Budgetary about-face: Germany goes big on defense spending

The Russian invasion of Ukraine has completely upended the fundamental constants of German security policy. German troops are being rapidly sent to Lithuania, Romania and Slovakia to reinforce NATO’s eastern flank. At the same time, six German warships have set off to strengthen the alliance’s northern flank.

And since Sunday, the country’s military leadership finds itself facing a problem that they didn’t expect at all. The country’s defense forces, which have struggled for years to make ends meet, suddenly has money. A lot of money. …

But Russia’s aggression has now completely reversed years of German thinking about its military. In order to send a strong security policy message, the Chancellery pulled out all the old briefs. One of those was of particular importance: a confidential, six-page brief from Oct. 26 seems to have been particularly persuasive to Scholz and Finance Minister Christian Lindner, a member of the Free Democrats (FDP), the business-friendly party which is part of Scholz’s coalition government along with the Greens.

DER SPIEGEL has learned that the memo proposed a special fund for the Bundeswehr worth 102 billion euros. The memo argues that complex and expensive defense projects almost always require several years to complete, making it essential that military planners have long-term funding in place.