Germany’s Military Crisis: A Nation Unprepared for War

“We must be ready for war by 2029,” declared German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius in a much-noted speech last June. Chancellor Friedrich Merz went further in July, announcing that the German army would assume a “model character” within NATO, with the goal of making the Bundeswehr the strongest conventional army in the EU.

Less than three months later, this grand plan is already set to fail.

The mess became painfully clear last week when a hastily announced press conference had to be cancelled at short notice. What was meant to be a celebration of decisiveness—proof that both coalition partners, the conservative CDU and the Social Democrats, had grasped the gravity of Germany’s security threat—descended into rumors of terrible rifts, infighting, and even a state secretary in tears.

At stake is a question with no easy answer: how to find young people willing to join the army.

The government’s response has been predictably technocratic. It plans to invest billions in military equipment—defense spending is set to rise to €108.2 billion next year, the highest since the Cold War ended. It aims to increase the number of temporary and professional soldiers to at least 260,000 by 2035, up 80,000 from current levels.

But how can it fulfill this ten-year plan? The hope that young people would join voluntarily is hardly realistic—the Bundeswehr has fallen short on recruitment for years (even though the numbers of applicants rose in 2024 to over 51,000). Yet the government has no coherent plan to convince young people of the necessity of military service, leaving it fighting over compulsory conscription behind closed doors. Proposals range from general conscription, where the most capable would be enlisted, to a lottery system.

A nation that won’t fight

Underlying all this handwringing is a much deeper problem: large swathes of German society—and an even larger portion of the younger generation—see no virtue in fighting for their country at all. A survey from August 2025 revealed that only one in six Germans (16%) would “definitely” be prepared to defend the country with weapons in the event of war. Another 22% said they “probably” would. And, as another survey has shown, while two-thirds of those over 70 favor general conscription, only one in three people aged 18 to 29 does.

This cannot be blamed on the young generation alone—a generation raised with the promise that war was an evil the world had overcome, at least in Europe, thanks in no small part to the supposed peacekeeping virtues of the EU. Even now, as the government tries to change its rhetoric, it demonstrates palpable fear and reluctance to have a serious conversation with the public about what being prepared for war would really mean.

The truth is that our elites have, for years, retreated from the values that once constituted the core of military ethos. Service, duty, courage, discipline, loyalty—all are seen as hopelessly outdated, if not genuinely dangerous.

Instead, a fake and hollow pacifism has dominated public debate—a pacifism that deludes people into thinking everything can always remain as it is, that peace is not something one must actively stand up for and, on occasions, actively fight for. This ethos has persisted even as Ukrainians fight for their sovereignty and freedom.

Consider a 2023 award-winning documentary aired by Germany’s public broadcaster ARD, which promoted the old peacenik’s favorite slogan: “Imagine there’s a war and nobody goes.” The documentary all but appealed to young people to reject the army and any dealings with weapons—and this, only months after then-Chancellor Olaf Scholz had called for a “Zeitenwende” (historic turning point), another full-mouthed announcement that failed the reality test.

The mistake of 2011

Many in government now wish conscription had never been suspended—one journalist referred to it as the biggest mistake of the new millennium. Yet the suspension, which passed parliament almost without opposition (453 votes for, 103 against), was itself only a symptom of deep confusion among our elites.

German politicians saw no value in protecting the country—or even its borders, as the Merkel government amply showed. The future they envisaged was an open-border Europe, with conflicts only in faraway countries. The government’s key arguments, outlined in its 2011 White Paper on Security, focused on fashionable buzzwords: “modernization,” “efficiency,” “strategic adaptation.”

The suspension also marked the end of the Bundeswehr as a citizen’s army, which it had been since its establishment in the 1950s—an army rooted in the tradition of collective responsibility for defending the country. The message sent to the public was clear: normal people needn’t worry or care about what the army does. They had no immediate stake in it, and there was no need for wider democratic control over it either.

It’s hardly surprising, then, that there is such disregard for the idea of defense among the wider public. The fact that so many say they would not defend their society shows that Germany has a bigger problem than the threat from Russia.

In recent years, the Bundeswehr has launched several advertising campaigns to win young people over. But even these rarely go beyond narrow promises of personal development or career options—and they certainly can’t compensate for the many negative reports that have emerged.

Under Defence Minister Ursula von der Leyen (December 2013 to July 2019), DEI took center stage. Sexual diversity and a better, safer environment for women should become the norm in the army, she boasted. Simultaneously, she set about ‘cleansing’ the institution from its past. After Wehrmacht memorabilia was found in two locations, she ordered searches of all Bundeswehr buildings and barracks—an act that made the army look like a den of dangerous Nazi activity.

That the troops were simultaneously rocked by massive procurement scandals and suffered from a serious lack of basic equipment should surprise no one. During one NATO exercise, soldiers used dummy rifles because there weren’t enough functional weapons. The press ran mocking headlines: “Bundeswehr conducts maneuvers with broomsticks.”

A safe space, not a fighting force

Then there’s the message peddled to this day: that the Bundeswehr is a form of safe space for young people. Since 2017, there has been a “contact point for discrimination and violence” where soldiers can submit anonymous complaints about bullying or discrimination. One effect is that trainers must constantly watch their words, lest they say anything hurtful.

The 2024 annual report states that a superior was reported by his recruits for saying, “Am I a dolphin or why do I have to play with disabled people here?”—an allusion to dolphins being used as therapy animals. It may not have been particularly funny, but it certainly wasn’t something for which the man should have been reprimanded and formally charged.

This nurturing of individual sensitivities patronizes young people and will hardly make them more attracted to the army. By constantly insinuating that the Bundeswehr is as far removed from hardship and combat as possible, young people rightly feel cheated and tricked.

Rather than luring people with false promises, the government should lead an honest and robust debate about what kind of defense the country really needs.

Sadly, that’s nothing this government will be able to do. There is no Winston Churchill in its orbit who could lead with moral clarity and courage, convincing the population of what is truly needed—crystallizing and forging people’s resolve to fight for their freedom and democracy, if the need arises. 

This government instead feels more comfortable spending billions in the vain hope that Germany’s safety could be secured in this way—and that it might even stimulate the struggling economy. But that’s wishful thinking. No government can solve a country’s problems without the support of the people.