What to make of Germany's new military strategy?
German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius (SPD) has presented a military strategy that aims to make the Bundeswehr "Europe's strongest conventional army", and explicitly named Russia as a threat. The number of active-duty soldiers is to rise from the current 185,000 to 260,000 by 2035, with the number of reservists increasing to 200,000.
Berlin taking responsibility at last
The Financial Times gives its seal of approval:
“Unlike the UK and France, which still hold pretensions to project power globally while lacking the military and financial means to do so, Germany's strategy is laser-focused on the Russian threat. Berlin sees Moscow preparing for confrontation with Nato while already waging a campaign of 'hybrid' war tactics to destabilise and damage European countries.. .. Given its bloodstained 20th-century history, renewed German military strength may make some of its neighbours uneasy. But they have less to fear from German militarism than from its continuing reluctance to deploy the forces at its disposal.”
Huge gap between aspiration and reality
For the Frankfurter Rundschau, the critical question is how the Bundeswehr plans to go about recruiting new troops:
“And here the gap between aspiration and reality is still huge – even at the level of voluntary military service. If you want to get young men and women interested in joining the military ... you need to provide them with suitable accommodation in barracks and not warn about overcrowding in popular locations. The billion-euro fiascos – such as the switch to digital radio or the difficulties in establishing a single brigade for Lithuania – have hardly helped matters. Not to mention the numerous defence projects that are struggling to get off the ground, or those that are widely considered to be questionable investments. It is details like these that will determine the success or failure of the mammoth project to reform the Bundeswehr.”
Not an indication of aggression
Writing in the pro-Kremlin Izvestia, political scientist and Germany expert Maria Khorolskaya sees no cause for concern:
“The numbers cited by Boris Pistorius – 260,000 active soldiers and 200,000 reservists – are nothing unusual. The German Ministry of Defence's increased activity is less about preparing for aggressive action than trying to fill the gaps left by chronic cuts in defence spending. ... The current military strategy looks more like an attempt to get the Bundeswehr into an operational state than a drive towards aggressive remilitarisation.”