Germany announced a new military strategy with the goal of building “Europe’s strongest conventional army” by 2039.
Defense Minister Boris Pistorius revealed the proposal speaking to the German parliament on Wednesday, and detailed a public outlining for the “future direction” of the Bundeswehr, the German Armed Forces. One of the goals of the plan, the German Defense Ministry said in a statement, is for Germany to take “more responsibility” within NATO.
“We are developing the Bundeswehr into the strongest conventional army in Europe. In the short term, we are increasing our defense and resilience, in the medium term we are aiming for a significant increase in overarching capabilities and in the long term we will establish technological superiority,” Pistorious said, per Politico.
According to Politico, the new German military plan states that while the United States is indispensable for NATO, it notes that “Washington is increasingly oriented toward the Indo-Pacific.”
The Defense Ministry said that the new German military strategy calls for a “fundamental rethink” on the “overall concept of military defense” consisting of the military strategy and capability profile of the German Armed Forces, a personnel growth plan for the Bundeswehr, and a new strategy for the nation’s military reserve in addition to a new agenda that amins to “reduce bureaucracy and modernize the system.”
“The starting point for this is a fundamentally changed international environment. The security situation has deteriorated significantly—especially since Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine,” The Ministry’s statement read in part.
“Growing multipolarity and systemic rivalry are also putting pressure on the rules-based international order and increasing volatility, uncertainty, and instability,” the text continued.
The plan calls for a military personnel expansion that aims to go from around 185,000 active-duty soldiers to at least 460,000 active and non-active troops. Pistorius pointed out that the new strategy will not focus on fixed numbers but rather on specific capabilities and what the forces can actually do.
The German Defense Minister reportedly stressed that parts of the new military strategy are deliberately being kept under wraps and potential deployments plants will not be made public, and said, “Otherwise we might as well add Vladimir Putin to our email distribution list.”
Euronews reports that Germany’s plans to reshape its armed forces aims to turn the Bundeswehr into a “faster, more capable and more technologically advanced” force with the ability to “strike targets precisely at longer range.”
Bundeswehr Inspector General Carsten Breuer said during an interview on Wednesday that “The situation has never been this serious,” and, as such, Germany is “assuming greater military responsibility in response to the current security threat.”
Breuer explained during the interview that the Bundeswehr assumes that Russia could be capable of “launching a large-scale attack against NATO territory starting in 2029.
“I’m not saying that will automatically happen — certainly not. But the possibility exists. And that is exactly what we must prepare for and arm ourselves against,” Breuer said.
Per the German Armed Forces, the Inspector General described Russia as the main threat to Germany and the Euro-Atlantic region, and said that Russia is “rearming at a pace he has never seen in his entire career.”
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