{"id":143936,"date":"2025-05-30T11:09:09","date_gmt":"2025-05-30T11:09:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/143936\/"},"modified":"2025-05-30T11:09:09","modified_gmt":"2025-05-30T11:09:09","slug":"germanys-army-needs-up-to-260000-troops-says-top-military-unionist-politico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/143936\/","title":{"rendered":"Germany\u2019s army needs up to 260,000 troops, says top military unionist \u2013 POLITICO"},"content":{"rendered":"

“I assume that, depending on what is decided at the NATO summit, we will need an additional 40,000 to 60,000 soldiers,” W\u00fcstner said in an interview with German media group RND<\/a> published Friday. “That means the active force would need to gradually grow to as many as 260,000 troops.”<\/p>\n

NATO leaders are set to meet for a summit in The Hague<\/a> on June 24-25<\/a>, where increasing the alliance’s defense spending target<\/a> will be discussed. <\/p>\n

W\u00fcstner’s warning comes just as the German government plans a new voluntary military service program \u2014 part of its effort to address the Bundeswehr\u2019s chronic personnel shortage.<\/p>\n

The program will ask all 18-year-old men to fill out a questionnaire gauging their willingness and suitability for service. Women can take part voluntarily. The goal is to recruit around 5,000 volunteers per year.<\/p>\n

German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius emphasized that the program is \u201cinitially voluntary,\u201d but left the door open to taking more drastic steps.<\/p>\n

\u201cI say this quite deliberately and honestly: The emphasis is also on \u2018initially,\u2019 in case we cannot recruit enough volunteers,\u201d he told lawmakers in the Bundestag<\/a> earlier this month. \u201cWe still have too few people for what our armed forces must accomplish.\u201d<\/p>\n

Germany suspended conscription in 2011. A return of the draft would mark a significant political shift.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"“I assume that, depending on what is decided at the NATO summit, we will need an additional 40,000…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":143937,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5310],"tags":[7668,473,7057,2000,299,7058,11070,1824,2597,32949,332,1199,657],"class_list":{"0":"post-143936","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-germany","8":"tag-boris-pistorius","9":"tag-defense","10":"tag-defense-budgets","11":"tag-eu","12":"tag-europe","13":"tag-european-defense","14":"tag-german-politics","15":"tag-germany","16":"tag-military","17":"tag-nato-summit","18":"tag-russia","19":"tag-services","20":"tag-ukraine"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114596476704748946","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143936","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=143936"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143936\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/143937"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=143936"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=143936"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=143936"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}