The Sunday Read: ‘Can Germany Be a Great Military Power Again?’

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The New York Times

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🗓️ 12 March 2023

⏱️ 53 minutes

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Summary

After Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February last year, Chancellor Olaf Scholz of Germany told Parliament that the attack was a Zeitenwende — a historic “turning point” for Europe and Germany. The risk of a large land war in Europe had previously been considered far-fetched, but recent years of Russian aggression have inspired fear in Germany and a 100-billion-euro fund to bolster its military. In Germany, skepticism of the merits of military strength has enabled a long post-Cold War process of disarmament. As a result, it is a historic anomaly in the heart of Europe — an economic leviathan but a military minnow. Now German leaders are vowing to transform the country into a military power capable of taking responsibility for Europe’s security. In Nienburg, a medieval town in Lower Saxony, civilians come to train for “homeland protection” units in the country’s reserves. The question is whether a hesitant German society can follow through on this paradigm shift. “I would say, many of them lean in the direction of being pacifists,” said Anne Katrin Meister, who is training at the base in Nienburg. “But you can only be a pacifist if you have this safe, ideal world. And we don’t have such a world.”

Transcript

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0:00.0	My name is James Angeloos and I'm a contributing writer to the New York Times magazine.
0:08.2	This week's Sunday read is a story I wrote about Germany and its attempt to build up its
0:12.7	military after a Russian invasion of Ukraine.
0:22.2	When Russia invaded Ukraine last year, the German Chancellor Olaf Scholz called it a
0:26.8	sight and vendor.
0:34.3	Scholz went on to say that Germany would increase defense spending to more than 2% of its GDP
0:40.5	and quickly spend 100 billion euros to bolster the Bundeswehr Germany's armed forces.
0:47.2	It was a tectonic shift for Germany.
0:52.6	Germany is Europe's strongest economy but for long it has spent relatively little on defense
0:57.8	and it has an ingrained skepticism of military power.
1:01.9	Because of that, the state of Germany's military, to say the least, is deficient.
1:06.8	We're talking about soldiers even lacking protective vests and backpacks.
1:12.3	During the Cold War, West Germany's approach to the Soviets was to try to keep the peace
1:17.2	by building economic relations.
1:19.8	The theory was that close economic interdependence with less than the chances of a nuclear apocalypse.
1:26.7	But with the invasion of Ukraine, it became clear for Germany and other NATO members that
1:32.0	this theory of interdependence had failed.
1:35.6	Since the end of the Cold War, Germany had more or less disarmed and it's been easy to
1:40.7	do that because its defense has been assured by the US.
1:45.8	But now, what's at stake is whether Germany could ever defend itself, let alone, help defend
1:51.8	the rest of Europe.
1:54.3	So here's my article.
	...

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