Defense is the Prime Ministry

Stephen F. Szabo

Senior Fellow

Dr. Stephen F. Szabo is a Senior Fellow at AICGS, where he focuses on German foreign and security policies and the new German role in Europe and beyond. Until 2017, he was the Executive Director of the Transatlantic Academy, a Washington, DC, based forum for research and dialogue between scholars, policy experts, and authors from both sides of the Atlantic. Prior to joining the German Marshall Fund in 2007, Dr. Szabo was Interim Dean and Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and taught European Studies at The Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University. He served as Professor of National Security Affairs at the National War College, National Defense University (1982-1990). He received his PhD in Political Science from Georgetown University and has been a fellow with the Alexander von Humboldt Stiftung, the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, and the American Academy in Berlin, as well as serving as Research Director at AICGS. In addition to SAIS, he has taught at the Hertie School of Governance, Georgetown University, George Washington University, and the University of Virginia. He has published widely on European and German politics and foreign policies, including. The Successor Generation: International Perspectives of Postwar Europeans, The Diplomacy of German Unification, Parting Ways: The Crisis in the German-American Relationship, and Germany, Russia and the Rise of Geo-Economics.

As coalition negotiations to form the new German government begin, the defense portfolio will now be a key ministry in the new cabinet. Instead of trying to get the foreign or finance ministries, which have been regarded in the past as the key ministries for junior coalition partners, the Social Democrats and incoming Chancellor Friedrich Merz should push for the current Defense Minister Boris Pistorius to retain the office. The defense ministry has been regarded as a graveyard for political careers with only Helmut Schmidt and Völker Rühe being successful at the Ministry of Defense and only Schmidt going on to a broader subsequent career. In stark contrast, the most popular politician in Germany going into the 2025 election was Boris Pistorius, an indicator of a changing political culture.

The recent so-called bazooka proposal to overcome the debt brake and substantially bolster defense spending indicates that the incoming coalition understands the strategic crisis they are now in and that it is something that cannot be viewed as temporary. The fact that this dramatic action was initiated even before a new coalition was formed and came into office indicates the extraordinary nature of the times. The strong language used by incoming chancellor Merz, a lifelong Atlanticist, on election night is another indicator of how deeply and quickly things have changed. As he put it, “For me, it will be an absolute priority to strengthen Europe as fast as possible so that we really achieve independence from the United States step by step. I would never have thought that I would have to say something like that in a television broadcast, but at the latest since the statements in the past week from Donald Trump, it is clear that America—this government—is largely indifferent to the fate of Europe.”

The Social Democrats and the Christian Democrats should agree on Pistorius continuing in the Ministry of Defense as well as serving as vice chancellor. Being both would give him not only the leadership of his party but added weight in the Cabinet. He did an excellent job in his first term and can help bring the Social Democrats into a broader consensus on security policy.[1] To be sure, he was not able to change everything in his short tenure, including reforms of procurement and falling troop numbers, but he was faced with an obstructionist finance minister and weak chancellor. He will not have a learning curve and can immediately begin to do what needs to be done in a very short time. He would do an excellent job in making the case with the broader public for the necessity to deepen the Zeitenwende. With the support of the chancellor, he would also be better able to undertake major reforms in the procurement process within a ministry notorious for its slowness and bureaucratic density and play a major role in shaping and expanding the German and European defense industrial base. He is also fully capable of holding his own against the Trump administration, as he demonstrated at the recent Munich Security Conference where he immediately rejected what he called Vice President Vance’s “unacceptable” comments.

The new government’s defense agenda should include the following key areas:

• Prioritizing the defense budget to focus expenditures on equipment rather than personnel. Currently 29.5 percent of the budget goes to personnel with only 28.7 percent to procurement of new equipment. As the Parliamentary Commissioner’s report points out, the Bundeswehr is facing a serious shortage of personnel due to a high dropout rate and aging population. Related will be a decision on the future of conscription.
• Directing funding to German and European defense firms and reducing reliance on American defense contractors, including working with the private sector to utilize industrial capacity now available in the auto and other hard-hit sectors.
• Reorganizing the procurement process to allow for rapid decisions and acquisitions.
• Working with other ministries and the EU to take an aggressive policy for dealing with Russian hybrid warfare in Europe.
• Working closely with counterparts in the EU to rationalize procurement and reduce wasteful duplication in defense production, with special attention to France and the United Kingdom.
• Leading public education in a new strategic culture.
• Reassessing Germany’s nuclear posture and its reliance on American nuclear deterrence.

The time of the German civilian power is over, and the public requires a major strategic re-education. Surveys of public opinion taken before Donald Trump took office found a majority supporting Pistorius’s goal of increasing defense spending to 3 percent of GDP or even more. These numbers have surely increased in the last couple of weeks. As Karl-Heinz Kamp has contended, Germany must raise its nuclear IQ as part of a larger defense IQ.[2] In addition to education in the German military schools, a broader effort with the public, in the universities, and beyond is essential. German think tanks must substantially enhance their capabilities on hard power issues. The media has also to devote more attention to defense issues.

German political culture has never been primarily pacifist. It supported defense spending and large armed forces in the West German republic. But since unification and the end of the Cold War, Germans have not believed that their security was at stake, and too often the German militarist past has been used to justify an anti-military mindset. Strong leadership from the chancellor and other key figures in the new government will be important to sustaining the needed transformation of the strategic culture. The early signs that the new government will provide this leadership are encouraging.

[1] See the recent from the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Bundeswehr, Eva Högl, a Social Democrat, who praised Pistorius’ efforts to drive reform in the defense ministry. Laura Pitel, “High rate of army dropouts pushes German forces to ‘breaking point’,” Financial Times, March 12, 2025.

[2] Karl-Heinz Kamp, Deutschands nukleare Interessen nach dem Ukraine Krieg (Baden Baden: Nomos, 2023), p.100.