a few hours old. That should have been a sign of determination not to be intimidated by Putin.

The inspector of Germany's land forces sent out a Linkedin post to the world on the morning of the raid in which he admitted, with rare candor, that the army was pretty much not operational - "more or less bare." That was honest.

And the armaments chief in Berlin's Defense Ministry rounded up the CEOs of the German arms industry and its suppliers for a video conference. They were to help quickly boost the Bundeswehr's operational readiness. Such a meeting was unimaginable until then.

This was the turn of the times, as described by Chancellor Olaf Scholz to the German Bundestag on Feb. 27, 2022: "The world after this is no longer the same as the world before."

Germany back to military dominance in Europe?

But what has remained of this determination, this honesty, this changed mindset? Have times changed, has Germany's security and defense policy changed? Or have times remained the same as they were for three decades after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, except that it is now harder for Germans to close their eyes to realities? The short answer: yes. The long answer: it's complicated.

"We need to invest significantly more in the security of our country to protect our freedom and our democracy in this way." So said Chancellor Scholz in his turn-of-the-century [Zeitenwende] speech, announcing a "special fund" for the Bundeswehr: 100 billion euros. That sounded like such a huge sum that some countries worriedly asked whether Germany was heading back toward military domination in the center of Europe.

They can rest assured. There is still a long way to go before that happens.

Germany's turnaround in defense spending has so far failed to materialize. The "special assets" are only enough to close equipment gaps that have resulted from cutbacks and underfunding over the past thirty years. More would be needed to eliminate all deficiencies in the short term and make the Bundeswehr operational in the long term. Scholz had recognized this: "From now on, we will invest more than two percent of the gross domestic product in our defense year after year," he said a year ago.

But just one month later, when presenting the federal budget for 2022, he again called this target into question.

Scholz has said goodbye to the two percent target

The defense budget did increase by almost 7 percent to just over 50 billion euros. But that was only 1.5 percent of German economic output, especially since inflation ate up the increase. This is where things are set to stay in the coming years. The budget for 2023 does not show any increases, and neither does the German government's medium-term financial planning. The Institute of the German Economy estimates that Germany will miss the two percent target in 2023 and from 2026 on. [Inflation will further increase the gaps in the defence budget, Skybird]

Germany will miss the two percent target
Defense spending including special assets in billions of euros
Defense spending from special assets / According to NATO definition
Difference to two percent target / Forecast (from 2024)



1 Assumption: special assets are used to achieve the two percent target.
Source: Institut der deutschen Wirtschaft / NZZ / ski.

So Scholz has long since rescinded his announcement. At the security conference in Munich a week ago, he no longer spoke of "more than two percent," but only of "two percent" of the gross domestic product for the Bundeswehr.

But even this amount is not enough for the government. To reach the two-percent target this year, 18 billion euros are missing. Expenditures of about 8 billion are earmarked from the "special assets." That's why Defense Minister Boris Pistorius is now demanding 10 billion euros more, but not until 2024. His predecessor, Christine Lambrecht, could have already done that for this year. But she didn't.

For Pistorius, there is another problem: He does not have 100 billion. The so-called special assets are financed by debt, and interest already reduced it by 13 billion. If the defense minister wants more money for the defense budget, either Finance Minister Christian Lindner would have to raise taxes. Or the other departments would have to give up money. Both scenarios are unlikely.

"Special assets": more money budgeted than available

The turnaround in the Bundeswehr is being put into perspective even before it can really be implemented. But has anything at least already been done with the money? The answer is no. But the Bundeswehr has plans for what it is to be spent on. The largest part (41 billion euros) will go to the air force for fighter jets, helicopters, drones and air defense systems.

The navy is to get frigates, guided missiles, reconnaissance aircraft, multi-purpose combat boats and submarines worth 19 billion euros, while the army is to receive armored personnel carriers and armored transport vehicles (17 billion). In addition, 20 billion will be spent on digital radio and command and control systems for the entire Bundeswehr. All in all, this is already more than is available in funds minus the interest burden.

Not much of all this has yet been ordered. Last December, the Bundestag approved the purchase of 35 F-35s and part of the 20 billion package for digital radio.

And even if orders have been placed, it does not mean that results will be visible tomorrow: It will be many years before the needed weapons arrive. It simply takes time to build a fighter aircraft like the F-35 and the infrastructure needed for it in Germany. The first U.S.-made aircraft is scheduled to arrive in Germany in 2027, but training will begin in the U.S. in just two years.

New weapons: Nothing happens for four months

Other delays are systemic and homemade. When Scholz announced the additional 100 billion a year ago, there was no budget for the current year. The government was new, and deliberations did not begin until a month later. It was June before the Bundestag approved the spending. That was four months in which nothing happened.

Another five months followed before the first procurement projects were presented to parliament. After that, Germany's top soldier, Inspector General Eberhard Zorn, said that the Bundeswehr had never before committed to funding such sums so quickly. But the question is why the Defense Ministry did not work ahead to get the procurement of urgently needed equipment underway immediately after the "special fund" was passed.

The Bundeswehr knew what it lacked above all: ammunition. Instead, it was business as usual. The Ministry of Defense and the Bundeswehr wasted time with months of deliberations, for example, about whether a future artillery system or a new infantry fighting vehicle should be tracked or wheeled.

Germany is structurally incapable of defense

The overtaxed and disinterested Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht let it happen, including the fact that the wrong priorities continued to be set at the procurement office in Koblenz. All of a sudden, the Bundeswehr again has a lot of money that this office has to convert into concrete projects. In previous years, the maximum amount of money to be implemented by the agency per year was around 7 billion euros. Now it will be significantly more.

Lambrecht could have relieved the authority in Koblenz of a time-consuming and personnel-intensive task last year. The material used by the armed forces is managed from Koblenz. This includes, for example, the purchase and storage of spare parts. The Army, Air Force and Navy can do that themselves, just as they used to. But Lambrecht and her leadership team did nothing. [Skybird: she instead brought in many party friends of her mindset and massively increased the bureaucratic staff in the defence ministry, bogging things down further: thats one of the reasons why I said repeatedly she was not only incapable and uninterested, but had an interest to actively sabotage the defence capability of Germany, she is counted as an extreme left in the SPD].

As a result, policymakers still find themselves in an arms procurement jungle that has grown over decades. It is the result of political aimlessness and half-heartedness - for more than three decades, armaments were not a relevant topic as part of security provision in Germany. So writes the military expert of the German Council on Foreign Relations, Christian Mölling, in a recent study. And further: "This political-strategic vacuum was filled with the loving care of bureaucratic processes. These exist by the thousands and multiply without the intervention of politics!"

Germany is structurally incapable of defense. Whether that is the bureaucracy taking on a life of its own or a lack of political will: The system is failing. This has not changed even after the turnaround proclaimed by Scholz.

Germany simply carries on as before

It still makes no difference whether the new construction of a highway section or the procurement of weapons is put out to tender. Award procedures in Germany continue to be conducted as if there were no new security situation in Europe. As a result, other nations have already placed orders with the German arms industry ahead of the domestic Bundeswehr.

By the parliamentary summer recess in July, 24 procurement projects will now be submitted to the Bundestag for approval, including heavy transport helicopters (Chinook), guided missiles, air defense systems (Iris-T) and guns to replace howitzers supplied to Ukraine. [Means: it will last even longer, Skybird]

The Germans have shaken their heads at their dysfunctional armed forces and their equipment for decades. No wonder, the main mission of the Bundeswehr was in Afghanistan for more than twenty years, and that country was far away. But changing times is not just about money, defense, arms procurement and armed forces. It starts in the mind.

The mental turnaround threatens to get stuck

The number of Germans who want everything to be the way it was before the attack is growing. They are calling for negotiations and rejecting arms deliveries. But at the moment that would be nothing more than giving Putin what he wants. The mental turnaround in Germany is threatening to stall. In order for the turnaround proclaimed by Scholz to actually become such, he must break down the deeply rooted rejection of fundamental change.

That it can be done in principle is evident in the German government. The left wing of the Social Democrats, in particular, has painfully abandoned its strict rejection of arms exports to war zones and its basic stance of "creating peace without weapons. Reality beats ideology. [There is also a strong camp that wants to block the "militarization" of Germany, Skybird].

Last year, the German government delivered "lethal and non-lethal equipment" worth 2.2 billion euros to Ukraine, including howitzers, air defense systems, machine guns, armored vehicles and ammunition. This year, further arms assistance worth 2 billion euros is planned, including battle tanks and infantry fighting vehicles. All in all, Germany is Ukraine's third-largest supporter after the United States and the United Kingdom.

So far, the turn of the tide in Germany has largely remained just a buzzword. Only gradually are the Germans realizing that they have to say goodbye to the cherished illusion of a self-evident peaceful world order. Slowly, something is returning to the reality of their lives that was already found in the writings of Plato some 2,500 years ago: "If you want peace, prepare for war.
--------------------------------


Das wird nix mehr mit Deutschland. Zu kaputt.