Prime Minister Keir Starmer wants a new defence relationship with Germany as part of the UK’s “reset” with EU countries, but what’s in it for Germany? The answer is help in being what it doesn’t want to be, but may be forced to become: guarantor of security in Europe.
It has the economic heft, the manpower, and the technology. However, since 1945, and especially following the fall of the Soviet Union, it has been content to let others do the heavy lifting.
Changes over the past decade have caused Berlin to rethink and imagine a future where the Americans have gone, and the French are unreliable. In that scenario, you’d better start hedging your bets, and for that, who are you going to call? London, and later, probably Warsaw.
Chancellor Scholz meant what he said three days after Russia marched into Ukraine in February 2022. This full-scale invasion was indeed a “Zeitenwende”, a turning point in European history.
The Chancellor committed 100 billion euros to rebuild the Bundeswehr (German armed forces) into Europe’s biggest military. Germany, he said, would also meet the 2% of GDP minimum defence budget spend expected of NATO countries. The following year, Defence Minister Boris Pistorius doubled down saying Germany would become “Kriegstuchtig” – war ready.
That is going to be challenging, but the reasons why a German cabinet minister could say what just three years ago was unsayable are not going away. As Pistorius points out, Russia’s army may reconstitute itself and be ready to attack a NATO state “within five to eight years”.
And, as Scholz knows, Europe cannot rely indefinitely on America underpinning European security. In the short term, a Trump presidency would insist on Europe paying for its own defence, and in the longer term, all US administrations will be focussed on the Pacific.
Since the late 1940s, German foreign policy has been wedded to the principle of partnerships within NATO and the EU. Until recently, that has not been a problem, but Trump’s threats about NATO, and America’s “pivot” to Asia, along with the changing political climate in France, requires looking at other friendships but still working within the existing security architecture.
Berlin has watched the antics of the French far left and right with anxiety. Marine Le Pen’s National Rally flirts with leaving NATO, while the leader of the far left Unbowed party, Jean-Luc Melechon, wrote a book about the “asphyxiating poison” that Germany spreads into the economies of its neighbours which “condemns them to poverty, social and political chaos” concluding that “Germany is therefore once again a danger”.
This does not mean France is leaving NATO and about to march on Berlin, but it does suggest it might be prudent to put in a call to the new leader of Grossbritanie. As Scholz said this week: “The United Kingdom has always been an indispensable part of solving the big issues that affect the whole of Europe. This has not changed since it left the EU”.
That was music to the ears of Prime Minister Starmer. The two countries are working on a new defence agreement following the signing of a declaration in July which will “contribute to nurturing and promoting the defence industrial base in Europe”.
President Macron has a view on that – possibly summed up in one word – ‘Non!’. Later this year, the European Commission will release an industrial strategy aimed at gearing up the EU’s defence capabilities in the face of Russia’s aggression and America’s potential draw down of support. Paris has limited patience for any non-EU countries becoming involved. It argues that this would undermine EU unity, although a more pressing concern is that it would undermine the French arms industry.
Others, notably the Dutch and Swedes, are more open to European NATO allies, such as the UK, playing a significant role. The language of the Anglo-German communique issued after the Scholz-Starmer meeting suggests Berlin agrees. If not, how can the two be “the closest of partners in Europe, with the strongest possible bilateral cooperation on the issues that matter most to our populations”. A Franco-German row may be in the making.
Militarily, it’s true the UK is relatively weaker than it has been for decades, but along with France, it remains one of the two major European military powers, and, has a very sophisticated arms industry. Germany is years behind. Most of the 100 billion Euros has been spent or will be by 2027. After that, to meet its stated aims, Berlin needs to find an extra 25 billion a year to meet the 2% NATO goal (and to be taken seriously).
It has a lot of work to do. From a fighting force of 500,000 personnel at the end of the Cold War, the Bundeswehr has shrunk to about 183,000. Military hardware was sold off and not replaced, and recently some of its most modern equipment has been given to Ukraine. The plan is to recruit an extra 20,000 personnel over six years while replacing the 20,000 or so who leave each year and equipping them with the most advanced weapons. Given Germany’s aging population, and a defence budget now under severe strain, that will be difficult.
So borrow. That will also be difficult. The German constitution limits borrowing – a policy rooted in the memory of inflation during the Weimar Republic. So raise taxes, and/or cut budgets. With the far right and left in the ascendant in Germany, that’s another problem Scholz must deal with.
But he knows these are new times, Zeitenwende times.
