While Germany has signalled a change of approach toward its armed forces, a number of challenges remain to be overcome before the Bundeswehr reaches a sufficient level of capability and readiness.
“As the most populous nation with the greatest economic power and a country in the middle of the continent, our army must become the cornerstone of conventional defence in Europe, the best-equipped armed force in Europe.” With these words, the Federal Chancellor described the political and strategic demands on the Bundeswehr in his speech at the Bundeswehr Conference on 16 September 2022, with a clarity that has not been seen in the last 30 years of German security policy. It is anchored in the June 2023 National Security Strategy, introduced as the ‘backbone of conventional defence’ in the November 2023 Defence Policy Guidelines and thus the basis for the future orientation of the Bundeswehr towards its core mission of defending the nation and her allies.
Ensuring credible conventional defence is a paramount military strategic-operational task. It requires the Bundeswehr to be able to conduct major conventional operations in a NATO context. To this end, it must once again be able to deploy and be ready for action at the same time, with large bodies of troops, no longer relying only on small troop contingents assembled for a specific mission, in a time-consuming manner, and for international crisis management. However, the current structure of the Bundeswehr, which is optimised for operations within this framework, is characterised by centralisation – especially of operational and command support – and by the distribution of responsibilities. This does not allow the Bundeswehr as a whole to respond quickly enough.
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In future, the Bundeswehr must have substantial operational and strategic reserves in its structure that do not currently exist. Only this way can the ability to reinforce allies within the framework of collective defence be credibly achieved. The divisions of the Army are currently only operationally capable with the support of other military bodies, and require more organic combat and operational support in when operating as large formations. During the Berlin Security Conference in November 2023, the Inspector of the Army described the drawing up of large formations from the current basic structure as “a nightmare for every troop commander”. Neither Germany nor any other European NATO member currently has the necessary support forces for the corps level. Only three of the twelve Bundeswehr field army divisions remain, though they were considered necessary for credible conventional deterrence and defence until 1990. Moreover, one of these three remaining army divisions is not scheduled to be ready for defence and deployment until 2025, and another until 2027, which shows how unsuitable the current basic structures and procedures of the Bundeswehr are for its new core mission.
In terms of size, structure, equipment and capabilities, the Bundeswehr of the future must clearly stand out in comparison with Germany’s European allies to credibly meet the requirements of conventional defence. The Bundeswehr’s capability profile must have a broad base; over-specialisation in certain tasks and cumbersome organisational structures are not compatible with force’s role as pillar of Europe’s conventional defence.
Multinational framework
NATO is the multinational framework for collective defence in Europe. With the Strategic Concept from June 2022, it has refocused on this core task, and decided to increase the deployability of parts of the NATO force structure by 2025 with the New Force Model (NFM) and new regional defence plans. Based on these changes, NATO determines its new minimum overall requirement for military capabilities, forces and resources as part of its quadrennial force planning process. The overall requirement will probably be geared more toward collective defence than for the previous focus on international crisis management. New planning goals will be formulated for each individual NATO nation by spring 2025. They will specify the scope, quality and availability of national armed forces and describe the specific national contributions to NATO’s collective defence.
Since 2023, the fulfilment of NATO planning goals has been anchored for the first time in the National Security Strategy and Defence Policy Guidelines as a national political requirement for the Bundeswehr. It must be consistently applied in the National Security Strategy and implemented, along with additional NATO requirements, to build a Bundeswehr capable of credible conventional defence. This was not achieved with the Bundeswehr’s previous concept from 2018, even though it already included NATO requirements at the time as an ‘essential target’ for the Bundeswehr’s capability profile. However, implementation was subject to available resources and national decisions. International crisis operations therefore de facto continued to determine the Bundeswehr’s capability profile rather than national and collective defence.
Resources
Germany’s National Security Strategy and Defence Policy Guidelines enshrine NATO’s target of spending 2% gross domestic product (GDP) on defence. This goes hand in hand with the NATO requirement to invest 20% of the defence budget annually in procurement as well as research and development. These NATO guidelines are not unrealistic or arbitrary political guidelines, rather, they are based on years of practical experience in NATO defence planning, outlining the minimum financial outlay for an operationally ready, modern and future-oriented armed force.
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Nevertheless, Germany deliberately deviated from these NATO decisions for decades after the end of the Cold War. The result of this deliberate underfunding in defence was a Bundeswehr that is too small, not ready for defence and not capable of war, with a considerable investment backlog.
The NATO 2% target is only being met through the current Bundeswehr special fund, and only for a limited period until 2027, meaning that only a very limited repair of the past is possible. Winning the future will only be possible if 2% on defence is allocated year after year, even after 2027. During the Cold War, Germany demonstrated that this is possible without jeopardising its own prosperity and as a successful welfare state. In view of the threat to the Federal Republic, defence spending was consistently well above 2% of GDP.
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A comparison with some European NATO member states shows the considerable differences in population size and economic strength. Germany’s obligation to protect by far the largest share of Europe’s population is not currently reflected by the size of its armed forces. Germany has the economic capacity to change this and to provide the necessary financial resources. There is simply no substitute for an armed force capable of credible conventional deterrence and defence.
Author: In his last assignment, retired Brigadier General Martin Konertz was Director for Capability, Armament & Planning at European Defence in Brussels.
