Germans may not be interested in war, but war is interested in them

27 February 2025

Germany has voted, and reactions immediately after election day oscillate between “this is bad” and “it could have been worse”. Sure enough, the latter is a conclusion one can only arrive at if one masters the art of sleepwalking on the level Germans do with regard to defence.

Decades of outsourcing responsibility for national security and consecutive governments’ unwillingness and a sluggish pace of change have left Germany at a dangerous crossroads. With the US no longer requesting or warning, but abruptly turning away from its traditional allies, Germany now stands naked and increasingly vulnerable. Missed opportunities to revise an anachronistic fiscal hobble have left the country underprepared to meet strategic needs arising from seismic shifts in the geopolitical landscape, and its democracy vulnerable to a fatal loss of legitimacy. Swift action to rectify the former will likely exacerbate risk for the latter and vice versa.

Germany’s sleeping beauty slumber

Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the German Government declared the so-called “Zeitenwende” with a lot of fanfare. Yet, it failed to translate into meaningful progress in defence capability enhancement. The 100 billion special fund, dubbed by Chancellor Olaf Scholz as “the most far-reaching change in German security policy since the Bundeswehr was founded in 1955”, is being eaten up by inflation and will likely be spent by 2027. And with the current desolate procurement system, it would take Germany almost 100 years to reach the military stocks of 20 years ago.

Two decades of wallowing in the comforts of cheap Russian energy, open Chinese markets, and US security guarantees seem to have thoroughly corrupted the entire political class.

The German refusal to awaken from its geopolitical slumber goes far beyond a sentimental longing for things to remain as they (supposedly) always have. It has been carved in stone — or the constitutional equivalent of that if you will. The Balanced Budget Amendment to the German Basic Law, commonly known as the debt brake, is a fiscal rule to restrict structural budget deficits on the federal level and limit the issuance of government debt. It was introduced amid the global financial and debt crisis and has been maintained despite Germany’s debt since falling to just over 60 per cent of its gross domestic product, which is below the debt-to-GDP ratio of other large eurozone countries. With the German economy in dire need of investment for digital transformation, and with public infrastructure and education systems suffering, disagreement over whether the debt brake is a tool too restrictive ultimately broke the so-called traffic light coalition last fall — triggering the snap election.

The election campaign turned out to be largely monothematic, with politicians giving in to the temptation of wielding the one issue capable of disrupting the collective German sentimentality of “everything stay as it is”: the irritation over violent attacks committed by non-Germans or non-ethnic Germans. Not even Donald Trump’s return for a second round of going rogue in the White House compelled party leaders to grant the rapidly deteriorating security situation in Europe as well as the erosion of the rules-based order, a more prominent spot in their campaigns. The government as well as opposition parties failed to speak uncomfortable truths to a complacent German electorate.

Two decades of wallowing in the comforts of cheap Russian energy, open Chinese markets, and US security guarantees seem to have thoroughly corrupted the entire political class. Scholz had already proven his reluctance to act decisively when dragging his feet for just about any form of support to Ukraine beyond the ludicrous 5,000 helmets his government initially offered. Even after the firing of his fiscally conservative finance minister last November, he showed his trademark flip-flopping on topping up the 100 billion special fund. Friedrich Merz, leader of the opposition, remained fixated on the debt brake throughout the campaign despite the need for extraordinary defence spending being crystal clear for everyone to see. If there is one (cynical) compliment one can offer to the protagonists, it is that they knew their audience well. A survey after the polls by public broadcaster ARD asked voters about the issue that decided their vote: securing international peace came just sixth, behind domestic and social security, immigration, and economic growth, and equal to — or equally marginal as — climate change.

Too little too late

Now, post-election and as chancellor designate, Merz is ramping up talk for massive defence investments and advocating for more European independence and responsibility for the block’s security. Although the debt brake, in its current form, does come with exceptions in the event of an “extraordinary emergency”, regular higher defence spending does not fall under this exception. But with the Trump Administration signalling that the US may be “on their path out of NATO", swift action is urgently needed.

At the same time, voters’ support for the anti-establishment Alternative for Germany (AfD), chosen by many because they lost faith in the democratic system itself, demands for any action to not just be swift but also credible. Yet the new Bundestag's altered balance prevents action that is both swift and credible at the same time. It will be either or. This is a home-made problem. The debt brake could have been amended in time. Against the backdrop of developments in Poland and Hungary, Christian Democrats, Social Democrats, Liberals, the Greens, and the Left Party united in the run-up to the election and voted to enshrine better protection of the federal constitutional court from potential threats from extremist parties in the Basic Law. They did not manage to do the same to prepare the country’s military for the new risks in a volatile international system. In the new Bundestag, parties of the democratic centre no longer hold the necessary two-thirds majority for constitutional amendments. Combined, the AfD and the Left Party hold a blocking minority that can effectively prevent modifications to the debt brake for the sake of military spending.

The AfD is strongly against a relaxation of the debt brake. It does support rearmament — not as a contribution to an integrated European security framework or a just peace in Ukraine, but in service of a return to German nationalism within Europe. Its manifesto also calls for an alternative to NATO. While the most notorious Russia apologists have exited the Left together with Sahra Wagenknecht, the arguably most prominent “Putin-Versteher”, the party continues to propagate a comfortable pacifism that ignores how rapidly the world has changed and that other countries are not always pacifist. It opposes rearmament and a 2 per cent quota for NATO, which they consider redundant. They would support loosening the debt brake only to increase social expenditures. Garnering the two parties' support for quick constitutional amendments to be able to fund the NATO quota, which will likely increase to more than 3 per cent, appears an impossible endeavour.

The proposal to push through amendments in the configuration of the outgoing Bundestag, while theoretically possible, is a high-risk approach. In the current political climate, it would open up a particularly vulnerable flank for German democracy — that of raising the spectre of democratic de-legitimacy. Public debate on whether the results of the AfD, 20.8 per cent on a national average and up to 46.7 per cent in the Eastern states, warrant its normalisation in the German party spectrum, including mandates such as vice-president of parliament or chairing committees, has already been brewing for quite a while. Given the AfD’s strong results in this election and three state-level elections in the past year, anticipatory parliamentary action could prove to be the proverbial gasoline poured onto a fire. No matter the outcome of the coalition talks, the next German Government’s credibility is already under strain, and it risks further alienating voters who are gravitating towards the AfD.

Catching the pied pipers between a rock and a hard place

If there is one clear takeaway from the election, it is this: given the AfD’s appeal to voters, the next government must not fail. Not only must it succeed in objectively addressing the challenges of security, economic transformation, and climate change, but it must also tackle these issues head-on. More importantly, it must consider how voters will measure its decisions, actions, and rhetoric against the promises of the AfD’s pied pipers.

The stalemate configuration of the German Bundestag that this election has produced, is the dead-end of necessary changes having been protracted over decades — by leaders and parties lacking foresight, leadership, and political resolve. To quote Leon Trotzky: Germans, for the longest time, have not been “interested in war, [but] war is interested in [them]”.

Germany’s long-held certainties regarding allies and the international order are evaporating by the minute. The space to manoeuvre at home and turn things around is now reduced to almost zero by the deeply fractured political landscape. Whether Europe succeeds at credibly standing on its own feet to defend itself rests as much on British or French nuclear capabilities as on the leverage that comes from German people finding an answer to the question of their freedom’s worth. They will be closely watched by hopeful societies in countries like Georgia, Taiwan, or the Philippines who count on the international liberal order just as much to protect them from strongman politics in their neighbourhood — and who have already made up their minds about what defending it is worth to them.

DISCLAIMER: All views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent that of the 9DASHLINE.com platform.

Author biography

Jana C. von Dessien is a doctoral researcher at the University of St.Gallen. Her research focuses on the evolution of arguments in the legitimation process of drone strikes and its implications for the norms governing remote warfare. She is also a policy fellow for international law & security with the Swiss foreign policy think tank FORAUS, writing and speaking on the governance of norm-disruptive weapon technologies, civilian protection norms, and arms control in a rapidly changing geopolitical environment. She holds a BA in Political Science and American Studies and an MA in International Law and International Politics. Image credit: Flickr/Conceptphoto.info (cropped).