German defence: Reforming reticence

Date: 17/01/04

Germany is trying to adapt the Bundeswehr to the post-cold war era

“WHAT if there were a war and nobody showed up?” German pacifists once asked. In future, Germany's armed forces will at least be able to show up, if their political masters so decide. On January 13th, Peter Struck, the defence minister, announced a reform of the Bundeswehr that should make it easier to send troops to far-flung places.

Not before time. Over the past decade, political and legal roadblocks to German military action in trouble-spots have gone, but practical problems remain. Unlike Britain and France, Germany has been slow to adapt to a world in which conventional war in defence of the homeland is unlikely. Despite having 285,000 soldiers and an annual budget of over €24 billion ($30 billion), the Bundeswehr has had trouble mustering and equipping the 7,000-odd Germans on peacekeeping duty in Afghanistan and elsewhere.

Why is the Bundeswehr such a lumbering dinosaur? In the cold war, it was a huge army dominated by conscripts whose notional job was to stop the Red Army. Such forces are not much use for the likely jobs of the future. Yet preparing for real, not imaginary, tasks is likely to require a spike in defence spending, and Germany is heading the other way.

Mr Struck's reforms at least take on the challenge. He proposes to shrink the number of soldiers to 250,000, in order to boost, from 25% to 30%, the share of the military budget that goes on new weapons. He is also making big structural changes. In a move that American defence planners might envy, the army, air force and navy will be linked into a single force geared to rapid, long-range deployment. The core of the new Bundeswehr will be a 35,000-strong “intervention force” for fighting and a 70,000-strong “stabilisation force” for peacekeeping, with “support forces” of 137,500.

Procurement plans have been revised, freeing an extra €26 billion over 15 years. Heavy weaponry to defend German territory is out, equipment to support rapid deployment is in. At the top of Mr Struck's wish-list are a joint forces information system, reconnaissance equipment and armoured transport vehicles. But, to his frustration, long-running projects like the Eurofighter still gobble up funds.

Can Mr Struck prepare the army for the future while meeting his obligations to NATO, the EU or the UN? Germany will fulfil its commitments, the minister insists. But the reform plans imply that Berlin has no intention of raising defence spending from a feeble 1.5% of GDP, one of the lowest among big rich countries.

Inside Germany, the main issue remains conscription and the Zivildienst, the civilian alternative to military service. Although Mr Struck denies it, some analysts see his plans as the beginning of the end for the draft. The conscripts, whose number will be cut to 50,000, could be replaced by professional soldiers. But if the draft went, so would its alternative, and that would cause problems for many social services that rely on conscientious objectors.

The other reforms have so far caused little uproar. But this may change. In the past, the Bundeswehr has mostly done easyish jobs, even in distant places. But the logic of Mr Struck's plan is that German soldiers will, one day, do real fighting. Only then will it be clear that the country has overcome its “culture of reticence”.

Germany is trying to adapt the Bundeswehr to the post-cold war era.

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