One reason both Kaiser Wilhelm and Adolf Hitler were able to plunge the globe into successive world wars was that the German military was just that good. The combination of Germany’s industrial might and the Prussian military tradition proved a deadly and potent combination, which (along with innovations in tactics and technology) explain how the Wehrmacht rolled over so much of Europe between 1939 and 1941.
Even after the war, those factors still made West Germany’s reformed Bundeswehr one of the more formidable fighting forces in NATO.
But those days of military prowess appear to be gone, a victim of budget cuts.
If Europe is to take its destiny into its own hands any time soon, Germany has a lot of work to do—the Bundeswehr, Germany’s defense ministry, is suffering from multiple readiness crises in a culmination of years of cost-shaving and poor management decisions. And the latest symptom to emerge of that crisis is the dwindling number of actually functional fighter jets that the Luftwaffe, Germany’s air force, can actually call combat ready. For the Eurofighter Typhoon, Germany’s main fighter aircraft, that number is four—out of a total of 128.
But that’s not all:
The German Navy has had to refuse delivery of the first of its new class of frigates after the ship failed sea trials, and only five of the Navy’s existing 13 frigates were capable of being deployed. The last available German submarine was pulled out of service for repairs, as all the other submarines in the fleet sit in drydock or sit idle due to lack of replacement parts. (One of those submarines may now be back in service.) The German Army was found to lack enough tanks and armored personnel carriers, or even enough basic equipment for soldiers, to fulfill its commitment to NATO’s Very High Readiness Task Force at the beginning of 2019. While 105 out of 244 Leopard 2 tanks were called “ready for use,” only nine could be fully armed for the VHRF. Only 12 of 62 Tiger attack helicopters and 16 of Germany’s 72 CH-53 cargo helicopters were available for exercises and operations last year; the rest were grounded for maintenance. At any time over the last year, only three of the Bundeswehr Airbus A400M transport aircraft were ready to fly.
Stars and Stripes has more on the same theme:
Germany’s military is virtually undeployable and security experts say it is too weak to meet its obligations to its allies, as it prepares to assume command of NATO’s crisis response force next year.
Pressure on Berlin is mounting after a series of revelations has exposed the German military as one of the least combat ready in NATO, despite its economic heft.
“The readiness of the German military is abysmal,” said Jorge Benitez, a NATO expert with the Atlantic Council in Washington. “For years, German leaders have known that major elements of their armed forces, such as tanks, submarines and fighter jets, are not fully operational and can’t be used for actual military missions.”
The military dysfunction is likely to re-emerge as a flashpoint between Berlin and Washington when President Donald Trump attends a NATO summit in July.
Berlin’s persistent shortcomings and resistance to meeting NATO spending targets is likely to further strain relations with Washington and risks a standoff that could eventually test the unity of the alliance and the American commitment to it.
Trump, long ambivalent about the value of NATO, remains fixated on Germany as a security free-rider: The alliance “helps them a hell of a lot more than it helps us,” Trump said in December.
If you’re going to have one major industrial power suck at war, Germany is a pretty good candidate, given all the Historical Unpleasantness that resulted when they didn’t. But that development does make it unlikely that NATO can maintain anything like the agreed-upon level of deterrence.
(Hat tip: Borepatch.)
Tags: Bundeswehr, Foreign Policy, Germany, Military, NATO
Not sure I see the point of NATO anymore. The old saying was that its purpose was to keep the Russians out, the Americans in, and the Germans down. The first and last are a lock, so why the second?