German defence minister Boris Pistorius said that his country was “taking on more responsibility” within Nato as he unveiled Germany’s first-ever military strategy in its postwar history.
Pistorius said that the EU’s most populous nation would work at “speed” to boost troop numbers and military readiness as part of a pledge to become the strongest conventional army in Europe.
“Our goal is clear: we will continue to strengthen the operational readiness of our Bundeswehr — and at a rapid pace,” he said.
The new 35-page military strategy, entitled “Responsibility for Europe”, is part of a sea change in Berlin’s approach to defence and security in the wake of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Germany has dramatically stepped up its military spending since 2022. It has also become the biggest supplier of weapons to Ukraine since President Donald Trump dramatically scaled back US support for Kyiv after taking office last year.
While Berlin had previously published defence white papers, it was for many years eager to avoid being seen as militaristic or nationalistic after the horrors of the second world war and focused on acting within the Nato alliance.
“There was still a denial that we needed a definition of national interests,” said Christian Mölling, director of the Berlin-based think-tank Edina. “We somewhat downloaded the strategy from Nato.”
The new document describes Russia as the “greatest immediate threat for freedom and security” in Germany and in the Euro-Atlantic region, warning that Moscow is preparing for an attack on Nato member states.
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It says that Germany, as the EU’s large economy, bears a “special responsibility” for reassurance of allies and their societies, for deterrence against Russia and for the defence of Nato.
The strategy avoids any discussion about growing doubts about the reliability of the US as a Nato ally under Trump.
Pistorius said that Germany was “of course” thinking about such scenarios. “But the purpose of such strategies would be completely undermined if we were to speculate about them publicly,” he said.
Large parts of the document were classified, he added, because “otherwise we might as well add Vladimir Putin to our mailing list”.
The strategy describes the US as both politically and militarily “essential” to Nato, while acknowledging that it is “increasingly orienting itself strategically towards the western hemisphere and the Indo-Pacific” and demanding greater contributions from European allies.
It says that the German armed forces must be able to deploy increasingly independently within the alliance.
It stresses the need to make up for key military shortfalls in Europe, including intelligence and reconnaissance capabilities and long-range precision weapons that are able to strike deep into Russian territory.
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The document discusses the changing nature of warfare, with increasing “blurring of boundaries” between military, civilian and economic targets, the growing use of hybrid warfare and the rise of autonomous weapons and AI.
It underlines the importance of adopting new innovative technologies at speed, to get the upper hand in rapid data collection and analysis.
It stresses the need to dramatically increase the size of the German armed forces, from about 185,000 professional soldiers today to a target of about 260,000. Officials also want to more than double the number of active reservists to around 200,000.
Pistorius, a Social Democrat, has faced pressure from some of his coalition partners from the centre-right Christian Democrats, who have voiced concern that the overhaul of the German military is proceeding too slowly.
Thomas Erndl, a parliamentary defence spokesman, has urged the defence minister to “pick up the pace”.
Mölling said that the publicly available parts of the new strategy were “general, very abstract”.
He added that they also lacked any discussion of industrial strategy — a fact that Mölling described as “astounding” given that the conflicts in Ukraine and Iran had shown the importance of having an industrial base that can support a long conflict.
But he said that, given Germany’s historical reticence to take a leading role in European defence and security, the document was nonetheless an important first step.
