Is Germany having the will to fight?
Over the past week, a cluster of developments in Germany and Europe has pushed security and defense issues from think-tank panels straight into the political bloodstream. Debates over conscription, higher defense spending, hybrid threats and Europe’s ability to defend itself without permanent U.S. crutches all point in diesel-bright letters to one theme: if Europe wants to stay safe, it will have to grow up strategically.
Germany’s Defense Debate: Between “Zeitenwende” and Reality
In Germany, the defense discussion has clearly entered a new phase. Public broadcasters have highlighted renewed calls from leading CDU politicians for a form of conscription or national service, in some cases explicitly including women, arguing that credible defense must once again “come first” for the Federal Republic. This sits squarely in the frame of the “Zeitenwende” that Chancellor Scholz announced after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, but it also exposes how incomplete that shift still is in practice: political elites talk about readiness, while the Bundeswehr continues to struggle with personnel, materiel and procurement timelines.
Alongside the conscription debate, coverage has focused on the question of how far Germany can and should go on defense spending. “Tank of Butter?”, like another debate at the Loccum Protestantic Think-Tank Panel will ask in March 2026 – again and again and again. As if that would ever have been alternatives…….
But time’s is changing, while many don’t want to accept it. Proposals to push defense outlays toward levels that would have seemed politically toxic a decade ago are now openly discussed, driven by the deteriorating security environment, Russia’s sustained attacks on Ukraine’s infrastructure, and uncertainty over the long-term reliability of U.S. security guarantees. The tension is obvious: Germany’s broader society is only slowly catching up with the speed at which the threat landscape is changing, while allies expect Berlin to anchor European security, not free‑ride on it. Is Germany getting the ball rolling or will it be the brake shoe? It is not decided yet.
Total Defense, Civil Resilience and the Home Front
It does not need only to have an elite of politicians and military leaders to understand reality – it needs the whole society accepting the uncomfortable truth that war is coming even when you do not like it. There will not be a cabinet war, where small armies are meeting on fields and fighting against each other and those who wins will conquer Europe. The modern-time battlefields are covering the whole spectrum, economically, politically, societally – spreading around in hearts and souls, social media and neighborhoods. Today, the death toll rate in modern wars is 50-50 when comparing soldiers and civilians. There are across all modern-time conflicts as much civilians dying as there are soldiers. There is no more a front anywhere. The line of conflict is cutting through all dimensions – total war.
Running through all of this is a rediscovery of concepts that in Northern Europe have been mainstream for years: total defense and comprehensive security. Instead of seeing defense as something that happens “out there” with soldiers and tanks, more German voices now argue that a modern Gesamtverteidigung has to integrate civil defense, critical infrastructure protection, cyber resilience and societal stamina. Interior ministers and security experts stress that overall resilience is not only a question of new laws or more equipment, but also of political culture and “attitude”: societies must be prepared to absorb shocks, keep systems running and resist intimidation.
This broader lens is directly relevant for hybrid threats. Recent reporting on drone sightings over critical facilities, debates around expanded authorities for federal police, and the growing attention to sabotage incidents and foreign influence operations have made clear that a hostile actor does not need tanks on the border to do real damage. Rail lines, energy grids, data centers, ports, media ecosystems and social cohesion itself are part of the target surface. That reality pushes “civil defense” out of the Cold‑War nostalgia corner and into the center of national security planning.
NATO’s Eastern Flank and the European Security Dilemma
If you zoom out from Berlin to Brussels and the Baltic, the picture is equally sobering. At NATO level, the eastern flank remains under constant stress. Russia continues to attack Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, and allied militaries are quietly adapting posture, logistics and readiness to ensure that deterrence in the Baltics is not just a slogan but a real, credible ability to fight from day one. Discussions about force posture, ammunition stockpiles and host‑nation support along the NATO east flank have sharpened in light of Russia’s willingness to accept long wars and high losses.
At the same time, the European Union is pushing ahead with a more integrated defense industrial and strategic agenda, including a new European defense strategy and joint projects for capabilities and munitions. The subtext is clear: strategic autonomy is no longer an abstract French idée fixe but a practical necessity if Europe wants to remain militarily relevant in a world of great‑power rivalry and potential U.S. distraction. Yet the gap between ambition and reality is still large. European states are only beginning to align procurement, overcome national industrial protectionism and think about real burden‑sharing instead of parallel national boutique projects.
Democracy Under Pressure and Bundeswehr focuses on Self-Damage
Finally, the security conversation of the week was not only about tanks, budgets and treaties, but also about the health of democracy itself. Here, especially the Bundeswehr is doing itself a disservice. How can it be that there are incidents with sexual harassments and drug abuse in the German army and the army itself is the main prosecutor against itself? This is not against transparency. If there are incidents of misbehavior the army should be the first doing strong legal enforcement and also being transparent on it. But why is this army repeating the incident again and again in the public – while no one is asking for it? One day in the past week, Germany procured fighter drones and the only information broadcasted at that day by the BMVg … was not about buying drones but about drug-abuse of some soldiers in the German army.
This intersects directly with questions of resilience against hybrid threats and foreign influence. A state that struggles to protect and to strengthen its own reputation is an easier target for manipulation from abroad. That is why calls for a more robust “Democratic Defense” are getting louder: better intelligence work on extremism, stricter vetting and disciplinary processes in the armed forces, and a more active political defense of democratic norms in public discourse. But defense is not only, when you react or excuse yourself and incriminate yourself in anticipatory obedience, but when someone stands up and showing strength and passion. A lesson that Germany and especially the Bundeswehr have to learn.
Taken together, the stories of the last days show a continent in the middle of a strategic identity shift. Germany is wrestling with conscription, budgets and self-punishment, NATO is hardening its eastern shield, and the EU is tentatively building the industrial backbone for real strategic autonomy. This is not a niche debate. It is the blueprint for how Europe intends to survive in a harsher world—or fails trying. But the conflict has just begun – it is not too late to stand up.
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