Let’s revisit the concept of Palantir, a company that intrigues me due to its innovative ideas. In October 2024, Shyam Sankar, the CTO, published “The Defense Reformation.” Interestingly, a CTO, the Chief Technological Officer, is responsible for constantly seeking technological advancements, whether by creating them or implementing them within the company. While they may not engage in extensive political discussions about how a nation should manage its military, Palantir’s perspective often diverges from the norm, and their involvement in the Trump administration is a fact. This could provide insights into the future trajectory of the U.S. military and serve as a valuable example for Europe and Germany. Let’s delve into the potential implications with the help of LLM’s.
Can “The Defense Reformation” be implemented in Europe and Germany
To effectively implement the 18 theses, a comprehensive and detailed analysis is crucial, particularly when adapting them to the German and European contexts. This analysis should encompass understanding the demands of each thesis on the defense ecosystem and the underlying structural, legal, and market realities on both sides of the Atlantic. A key aspect of the 18 theses is to dismantle stagnant legacy procurement models and replace them with transparent competition, modular acquisition, data-driven accountability, and actor diversity. However, these principles are only partially integrated into the current German and EU defense systems. The challenge extends beyond simply accelerating awards or increasing budgets; it involves reshaping the fundamental rules, incentives, and cultures that influence who builds, owns, and scales modern military capabilities.
Unfortunately, Germany has yet to make significant progress in this regard
The German Bundeswehr’s procurement system has historically been governed by intricate national and EU procurement laws, with additional parliamentary vetoes for purchases exceeding €25 million. This process is notorious for its risk-averse nature, fragmentation, and slow integration of new suppliers, particularly startups and nontraditional players. Consequently, it predominantly favors established domestic and European defense giants. Recent reforms, notably the Bundeswehr-Planungs- und Beschaffungsbeschleunigungsgesetz (BwPBBG), set to extend through at least 2035, aim to address these constraints. These reforms include making direct contract awards easier, suspending the splitting of contracts into numerous “lots” for expedited processing, and reducing the risk of costly protests from losing competitors. Procurement can even proceed without fully secured funding if national security demands it. Notably, the scope of the law now encompasses all Bundeswehr needs and permits some urgent contracts to bypass even EU tendering requirements, thereby concentrating competition within established NATO or EU suppliers. While these acceleration mechanisms are bold for the German context, they introduce genuine risks of reduced transparency and potential corruption, as highlighted by watchdog groups. Simultaneously, they make the market less accessible to SMEs and innovative new entrants, whose resources cannot match those of established industry incumbents.
In contrast, the United States is more unified and significantly more financially robust
Within Europe, the situation is more stratified. Each member state still prioritizes its own industrial champions and prefers national procurement over cross-border joint solutions, despite repeated efforts from Brussels. Programs like PESCO and EDIRPA have enabled joint procurement in specific areas, but barriers—ranging from legal harmonization to technological sovereignty—persist. EU regulations are designed to foster a level playing field but often add procedural complexity and time lags, and national “home bias” has barely diminished. The push for a European Defense Technological and Industrial Base (EDTIB) remains partial, struggling against centrifugal interests and fragmented budgets. In contrast, the U.S. system is inherently more centralized. The Department of Defense holds an enormous share of national procurement power and devotes vast funding to research, prototyping, and rapid scaling via agencies such as DARPA and DIU. It also embraces direct-to-contract pathways for new suppliers and nontraditional vendors. Key differentiators remain: a much larger, unified budget; institutionalized tolerance for risk in prototyping; and a cultural preference for performance over process dogma.
But what if we would do it anyway?
If we rigorously apply the 18 theses to the German and European frameworks, several practical and philosophical shifts emerge. The first principle—open, permanent, and competitive markets with modular acquisition paths—would necessitate a fundamental change in how Germany and the EU structure access to procurement. Existing laws prioritize safeguarding national interests and supporting the local industrial base, but this approach dilutes competition and hinders long-term innovation. Immediate adaptation would require not only simplified procedures for direct awards but also lasting changes in procurement culture. This would involve adopting open competitions as the default, reducing vendor lock-in, and ensuring genuine opportunities for diverse actors, including SMEs, academia, and trans-European consortia. The shift towards modular contracts and more flexible, milestone-based payments—as recommended by the theses—would empower smaller suppliers to contribute discrete subsystems or innovation “modules” without incurring the financial or legal burdens associated with large full-system integrations. This is particularly pertinent for German and European processes that are heavily reliant on monolithic contracts and lifecycle ownership by a select few prime contractors.
Transparency and data-driven accountability, as advocated by several theses, face a persistent challenge in German and EU military procurement. Parliamentary oversight in Germany, intended to provide democratic control, often ironically becomes a bottleneck, leading to months of delays. Consequently, there is little downstream accountability for program outcomes or performance failures. In contrast, the U.S. model, though not without its own issues, has begun to leverage real-time dashboards, open-source data, and public performance metrics for major contracts. This approach facilitates the evaluation of program and contractor efficacy. Adopting this thesis in Germany and at the EU level would require investing in shared defense data platforms, mandating public reporting on project milestones and failures, and linking continuous data submission to ongoing contract payments. While recent German reforms have begun to reduce procedural roadblocks, they have yet to establish real metrics for cost, risk, or operational success within their legal frameworks. Moreover, the absence of pan-European defense analytics hinders cross-border project evaluation, perpetuating national silos rather than facilitating effective oversight.
Another core demand of the 18 theses is the deliberate encouragement of nontraditional suppliers and new entrants. U.S. reforms have included SBIR-style grants for dual-use companies, flexible “other transaction” authorities, and sandboxes where private tech companies can demonstrate applications without first satisfying the entire edifice of government security and compliance rules. Germany’s new direct award powers and suspension of competitive “lotting” offer speed but lack clear counterweights to protect market access for new players. This is only possible if legal reforms are coupled with incentives, set-asides, or special programs for young, innovative firms. Furthermore, Germany and Europe’s focus on trusted or established suppliers in the name of reliability and security severely restricts the innovation pool—precisely the problem the 18 theses argue is shrinking the long-term resilience and adaptability of Western defense systems in general. To anchor this thesis in the European context would mean dedicating a significant portion of acceleration funding to technology challenges, contests, and rapid prototyping for new or small firms. This would ensure these actors get a guaranteed pathway to scale if they meet performance targets.
Finally, a thesis that emphasizes iterative development and rapid prototyping—best exemplified by the “DevSecOps” principle—poses significant challenges to the traditional German and European approaches of strict requirements definition and exhaustive multiyear planning. The U.S. military’s increasing adoption of spiral development and the concept of the Minimum Viable Product reflects a trust that working solutions, regardless of their origin, can be continuously upgraded in real-world use. While emergency reforms in Germany after 2022 have led to more off-the-shelf and interim purchases—often directly from U.S. or Israeli providers—there is limited structural support for an ongoing, agile DevSecOps cycle involving continuous code delivery, warfighter feedback, and rapid modular swaps. To incorporate this thesis into German and EU law, procurement would need to replace some highly codified requirements with functional outcomes, financially and legally reward rapid iterative deployment, and accept a certain level of controlled operational risk—fundamental cultural shifts from the current model.
While Germany and the European Union have made notable strides toward faster and more flexible procurement, numerous legal, fiscal, and cultural bottlenecks remain when compared to U.S. models, which the 18 theses explicitly target. True adaptation of these theses in the European context would require: making open competition a presumption rather than an exception; building a genuinely modular procurement and development architecture; embedding transparent, data-backed performance dashboards as a legal norm; and constructing operational and financial launchpads for startups and innovative suppliers—including robust rapid prototyping and DevSecOps regimes—within national and EU-wide frameworks. Only then will the promise of genuine transformation, as envisioned in the 18 theses, become feasible for Germany and its European partners.
A Concrete Roadmap for Implementing the 18 Theses in Germany’s Defense Reform
Germany stands at a pivotal moment in its defense and security policy. The ever-changing geopolitical landscape demands rapid adaptation, technological advancements, and an agile and transparent procurement system. The 18 theses presented in “The Defense Reformation” offer a transformative model for U.S. defense procurement, but their principles resonate deeply within the German context. To realize their potential, Germany must embark on a comprehensive reform path tailored to its institutional, legal, and industrial realities.
First, building on the Bundeswehr-Planungs- und Beschaffungsbeschleunigungsgesetz (BwPBBG), Germany must deepen legislative reforms that codify permanent open competition and modular acquisition as the default procurement mode. This transition requires a recalibration of the procurement ecosystem, incorporating milestone-based contracting, flexible price models, and shortening decision cycles to enable real-time responsiveness to evolving operational needs. Establishing a dedicated transformation office within the Bundesministerium der Verteidigung to champion and monitor these reforms will ensure accountability and continuity, linking policy directives directly with industry and military operational units.
Secondly, Germany should establish a Defense Innovation Fund explicitly designed to nurture startups, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), and nontraditional suppliers. This fund, mirroring the U.S. Defense Innovation Unit, would provide grants and fast-track prototyping contracts, alleviating access barriers that currently hinder innovative yet resource-constrained players. While maintaining security compliance and supply reliability remains paramount, innovation cannot thrive in a closed, monopolistic market. Targeted incentives for cross-sector and cross-border collaborations, particularly within the European Defence Technological and Industrial Base, would enhance strategic autonomy while integrating Germany’s defense industrial policy with European partners.
Thirdly, establishing a robust Enterprise Architecture Management (EAM) platform is crucial to aligning defense capabilities, procurement processes, and technology integration. Such a platform would utilize contextual data analytics, operational feedback, and interoperable system representations to manage complexity and ensure coherence across Bundeswehr units, industry contractors, and allied frameworks within NATO and the EU. Integrated EAM empowers agile, iterative procurement cycles and is essential for adopting DevSecOps principles—the continuous delivery and refinement of defense solutions vital for modern warfare environments.
Fourthly, this technical and structural reform must be complemented by a cultural and educational transformation embedded within institutions like the Helmut-Schmidt-Universität/Universität der Bundeswehr Hamburg. Incorporating the 18 theses into the curricula fosters a new generation of procurement officials, military leaders, and policymakers proficient in dynamic procurement, performance metrics, and risk-informed innovation. Training programs emphasizing agility, transparency, and collaboration will facilitate grassroots acceptance and operationalize the reform agenda.
Germany should lead collaborative pilot projects with key European allies, particularly France, that apply these reform principles in concrete defense domains such as cybersecurity, autonomous systems, and advanced communications. These projects would serve as testbeds for modular contracting, rapid innovation cycles, and shared capability development. Transparent evaluation processes would provide practical lessons, demonstrate the benefits of the reform, and encourage scaling to broader European procurement frameworks.
