Germany Needs a Scarier Army to Daunt Putin

Germany’s armed forces are “more or less bare,” the country’s most senior army officer, Alfons Mais, complained in 2022 on the morning of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Three years later, Germany is finally meeting its NATO commitment to spend a minimum of 2% of gross domestic product on defense. But it’s still far from able to protect itself effectively or fill the gap left by the US’s fraying security guarantees. In the wake of the verbal bombshells dropped last week by Vice President JD Vance and other Trump administration officials who sound dismissive of Europe and all too ready to abandon Ukraine, the need for German rearmament to step up a gear is plain.

Europe’s biggest economy needs more fiscal firepower to sustainably fund its armed forces and more soldiers to secure the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s borders. A reform of its needlessly restrictive so-called debt brake and reviving military service should therefore be at the top of the next government’s priority list.