‘New status quo’: Germany reaches for European conventional military dominance

BELFAST — Outside snipers roamed the rooftop but inside the prestigious, if dated, halls of Hotel Bayerischer Hof, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz delivered typically frank oratory, reaching 15 years back in history to explain his vision for rebuilding the country’s armed forces.

It was in 2011, Merz said, that Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski issued the following “clear warning with respect to Germany”: “I fear German power less than German inaction.”

Most, if not all of the audience gathered for the Munich Security Conference in mid-February would have been familiar with the phrase. But as Europe begins to come to terms with deteriorating transatlantic relations with the US, Merz seized the moment to lay down a marker: Germany will step into the breach.

“As I have often said, and reiterate here, we will make the Bundeswehr the strongest conventional army in Europe as soon as possible — an army that can resist if it has to,” he remarked.

Remaking the German military into a powerhouse is a lofty goal — and one in no small way fraught with historical complications — but it’s one that analysts said appears credible for Berlin. Historic financial investments, they said, have been matched by political will amid rising Russian aggression and an increasingly erratic, withdrawn US.

But key questions remain, including the matter of military culture in Germany, and the short-term wisdom of some high-profile investments.

It is “largely accepted” that Germany has a “big responsibility” to transform its armed forces and that it stands out as “one of the few countries in Europe with the financial capacity to pursue large-scale rearmament, ideally within a short period of time,” Fabian Hoffmann, a missile expert, told Breaking Defense.

This is the “new status quo” he added. 

Show Me The Euros

After decades of underinvestment, Berlin is flipping the script by moving ahead with a seismic increase in defense spending, set to hit a high mark in 2029 of €150 billion a year. The figure dwarfs combined future years projected military spending of the UK and France, Europe’s second and third biggest spenders. British budgeting is forecast to reach £74 billion in 2028, ahead of Paris committed to realizing a total of €64 billion in 2027.

Ed Arnold, senior research fellow for European Security at the Royal United Services Institute, said that Germany’s spending drive is significant in part because it backs up a clear “political declaration.”

In contrast, he said senior UK politicians have publicly called for preparations for war, but additional spending commitments have been slow to materialize. British and European observers are still waiting for the government to publish its defense investment plan, originally slated for release last year.

“You just don’t get that [scenario] in Germany, because they put huge amounts of money behind” messaging on defense and security threats, he explained.

There is also the case of Russia to consider when thinking that money alone will lead to Germany’s strongest conventional army pledge becoming a reality, according to Paul Taylor,  senior visiting fellow in defence and security at the Belgian-based European Policy Centre think tank. Moscow’s spending outstrips Europe, but after four years of war in Ukraine, it has yet to claim victory over Kyiv.

Critically, Merz’s army pledge is also backed by a €377 billion, long-term acquisition plan, reported by Politico. Citing internal government documents, the publication said that new land based vehicles and weapon technology planned for order include hundreds of Puma infantry fighting vehicles, IRIS-T and Skyranger 30 air defense systems. Other key investments reportedly cover US made F-35 fighter jets, P-8A Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft, MQ-9B SeaGuardian drones and Tomahawk cruise missiles.

The German Ministry of Defense declined to comment on the Politico report, telling Breaking Defense that “internal plans for the development of the armed forces and capabilities are classified for reasons of military security.”

The Nuclear Side

Beyond the major push to advance conventional capabilities, Berlin is also mulling how to expand nuclear deterrence, chiefly through exploring cooperation with France and the UK. “This is not about Germany becoming a nuclear power,” said Arnold, “but securing greater assurances from the UK and France that if push comes to shove” German territory would be covered.

The strongest conventional army pitch is “distinct from Europe’s leading military superpower (which is why Merz’s phrasing matters): Germany would not have nuclear weapons or aircraft carriers (for example) like France and the UK have,” said Paul van Hooft, research leader at RAND Europe. “Yet Germany is also spending €35 billion on space-based military surveillance, where Germany and Europe now have dependencies on the US, which tells us that Germany is looking to take on a different role.”

Both Paris and London rely on submarine launched ballistic missiles as the basis of their nuclear deterrents. Germany’s future F-35A fleet is set to take on a dual capable aircraft role, succeeding Tornado planes, with the Lockheed Martin-made fighter jets capable of carrying US B61 gravity nuclear bombs.

“If we now consider that the United States nuclear deterrent vis a vis Europe has become a lot less credible … obviously you have to think about compensating [for] that,” Hoffmann explained. “The straightforward answer for Germany is [collaboration] with France, potentially also with the United Kingdom.”

“The subtext” of Merz’s speech in Munich was that Germany can no longer rely on the US, said Paul Lever, a former UK ambassador to Germany. “They have these dual key arrangements … with the United States, whereby the Germans have access to American warheads, but only if the Americans agree to turn the key.”

As Breaking Defense reported on Tuesday, Germany, the United Kingdom, Poland, the Netherlands, Belgium, Greece, Sweden and Denmark are all part of discussions related to a possible “forward deterrence” group that could benefit from France’s nuclear umbrella.

“You could imagine the possibility of having bases in Germany or in Poland or Sweden that were capable of receiving French nuclear armed aircraft,” Taylor said prior to the forward deterrence development. “It would take … secure construction but you could even imagine potentially storing French nuclear warheads outside France, closer to Russia, if that were necessary.”

An Early Challenge: Deep Strikes

There have, however, already been some stumbles, analysts said.

For instance, modern conflicts have shown that a key piece of conventional power lies in a nation’s ability to strike far into enemy territory, facilitated by high end systems at the upper end of the cost curve. 

But even as Gen. Carsten Breuer, Germany’s defense chief, warns that Russia could attack NATO by 2029, Hoffmann argues that the country has failed to adequately invest in and acquire deep strike systems. The problem, as he sees it, is two-fold because the flagship European Long-Range Strike Approach (ELSA) has also been slow to progress.

“Little has happened of significance in the last four years in terms of overcoming conventional long-range and deep strike missile capability gaps,” he said. “Germany has a dramatic capability gap … and it also has not yet made efforts to close” it, or at least not in a way Hoffmann “would see as appropriate.”

A better strategy, he suggested, would have been for Germany to contract European missile house MBDA to relaunch Taurus long range precision missile production back in 2022 and in parallel focus on acquisition of a lower cost deep strike capability like a long range drone or miniature cruise missile — with buy-in from other European nations.

There has been more recent movement on that front. In December 2025, joint venture partners MBDA and Saab signed a contract with Germany in preparation for a Taurus Neo production line. The Neo variant is an upgraded version of the missile with a range over 500 kilometers (310.7 miles). “MBDA plans to produce large quantities in Germany,” said the company in a statement at the time. The munition is planned for integration on Luftwaffe Eurofighter Typhoons in support of air-launched deep strike capabilities.

As for ELSA, after four signatories agreed to launch the initiative in 2024, six nations signed a letter of intent in February reasserting a commitment to “undertake significant efforts to enhance deep-strike capabilities,” according to a joint communique. Partners Germany, France, Italy, Poland, Sweden and the United Kingdom have squandered two years talking and are not any further along the road to “actually putting something like this in service,” said Hoffmann.

A 2024 report from the Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) forecasted that under ELSA, development of a cruise missile instead of a ballistic munition “is likelier because of European defence-industrial firms’ significant experience in developing the former compared with the latter.” The future weapon could offer a range of 1,000 to 2,000 kilometers (620 to 1240 miles).

“The missile will probably be compatible with all the [NATO] alliance’s aircraft, all the surface vessels that have cruise missile launch capability, and simple launch trucks on land,” William Alberque, former director of arms control at NATO, previously told Breaking Defense. 

The Personnel And Culture Issues

Taylor said more subtle components also must be assessed when judging Germany’s push toward a dominant conventional army on the continent, including a poor recruitment and retention record, alongside an inferior “strategic culture” compared with other major European nations.

The reference to strategic culture is understandably linked to “historical reasons,” he said, but also covers limited German combat operations in recent years and restraints at a political level.

“There’s still an awful lot of thinking around the army as a public service, very much under parliamentary control. The German parliament has to give consent before the army can go anywhere or do anything, really, and that would have to be, perhaps, modified,” if Merz wants to deliver on his pledge, added Taylor.

Arnold said what also matters is a mix of physical, conceptual and moral components. Essentially, what will Berlin do in a time of crisis?

“Ethical leadership, moral foundations, all the stuff that, again, Russia didn’t have, but Ukraine has in spades,” is critical. “The issue is, you can’t buy the moral component, money will only buy you the physical stuff. It won’t tell you exactly what to get, [or] how to use it in the best way.”

Expanding on this line of thinking further, he said the “whole point is you can spend loads of money on defense, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you won’t hesitate, and that’s where the question marks over Germany still arise, because, apart from a fairly benign deployment in Afghanistan, post-2015 they haven’t done a lot.” In 2021, the last German troops were withdrawn from the counterinsurgency mission that ran for two decades in response to 9/11 attacks from al-Qaida against the US. Berlin’s involvement in the Afghanistan campaign accounted for 150,000 soldiers and led to the loss of 59 servicemembers.

Arnold’s specific reference to frontline hesitation, however, centered on a wargame that simulated a Russian incursion into Lithuania, put together by Germany’s Die Welt newspaper in partnership with the German Wargaming Center of the Helmut-Schmidt University of the German Armed Forces. In the fictional scenario, Moscow used a humanitarian crisis as cover to take over the city of Marijampole. Berlin’s response was reportedly indecisive.

But with Merz’s speech and a recent visit to the White House, he seems to be positioning Germany as more of a nation of action, or at least of more consequence, especially when it comes to conflict in Europe.

Speaking to reporters just hours after sitting down with US President Donald Trump, Merz attempted to set a red line when it came to US negotiations with Russia about Ukraine.

“We are not prepared to accept an agreement that is negotiated over our heads,” he said.

Whether the US or Russia will listen remains unclear.