German war performance will be staged at the imminent summit of the alliance. Between monstries and will to military power, Berlin craves a place in the sun.
A defection announced the organizers of the next NATO summit (the first under the guidance of the new general secretary of the alliance, Mark Rutte) which will be held in L’Aia Tuesday and next Wednesday: the 32 leaders of state and government will participate in the meeting in addition to the partners and representatives of the European Union. The eyes are focused on Donald J. Trump’s America, called to formulate their intentions regarding the Annunciated Disengagement USA by the organization. The declarations of the American ambassador to the NATO, Matthew G. Whitaker, are to tell the real reassuring: some of the approximately 84 thousand American soldiers in Europe could be repositioned elsewhere quickly (“There will be no decennial negotiations”) but “we will remain in this alliance and we will not allow any security gap to emerge in NATO before the European forces can replace the American skills”. The US Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, also suggested that Washington remains in support of the alliance in exchange for a more consistent economic effort from the European allies. The goal of the top according to Rutte is in fact, trivially, that of better redistributing financial charges by agreeing on a new goal of defense costs equal to 3.5 percent of GDP, as well as a further 1.5 percent for defense needs (infrastructure and resilience).
Yet, in the face of the reassurances of the first financier (According to estimates, the US contribute with 5 percent of their budget, about 50 billion dollars of the Pentagon budget 2024, editor’s note), the Europeans have caught the jump ball to promote a radical march reversal that could mark the beginning of a new era. With the alibi of an improbable total American withdrawal (however presented to public opinion as a looming) and of an imminent Russian threat, the European economy, whose important automotive sector is in crisis after the disastrous failure of the Green Deal, intends to benefit from an acceleration of military orders in Europe.
To pull the ranks of the European rearmament is, ça va sans say, Germany, led by the new Christian-democratic chancellor Friedrich Merz. There is an unusual silence of the media on Berlin’s intentions, but the words spoken on April 28 by the President of the Republic, the Social Democrat Frank-Walter Steinmeier, leave little room for assumptions. «Today with the war of Putin, Germany is in a crucial position and an appeal is addressed. We have collected it, you can count on us! “Said Steinmeier, and then announce:” We will strive to make Germany the backbone of conventional defense in Europe. A badly -armed Germany is a greater threat to Europe of a strongly armed Germany, “he continued,” the German parliament has mobilized 500 billion euros for the next 12 years, they should be enough to demonstrate that we are serious and we are serious “. Promise or threatening?
The birth of the organization of the North Atlantic Treaty in 1949 responded to different needs that the first NATO secretarythe British Lord Hastings Ismay had effectively summarized with the well -known recommendation to “keep the Americans inside, the Russians outside and the Germans under”. Berlin does not have atomic and his security depends on Washington. But on March 20 the decision of the German Parliament to upset the Constitution to allow, for the first time in Teutonic history, a debt plan without limits to forage the weapon industry, constitutes the legal piece at the basis of the German conquest of the European military leadership, presented to public opinion as “inevitable”.
The March vote was followed by Merz’s forward escapes and his government: in May Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul confirmed that Germany would spend 5 percent of the GDP for defenseon May 14 the chancellor promised that the German one would be “the strongest conventional army in Europe” (“apparently the story does not teach these people”, commented the Russian minister Sergej Lavrov). The head of defense, Carsten Breuer, has published plans for a rapid expansion of military reaction skills. In mid -May, the Chief of Staff Alfons Mais alerted the citizens: “From 2029, at the latest, Russian forces will be able to start an attack against the NATO territory”. On 22 May Merz presented a German battleship brigade in Lithuania, the first with permanent headquarters outside the country since the end of the Second World War. In the meantime, Berlin is developing plans to quickly expand his network of bunker and shelters.
Of course, there will be to work on public opinion, which does not appear aligned with the government’s fogue: According to a recent IPSOS survey, two thirds of the Germans (67 percent) believe that the federal government should remain militarily out of the conflict. On the other hand, according to the research of the Levada Institute in Moscow, thanks to the initiatives of the new Teutonic executive, Germany is now perceived by the Russians as the “most hostile country”.
Even the main media push for a military commitment across the board and leverage the “Russian threat”, although according to Steve Witkoff, councilor of President Trump in charge of diplomacy with Moscow, Russia does not represent a threat to Europe.
The plans of “minilateralism” cultivated by Merz – Small models of cooperation that integrates structures other than EU and NATO such as the E3 format (Germany, France, the United Kingdom), E3+ (with Poland and Italy) and the triangle of Weimar (France, Germany, Poland) now extended to Enghiltera, in addition to the coalition of the willing – currently run out in sterile walks in Kiev in favor of camera.
The European Union is still very far from achieving concrete goals because, as Ursula Schröder of the Amburg IFS, observed, “More than strengthening European defense skills, the national ones are being strengthened.” And it will not be easy for Berlin to be able to win again the role of Primus Inter Perses in the face of powerful, ambitious allies and equipped with nuclear weapons such as France and the United Kingdom. Then there are objective limits: the air defense, the IT skills and the intelligence of European countries depend strongly on the United States and to replace them Europe, according to estimates, should spend about a trillion of dollars. Finally, the European Union pays the scotto of seventy years of decision -making inability: the common policy regarding the award of public procurement will inevitably raise harsh disputes on the distribution of competences with respect to mutual national interests.
Germany itself seems far from being able to achieve quickly the objectives of military superpower that has been conferred. According to a study by the Kiel Institute, between 1992 and 2021 the number of tanks decreased from 6,684 to 339, that of combat planes from 553 to 226.
The parliamentary commission of the German armed forces found that many military barracks are dilapidated. In addition, the German army (Bundeswehr) currently has almost 182 thousand soldiers and about 60 thousand reservists available, Merz wants to take them to 220 thousand (compared to the approximately 500 thousand soldiers in service during the Cold War) but could be obliged to reintroduce the compulsory conscription, as Zelensky does in Ukraine. He has to deal with the average age of the German soldier, 34 years old: young people do not want to be called to defend their country.
In short, the NATO top of NATO in L’Aia risks transforming itself into the usual, unsuccessful catwalk while, between a Berlin launched in the rush to the armaments and the Europeans unable to make peace and war, on the Ukrainian territory we continue to die.
