The Social Democrats Give Their Leader a Yellow Card, Green Light for Stronger Defense

Jeff Rathke

President of AGI

Jeffrey Rathke is the President of the American Institute for Contemporary German Studies at the Johns Hopkins University in Washington, DC.

Prior to joining AICGS, Jeff was a senior fellow and deputy director of the Europe Program at CSIS, where his work focused on transatlantic relations and U.S. security and defense policy. Jeff joined CSIS in 2015 from the State Department, after a 24-year career as a Foreign Service Officer, dedicated primarily to U.S. relations with Europe. He was director of the State Department Press Office from 2014 to 2015, briefing the State Department press corps and managing the Department's engagement with U.S. print and electronic media. Jeff led the political section of the U.S. Embassy in Kuala Lumpur from 2011 to 2014. Prior to that, he was deputy chief of staff to the NATO Secretary General in Brussels. He also served in Berlin as minister-counselor for political affairs (2006–2009), his second tour of duty in Germany. His Washington assignments have included deputy director of the Office of European Security and Political Affairs and duty officer in the White House Situation Room and State Department Operations Center.

Mr. Rathke was a Weinberg Fellow at Princeton University (2003–2004), winning the Master’s in Public Policy Prize. He also served at U.S. Embassies in Dublin, Moscow, and Riga, which he helped open after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Mr. Rathke has been awarded national honors by Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, as well as several State Department awards. He holds an M.P.P. degree from Princeton University and B.A. and B.S. degrees from Cornell University. He speaks German, Russian, and Latvian.

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jrathke@aicgs.org

Chancellor Friedrich Merz has devoted significant energy in his first two months in office to restoring Germany’s international partnerships, strengthening the Bundeswehr and hardening the country’s Russia policy. His success depends on the collaboration of his Social Democratic (SPD) coalition partners, whose two most prominent figures play key roles in the cabinet: Vice Chancellor and Finance Minister Lars Klingbeil, who is also co-Chair of the SPD, and Defense Minister Boris Pistorius, the country’s most popular politician. After the SPD received just 16.4 percent of the vote in the February 2025 election, its worst result since the 1949 founding of the Federal Republic of Germany, Klingbeil consolidated his control of the party and turned defeat into a seat at the table, negotiating a coalition agreement with Merz and the center-right CDU/CSU that salvaged key cabinet seats, resources, and influence for the SPD. The price was a government program that reverses course on important issues: a tougher migration policy, including refusing entry to asylum seekers at land borders, and a dramatic increase in defense spending from 2 percent of GDP to 3.5 percent within five years. The outlines of a backlash within the SPD have begun to take shape, indicating limits to Klingbeil’s authority and an Achilles heel for Chancellor Merz’s program.

At the June 27-29 SPD Party Congress in Berlin, Klingbeil was re-elected as co-Chair with a shockingly weak 65 percent of the delegates’ votes. This was the worst result for an uncontested candidacy in party history; by contrast, his partner in the co-Chairmanship, Labor Minister Bärbel Bas, was elected with 95 percent support. Although the SPD is a rival party, this is also a problem for Friedrich Merz. With a slight thirteen-vote majority in the Bundestag, the chancellor does not benefit from a weakened coalition partner, especially one as centrist and reform-oriented as Lars Klingbeil.

The SPD leadership emerged from their first post-election conference without a direct challenge to the government’s major policies but with the risk that Klingbeil’s personal standing has been dented.

The chastening of Klingbeil was tempered, though, by success in handling several difficult issues on the party’s agenda. A clear majority voted against a resolution that would have rejected the NATO spending goal of 5 percent of GDP on defense and related infrastructure. Klingbeil and Pistorius vigorously defended German reinvestment in the armed forces and highlighted Russian President Putin’s unwillingness to engage in serious peace talks with Ukraine. They were responding to the “manifesto” from a number of prominent left-wing party members criticizing the government’s policy toward Ukraine, Russia, and the Bundeswehr. This issue appeared to have the potential to divide the party and undercut Klingbeil (and by extension, Chancellor Merz), but in the end it was the dog that didn’t bark, with the associated resolution not even put to a vote.

The party also avoided a split on conscription. Germany will have to expand the Bundeswehr dramatically by up to 60,000 soldiers in line with new NATO capability targets, and the government intends to update the recruitment model. Whether there should be a return to some obligatory military service is divisive within the SPD, especially the party’s youth wing (Jusos). Defense Minister Pistorius negotiated a compromise with the Juso chairman that emphasizes in the short term the goal of increasing voluntary recruitment, but which leaves open the possibility of a service obligation if those measures do not yield the numbers the Bundeswehr will need. Very few analysts expect the voluntary system to be sufficient to grow the armed forces, but the Bundeswehr would be simply unable to handle the flow of conscripts immediately. So the SPD decision makes a virtue out of necessity: it will enable the defense minister and the government to begin creating the administrative structures (such as registration) that would eventually be necessary for the Bundeswehr to carry out some obligatory service, while in the meantime exhausting all possibilities to attract voluntary recruits. An issue that a few weeks ago loomed ominously over the party has been skillfully managed.

The SPD leadership emerged from their first post-election conference without a direct challenge to the government’s major policies but with the risk that party leader Klingbeil’s personal standing has been dented. His ability to marshal SPD support for the forthcoming budget and other difficult reforms will depend on his personal authority, especially with the coalition’s narrow majority. The Social Democrats have made a sport of harrying and undermining their leaders for the past two decades—a temptation they will have to resist with the success of their coalition at stake.