As of: February 15, 2024, 10:30 a.m
By: Stefan Krieger
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Press
Split
Despite increasing expenditure, the Bundeswehr remains far from combat-ready.
The federal government generously defines what contributes to defense.
Brussels/Berlin – What Donald Trump was unable to do during his term as president with his threats to persuade Germany to increase military spending has now apparently been achieved by Vladimir Putin with his invasion of Ukraine.
For the first time in three decades, Germany has reported to NATO planned defense spending amounting to two percent of gross domestic product.
According to research by the
German Press Agency,
the federal government submitted an amount for the current year that, when converted into comparative figures from the defense alliance, corresponds to a sum of 73.41 billion dollars.
In absolute terms, this is a record for Germany and, according to the current NATO forecast, would mean a GDP ratio of 2.01 percent.
100 billion euro special pot for the Bundeswehr
Germany has reached the target with the help of the 100 billion euro special fund for the Bundeswehr, which is expected to be exhausted by 2027.
The federal government confirmed on Wednesday (February 15) that Germany wanted to meet the goal in the following years from 2028 onwards.
It is clear to everyone “that we have to put significantly more money into defense, into the defense budget, because the special fund will no longer flow into it - and that is the main task,” said government spokesman Steffen Hebestreit in Berlin.
Boris Pistorius, Federal Minister of Defense: A little trickery with the numbers.
© Marcus Brandt/dpa
Defense Minister Boris Pistorius (SPD) said in Brussels that the householders were now racking their brains over the question of what would happen from 2028 onwards.
This is necessary, but it is still too early to answer that today.
Bundeswehr is far from “warworthy”.
Regardless of the increasing expenditure, the Bundeswehr is clearly away from the declared goal of war capability and so the two percent target alone is not an indicator.
It can take years for some ordered weapon systems to reach the troops, which at the same time have handed over equipment and ammunition to Ukraine.
One of the parameters that recently worsened was that there were only 181,500 soldiers at the turn of the year, 1,500 men and women fewer than a year earlier.
As the news channel
ntv
is now reporting, the federal government and Defense Minister Boris Pistorius have defined quite generously what contributes to Germany's defense - and is therefore included in the numbers.
This includes interest payments for federal debt as well as the special assets of the Bundeswehr or pensions for former soldiers in the GDR army NVA - and 7.5 billion euros in aid for Kiev in the Ukraine war.
This money would also contribute to achieving the quota.
Without these expenditures declared as “defense expenditure”, the sum would not add up to two percent of GDP, according to
ntv
.
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Inspector General Carsten Breuer also admitted in an interview with
Welt am Sonntag
that Germany will only be able to provide NATO with some of the capabilities it has promised and that it will be “honest about the matter”.
He didn't get any more specific.
However, there are doubts as to whether the army division promised to be operational by 2025 will actually be there.
During the Cold War, the quota for the Bundeswehr was over three percent
In the past, according to documents from the NATO archives, Germany last spent two percent of its gross domestic product (GDP) in 1992.
During the Cold War years the rate was usually over three percent.
The development of defense spending by the NATO states will be discussed this Thursday at a meeting of defense ministers at the alliance headquarters in Brussels.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said on Wednesday in Brussels that he assumed that this year 18 of the 31 allies would achieve the NATO goal of spending two percent of their gross domestic product on defense.
That is six times as many as in 2014. At that time, only three alliance partners achieved the two percent target.
New figures for the Bundeswehr: increase of more than 20 percent
The new German figures correspond to an increase in defense spending of more than 20 percent compared to the previous year, according to NATO circles.
The last public report on defense spending by the alliance states only gave a comparative figure of $56.64 billion and a GDP ratio of 1.57 percent for Germany for 2023.
According to information from the dpa,
these numbers will
now be corrected upwards in the next report.
According to the Ministry of Defense, the money will be used to finance, among other things, new armored personnel carriers, frigates, submarines and state-of-the-art F-35A multi-role combat aircraft.
Trump keeps threatening
The numbers could also be helpful with a view to a possible re-election of Donald Trump in the US presidential election in November.
The Republican made it clear during a campaign appearance at the weekend that he would not provide American support to allies with low defense spending in the event of a Russian attack.
During his term in office from 2017 to 2021, Trump had repeatedly complained about what he considered to be too low defense spending by European allies and at times even threatened that the USA would leave the alliance.
(
skr
/
dpa
)