German tanks in Lithuania.<\/p>\n
German government photo.<\/p>\n
Germany is on track for a sharp increase in military spending that could equip a bigger Bundeswehr\u2014the German military\u2014with more armored vehicles, more air defense batteries, more warships, more spy satellites and critical technologies such as radar and radio jammers and artificial intelligence.<\/p>\n
The impetus behind the spending boost\u2014hundreds of billions of dollars in two separate packages\u2014is obvious. As the United States under President Donald Trump aligns more closely with Russian interests and leans on Ukraine to effectively surrender to Russian aggression, Europe must achieve \u201cstrategic independence\u201d from its one-time close ally across the Atlantic Ocean, German Chancellor-elect Friedrich Merz said.<\/p>\n
Berlin currently spends around $68 billion a year on its armed forces.<\/p>\n
Merz isn\u2019t slated to assume his new office until later this month. But anticipating new political alliances in the German parliament, Merz pushed for the bigger portion of the defense boost, part of a $550-billion fund that would also pay for environmental projects, to come up for a vote before late March.<\/p>\n
Lawmakers voted on Tuesday. The massive spending package passed<\/a>.<\/p>\n The new funds are supplementary. That is, they will add to a separate $110-billion fund championed by outgoing chancellor Olaf Scholz. The earlier plus-up pays for Germany to meet its pledge to spend 2% of its gross domestic product on defense by 2027. The current increase is likely to fund a dozen initiatives the government identified in a 2024 study<\/a>.<\/p>\n They include:<\/p>\n A German navy photo.<\/p>\n German government photo<\/p>\n U.S. turns away from Europe<\/p>\n It\u2019s not hard to detect, in the text of last year\u2019s study, German leaders\u2019 determination to replace the critical military capabilities European countries once counted on the U.S. to provide\u2014either bilaterally or under the auspices of NATO.<\/p>\n U.S. industry builds sophisticated long-range air defenses including Patriot missile batteries<\/a>; European industry struggles to assemble more than a handful of similar SAMP\/T batteries every year. The U.S. Navy operates more than 100 Boeing EA-18G radar-jamming planes; European air arms possess only a few planes kitted out for the suppression of enemy air defenses.<\/p>\n\n