By German standards, it was a shocking moment in 2022 when, after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, center-left Social Democrat Chancellor Olaf Scholz announced the Zeitenwende or turning point. In response to Moscow’s aggressive invasion of Ukraine, Berlin’s defense posture would shift to a war footing.
In addition to vast, far-reaching sanctions on the Russian banking, arms, and, most especially, energy sectors, Chancellor Scholz announced the creation of a special, one-off fund that would inject vast sums of money into defense by German standards.
Friends and Allies had long lambasted the German Bundeswehr. Critics stated the group was domestically inefficient at best and hopelessly ineffectual at defending the country at worst. But, the Chancellor explained, it would receive a €100 billion shot in the arm and the biggest rejuvenation since the end of the Cold War and subsequent military draw-down.
Though lambasted across the world at the beginning of the conflict for its hesitancy in supplying Ukraine with weapons and ammunition, Berlin would eventually, albeit slowly, become one of the staunchest supporters of Ukraine, which it remains today.
The German government continuously updates a complete list of its military aid to Ukraine, which can be seen here.
Germany’s Military: On the Comeback Trail?
It was, in essence, a clever accounting trick that leveraged a loophole to circumvent Germany’s constitutionally mandated debt brake.
Chancellor Angela Merkel’s tenure at the helm saw German lawmakers enshrine in law a debt brake, essentially a federal rule forbidding surplus spending in excess of 0.35 percent of GDP. Germany—one of the world’s most fiscally solid and financially responsible countries with a sterling credit rating to boot — essentially tied one hand behind its back by forbidding virtually any excess spending.
One exception that lifted the rule was for emergencies, put into practice most recently during the COVID-19 pandemic, when the debt brake rule was suspended to combat the virus.
To the outside observer then, it was almost inexplicable that the largest, most brutal war in Europe in 80 years did not make the cut as an emergency. But there it was anyway, Chancellor Scholz’ Sondervermögen, the special one-off €100 billion, was passed in response to the Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine via constitutional amendment, and technically in adherence to Germany’s debt brake spending law.
As impressive as that sum was, it was not sustainable—Germany’s core defense spending levels had not risen, and once the fund was spent by 2026 or 2027, basic spending levels would remain the same.
Defense Spending and Growth: Spillover Effect
There are clear arguments to be made that an increase in German defense spending above and beyond the current levels, and sustainably into the future, will not be a drag on the economy but a generative force for economic growth—which becomes even more critical when considering the current economic uncertainty caused directly by the current American administration.
The Kiel Institute of the World Economy, a think tank, studied the issue of increased defense spending and reached some important conclusions.
“There is broad consensus that the economy expands to accommodate at least part of the increased defense spending, production, procurement, and employment. There is some disagreement on the magnitude of this expansion and whether military spending crowds out or stimulates the private sector. The effects will depend on the context, including the ECB’s response and the source of financing,” the report explains.
“A conservative estimate is that the Europe-wide GDP will grow by 0.9% to 1.5% if defense spending increases from 2% to 3.5% of GDP. This implies only a limited tradeoff between armament and private consumption in the short run in the short run.”
But one of the report’s most substantial findings is remarkable. It says that “the long-run productivity gains from military spending may be substantial. The best examples of public research and development are for military applications and there is evidence of spillovers to the private sector.”
Furthermore, “a transient 1% of GDP increase in military spending could increase long-run productivity by a quarter of percent both through learning-by-doing and R&D. The returns to public R&D are particularly high and may pay for themselves. R&D spending has been identified as one of the three main keys to addressing Europe’s lagging productivity in the Draghi report.”
Interestingly, the report bashed NATO’s percentage of GDP spent on defense metrics. “Setting percent-of-GDP targets for military spending is counterproductive. It may lead to procyclical macroeconomic policies and dis-incentivize efficient procurement.”
“Instead,” the report says, “one should conduct a long-run cost-benefit analysis of the materiel and personnel requirements against their expected fiscal cost and allow procurement to achieve the highest quality at lowest cost possible.”
The Newest Chancellor and the Defense Spending Reform—or Revolution
Chancellor Scholz’s days are numbered. In May, German lawmakers will meet to officially anoint the center-right Christian Democrat Friedrich Merz as the new Chancellor following the recent snap German federal elections. Merz’s defense spending plan is ambitious.
It dwarfs the previous one-off €100 billion fund in both scope and sustainability. In addition to increased military aid to Ukraine, the incoming Chancellor’s coalition negotiations yielded a €500 billion special fund tied to defense and infrastructure investment.
While a welcome boost to the Bundeswehr and German defense industry, perhaps more important is the future of defense spending—the Merz-led government amended the constitution. It exempted defense spending from the constitutionally enshrined debt brake. German defense spending will no longer be tied to minuscule percentages of GDP but allowed to increase as necessity arises.
What Happens Now for Germany’s Military?
So, while Germany’s newest Chancellor does not yet hold office, it is clear that Germany’s industrial might will soon be put to the test of reequipping and rearming the moribund German Bundeswehr. If it is enough to fend off Russia, should the United States cement itself in opposition to Europe, however, remains to be seen.
About the Author: Caleb Larson
Caleb Larson is an American multiformat journalist based in Berlin, Germany. His work covers the intersection of conflict and society, focusing on American foreign policy and European security. He has reported from Germany, Russia, and the United States. Most recently, he covered the war in Ukraine, reporting extensively on the war’s shifting battle lines from Donbas and writing on the war’s civilian and humanitarian toll. Previously, he worked as a Defense Reporter for POLITICO Europe. You can follow his latest work on X.
Trocantor
April 17, 2025 at 7:07 pm
[Q]. In addition to vast, far-reaching sanctions on the Russian banking, arms, and, most especially, energy sectors, .. . [/Q]
What form will support for energy sectors take? Wind and solar? Not good enough. Reverse their “net zero” fossil fuel policy and enrage then Greens? Restart nuclear power plants?
Horsemen-of-the-Apocalypse
April 17, 2025 at 9:28 pm
It’s time for russia to provide advanced military systems to iran (and north korea and india) if world geopolitical circumstances start to totter on the edge of extreme proportions.
Which seem to be taking place.
Daily genocidal butchering in gaza. Germany returning to the days of 1935. US wanting to take over greenland before china does. Nazi forces still going strong in europe. Erdogan having a free hand in syria.
Time to prepare for armageddon.
Arkius
April 18, 2025 at 9:46 am
Your apoplectic fear of German national security is hilarious, unrealistic and irrational.
Relax, and let the adults do the heavy lifting.
George Gordon Byron
April 17, 2025 at 10:24 pm
1) If the NATO countries (Germany, i.e.) not expanded, not trying to ridicule Russia, Europe (Germany, incl.), continued and bold to live the Russian consuming resources and successfully developing.
2) If Ukraine had not taken an anti-Russian position since 1991, using Russian resources and investments (1991-2014) in the amount of 250 billion dollars, it would not have happened.
If it had not become a Russophobic, Bandera, Nazi country then the events of 2014-2025 would not have happened.
JingleBells
April 17, 2025 at 10:45 pm
In 1914, germany a bit too hastily declared war on france, opening up a pandora box that ultimately proved to be extremely ruinous to germany itself.
In 1941, germany again very hastily invaded the soviet union, even though it was only a year earlier decisively defeated in the battle of britain. It proved completely ruinous for germany.
Today, as germany grapples with an increasingly growing migrant problem at home, it’s eagerly looking for some new military adventure abroad.
Third time’s the charm is probably the very thing germany’s counting on today.
Heil mertz. Sig heil sig heil.
Ol'Timer
April 17, 2025 at 10:51 pm
Now send troops to Ukraine, Germany.
The UK, France, Germany, and Italy have combined populations, incomes, assets, and productive capacity greater than Russia.
Your troops could get combat experience by killing North Koreans and thus free Ukrainian conscripts to fight the Russians in Ukraine and Russia.
Russia will scream, “You’re going to start WWIII!” and then it’ll wait for your reaction. When you yawn in their faces, they’ll just keep doing what they’ve been doing because further escalation would prove fatal to . . . Russia.
George Gordon Byron
April 18, 2025 at 8:43 am
For the Old Time:
1) For those stuck in the Old Time: the New Time has already passed, the Newest Modern has arrived. The Old Time (Middle Ages), the New Time and the Newest Modern Time have passed and are passing you by. You have the outdated thinking of a person who does not know history well.
2) The invasion of the united European barbarians and others like them on Russia, off the top of my head:
1. The fight against the Teutonic Order, 1240-1242.
2. The Time of Troubles, 1598-1612.
3. The Battle of Azov, 1641-1642.
4. The Patriotic War of 1812.
5. The Crimean War, 1853-1856.
6. The First World War and intervention, 1914-1921.
7. The Great Patriotic War, 1941-1945.
Should I tell you how it all ended?
3) Churchill: “It was the Russian bear that gutted Nazi Germany”
In the same way, this Bear will gut NATO, the EU, if this Bear has nothing to lose.
Russia’s nuclear potential is the largest in the world.
4) Tell me, what is your education? Didn’t you study this at school? Or is this a Ukrainian school?
P.S. Although, Western education is in decline, judging by the level of thinking of many “experts”, including those with doctoral degrees.
Swamplaw Yankee
April 19, 2025 at 4:09 am
The German people had a long term interest in the state of Ukraine. The flow of technology and capital from Germany over the last 200 years has seen academic attention over the last 100 years.
In ww2, the German structure could not be cognitive about war food needs. Therefore it did not send enough agriculturists to Ukraine, ensured its cascading calorie deficit right into 1947. Food flow of calories was a key component of overall German military health.
What ever Larsen mentions, there will be enough calories in 2025 to feed the lundsmen. The very same industries were strangled in WW2 by the failed food policy of the internal food planners.
Air, land, sea technology Industries in WW2 were strangled as the citizen, slave and the DP had a slimming calorie number. Who could be given a bit more calorie became a death game.
As Hitler witnessed in person the crazed genocide by starvation that the orc moscovite elite carried out on the Ukrainians in 32-33 he was hit by the magnitude of the 20 million killed by the orc muscovites. He was also impressed by the orc muscovite genocide of millions of German colonies that had long existed inside of Ukraine. This crime seems to be avoided by the WEST.
He made the mistake that cost him the war. He mistook food as a lesser component of the Industrial need of military Germany.
The German industry needed a re-mix to survive the air penetrations by the allies. It was re-mixed But, the food was limited, so a choice had to be made.
The solution was allowed to slip thru a cognitive mess. Millions of ethnic nationals comprised the Bolshevik muscovite elite orc force. Captured by the millions, the Germans had minimal food for these millions of captured orc muscovite slaves.
The filtration of Ukrainian men was ordered but was haphazard. There was zero enforcement of the application of these Ukrainian men to food production. The focus of giving Ukrainians the role they had in agriculture stopped good food harvests in Ukraine. Too many Ukrainian men were needlessly lost to starvation and plain murder.
The orc muscovite commissars often killed huge numbers of ethnic slaves whenever it suited the muscovite orc.
The numbers of killed Ukrainian men and women by the orc muscovite butchers in WW2 far exceeds any death number statistics for 2014 – 2025.
This WW2 interlude was a wonderful role for the ancient genetic needs of the russian peasant. The ethnic russian had spent thousands of years killing the groups all around itself. The muscovite elite was ecstatic in the forcing of slave captives into front line meatgrinders. The Russian Commissars used the scam of Marxism Bolshvik blab to mass murder on a grand scale. The WEST still refuses to print in English the exact data of the huge numbers of slave ethnic captives killed or captured by the Hungarian, Romanian + NAZI army.
One can read of the Ukrainian city of Sevastopol. Commissars there killed at will, rather than let captive slaves surrender!
That Germany will face very high energy costs, the fact of the above Larsen depiction will continue. The Germans will find that the Ukrainians will be “the” market as the perpetual orc muscovite genocide of Ukrainians continues. The perpetual part is not inside the inner beltway brain logic.
The Ukrainian father of 2025 is the same Ukrainian father of 1616. Having to kill orc muscovite elite who have a crazed need to satiate their inner genetic desire for young children.
The orc muscovite elite jumped in 2014 at the OBAMA Democrat unilateral green lighting of the free, no-cost giveaway of ancient Ukrainian soil and families of Crimea. Putin immediately sent in “little green groomers” to locate, kidnap and transport by air express little girls and boys to very needy russian deviate language teachers and table top owners. Maria claims the number human trafficked is over 700,000!
Genocide on the Ancient soil of Ukraine has been continuing in the the very full view of the enlightened, informed, democratic WEST states + their MSM. As a result, a cultural climate has been established in which ethnic strife and genocide are increasingly being accepted by the MAGA cabal, elite and rank and file.
German industrial heritage and strength, per above, is necessary for Ukraine to stop the orc muscovite child kidnappers.
Whackoff and the shill, parrot charade is the opium that stops the rank and file MAGA from understanding their complicit role in this ongoing “Balkanization”.
Ad rem: Till the ordinary MAGA demand of Whackoff, et al, that a pre-payment of $10,000,000 gold bullion per kidnapped child is prime and paramount, the Potemkin Village canvas images waved about will continue to deceive the unwary. -30-
George Gordon Byron
April 19, 2025 at 8:39 am
1) Your “When Hitler personally witnessed the insane genocide by famine that the Moscow Orc elite inflicted on Ukrainians in 1932-1933, he was amazed at the scale of the 20 million Muscovite Orcs killed,” suggests that you personally were next to Hitler, the idol of people like you.
2) For the underachievers: in 1932-1933, more than 7 million people died of starvation on the territory of the USSR – the Volga region, the Central Region, the Urals, the North Caucasus, the Crimea, Western Siberia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Belarus.And especially: In 2013, the M. V. Institute of Demography and Social Research. Birds of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine (!!!) He held an international scientific conference “Famine in Ukraine in the first half of the 20th century: causes and results (1921-1923, 1932-1933, 1946-1947)”, where estimates of demographic losses as a result of the famine of 1932-1933 were published: the excess number of deaths in Ukraine amounted to 3,917,800 people, Russia — 3,264,600, Kazakhstan — 1,258,200, a total of 8,731,900 in the entire territory of the USSR.
3) Therefore, the insinuations about the deliberate genocide of Ukrainians have no basis. In addition, there were famines in Romania, Czechoslovakia, and the United States in the 1930s. And in the USA, with a loss in demographics of 9 million people.
PS I don’t comment on the rest. because your pseudo-historical stream of insinuations is inexhaustible. You’re posting the same thing. You don’t have any fresh ideas.
5am
April 19, 2025 at 11:55 am
LOL we will see. What is certian tho is the era of fat european welefare queen nations is over. Im Doubtful however that a military reformation will do much good if euro culture continues to wallow in myopic self loathing and islamification.
Quartermaster
April 19, 2025 at 3:44 pm
@JingleBells
Germany did not start WW1. That falls on France and Russia. Of all the powers involved in WW1, Germany mobilized last.
It is Sieg, Not “Sig.”
Swamplaw Yankee
April 20, 2025 at 2:58 am
The need to reduce blather to fact is a cognitive journey that seems to end with death.
The current orc muscovite elite war on Ukrainians is continuing in its 22nd year as I write. According to many of the world’s respected fact-gathering organizations, this orc muscovite elite “inner need” involves genocide.
Others can speak more to the Chechen focus of the orc muscovite. Others can speak more to the Balkan focus of the orc muscovite. Both theatres of muscovite dalliance carry principles that seem identical to the need for genocide and human trafficking that exists in Ukraine.
Postmodernism reduced the world to a cognitive text of rational media images. I argue that ominous signs exist that suggest despite the rhetoric of democracy and capitalism spreading to the “former Bolshevik (Communist)” structure ( sometimes states) the inner psychology of ethnic groups remains to erupt in Classic “Lemkin” genocide much before Lemkin was born.
Is it a mistake that Lemkin had Ukrainian millions of bodies as handy evidence for his “new” semantic food for the MSM images?
Yurko, good ole Yurko: The WEST had a IGOR stumble into the MSM. Remember, Just a few weeks after the Orc muscovite elite sub-set, the Commissars killed more Ukrainians than the HOLODOMOR muscovite ethnic “event”, IGOR Gouzenko stumbled out of the Ottawa muscovite hangout with “hot” RED files. The Cecil street orc muscovite hangout was only a few minutes walk from our old RCMP HQ.
Suddenly, yes suddenly, the USA accepted “new” semantic food for the Yankee MSM!
The ole buddy of Hitler, Stalin, who was frankenstiened into an ally, was instantly turned by Igor’s files into the beastly cold war “enemy”.
Yurko raises points.
1- Hitler: remember the Biography. So many missing years of this mans life. No body knew where on Mars Hitler had been vaporized to! The Yankee knew what Frenchmen George Washington murdered, but the Vast country of Tibet was a part of Mars till 1959 or 1960. Let the Commies kill off the Tibetans because Stalin pulled down his Redlines!
Ad rem: over the decades various missing time frames of Hitlers life were slowly revealed to the MSM. The best blank segment was Hitlers years as a “Tourist” inside England.
Yurko seems to be upset that I mention one of the missing segments of Hitlers life still omitted by the MSM. Maybe “Yurko” has a inside tip about Stalin’s close blood buddy?
2- Yurko (George) seems to want to play the data game. Yurko must be a russian who is compelled by their inner genetic makeup to deny that any Ukrainian died in the HOLODOMOR. The reality is that all over the world, the russian FSB and/or diaspora constantly forces the data game of the HOLODOMOR Genocide to approach zero.
The Yurko (George) muscovite types want to deny that the most killed ethnic group in WW2 are Ukrainians! Not Muscovites. Muscovites are where on the chart: below the 2oth group.
Yurko even makes out that the Bolshivek Commissars some how convinced the USA to have a 9 million famine demographic figure. Did some one inform the USA MSM? Hollywood made this Yurko fact into a movie?
3- There is NO insinuation, Comrade Yurko. The 1616 army of Ukrainian fathers attacked Muslim sex traders on the Black Sea and in sex fort Kaffe (Feodosia). The Ukrainian fathers then trailed the gold laden caravans of muscovite sex traders back to their home base: Moscow.
Yurko, needs to calculate in public the millions of Ukrainians butchered, sexually abused and sold in concubinage over the centuries by the deviant ancient russian peasants that now hide behind their muscovite orc elite.
The orc muscovite Commissars killed millions of Ethnic Ukrainians all thru WW2. Particularly vicious butchery when the Orc were legal blood brothers with the NAZI party. Yurko, add up those numbers.
4- The text I issue refers to the “Potemkin Village” cognition. The orc muscovite elite, pre-Bolshevik freely butchered Ukrainians during their “Imperial” empire era.
When the Yankee invention, the steam RR hit Ukraine, the RR was used to move sex traders + foreigners south to the Black Sea. The Czar structure used the PR of visual media to fool foreigners that the local Ukrainians were not captives, serfs kept in russian slavery.
Today, the Media is full of “Potemkin Village” blank canvases.
Yes, Yurko, history is so repetitive. The repeating of 1616 Ukrainian fathers fight with ancient Russian sex trade traffickers is not known by the nice but uneducated Yankee Doodlers. The Yankee Doodle needs to know that the 2013-14 unilateral sellout by the Obama Democrats of ancient Ukrainian soil and families resulted in 12 uninterrupted hunting seasons of little Ukrainian girls and boys. Maria claims that 700,000 kidnap children are in current deviant russian suppression.
Whackoff and his shill, parrot charade fill the Yankee MSM with images of love rubbing Putin. The Wahckoff stooges refuses to demand that compensation and reparation of $10,000,000 gold bullion per victim is pre-paid by Putin, et al, before any Trump unilateral sell out scam proceeds. The Wahckoff shill parrots demand that the orc muscovite kidnappers get FREE sex trade trafficking as a Trump MAGA free, no-cost give away gift. The Wahckoff shill parrots refuse to state to the MSM that FREE sex trade trafficking is the Trump MAGA free no-cost give away gift to the million plus number of deviant muscovite elite.
Yes, peer reviewers, Comrade Yurko does not complain that Wahckoff, et al, is so repetitive, so boring in the MSM by repeatedly, forcefully not mentioning this unique Trump MAGA gift to Putin and his sex human trafficking elite. -30-
George Gordon Byron
April 20, 2025 at 8:50 am
1) Before Russia announced the mobilization, there was an event: The July Ultimatum was an ultimatum demand made to Serbia by Austria-Hungary on July 23, 1914, following the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand and his wife on June 28, 1914. The ultimatum was not fulfilled and served as a casus belli for the outbreak of the First World War. 1) By this time, Austria-Hungary included: Austria, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Croatia, Slovenia, a significant part of Romania, small parts of Italy, Serbia, Poland, and Western Ukraine. In 1908, Bosnia and Herzegovina joined the empire. 3) therefore, the war between the Entente and the Triple Alliance, over political, economic, territorial and other disagreements, was inevitable.
홀덤뉴스
April 24, 2025 at 1:58 am
The Zeitenwende, announced by Chancellor Olaf Scholz on February 27, 2022, marked a historic shift in Germany’s defense and foreign policy