German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius on Thursday voiced his support for renewing conscription into the German armed forces and called on Berlin and Washington to cut defence spending to 3% of GDP.
Boris Pistorius, defence minister of the Federal Republic of Germany, during his visit to Washington, assured that Germany is ready to play a leading role in security policy in Europe and will provide military capabilities to do so. He said Germany is a reliable ally, able and willing to fulfil its role in the alliance and in world politics.
The defence minister attributed Germany’s new ambition over the conflict between Ukraine and Russia. Germany is in the midst of a military buildup and has abandoned long-cultivated restraint, for example in supplying weapons to war zones, he said at Johns Hopkins University. He wanted to correct the fact that Germany had made a “mistake” by suspending conscription at the end of the Cold War. He stated:
“I’m convinced that Germany needs some kind of military conscription,” Pistorius told a crowd at the American-German Institute. “We need to ensure our military staying power in a state of national or collective defence.”
This, however, is not the first time Pistorius has expressed interest in military conscription, having previously said that a discussion about a general duty of service for civilians would be “valuable.” But domestically, the topic is a politically sensitive one, and the fact that he has given such a full-throated threat is noteworthy.
The German newspaper Bild that the the results of a representative INSA poll for BILD: 46 per cent are in favour of conscription, only 33 per cent are against it. Universal compulsory service has even more support. 56 per cent are in favour, 26 per cent against.
Therefore, according to Boris Pistorius, the compulsory conscription programme would include the following:
- Increase in the number of volunteers should be attracted by early contact with potential recruits.
- Return to classical conscription for men with the aim of attracting 30,000-40,000 recruits per year.
- Compulsory medical examinations for men and women.
Сompulsory service is necessary in the present circumstances, while voluntary military service cannot bridge the ever-growing gap, according to politicians. Currently, 10,347 young people – out of more than 700,000 school leavers (i.e. only 1.5 per cent a year) – are doing so. Especially at odds with the fact that most Germans are not prepared to go to war if Germany is attacked, a poll by the online publication Focus-online showed.
The Prime Minister of Bavaria, Markus Söder, has spoken in favour of early steps to bring back compulsory military service. He said a master plan for the introduction of conscription should be drawn up as a matter of urgency. Söder said Federal Defence Minister Boris Pistorius must “quickly inform when and how many soldiers Germany needs and how a modern conscription system can be developed.”
In order to do this, however, a financial concept is also needed.
There are also contradictions: Nils Gründer, FDP MP, opposed the return of compulsory military service. According to him in the Frankfurt Allgemeine newspaper, this is not possible at the moment because, firstly, the necessary military infrastructure is lacking and would be too expensive to rebuild. Secondly, the delayed entry of entire cohorts into the labour force would further damage the economy, which is already suffering from a shortage of skilled workers. For instance, conscription would massively infringe on the freedoms of future generations without achieving the real goal of a long-term strong Bundeswehr.
In contrast, he stands in favour of greater involvement of reservists in national defence. The compatibility of work and service in the Bundeswehr needs to be improved.
Also, decades of austerity have left visible marks on the infrastructure of the Bundeswehr. There are not enough military training grounds, barracks and beds to accommodate tens of thousands of additional conscripts. The number of trainers needs to be significantly increased. In addition to complex regular training operations, other problems such as training Ukrainian soldiers or sending a brigade to Lithuania are pushing the Bundeswehr to its limits.
The debate over conscription in Germany comes at a time when other NATO countries are considering their own approaches to the issue. In the Nordic and Baltic countries, conscription is increasingly emphasised as a key part of the military armoury. Denmark, for example, has decided to increase military service from 4 to 11 months and to open conscription to women, while Norway plans to create a conscript force of 13,500 by 2036, an increase of 4,500.
According to Breaking Defence, in the United Kingdom, a January comment by Army Chief General Patrick Saunders on the need for a “citizen army” sparked a storm of outrage. Admiral Tony Radakin, Britain’s Chief of Defence Staff, was forced to publicly retract the whole thing: “We are not on the cusp of war with Russia. We are not about to be invaded. No one in the Ministry of Defence is talking about conscription in any traditional sense of the term.”
The German Defence Minister’s comments are thus another example of Germany’s increasingly progressive approach to changing its defence posture, which has turned upside down years of criticism of inadequate procurement spending, poor equipment availability and military readiness.
Since the outbreak of the conflict in Ukraine, Germany has sharply increased its defence spending by 9 per cent between 2022 and 2023, to an annual amount of €66.8 in 2023, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). Germany is thus set to meet NATO’s GDP spending target of 2 per cent this year for the first time. However, 2 per cent may not be the target for Germany in the future, instead calling on Washington and Berlin to aim for 3 per cent. He stated:
[There are problems] we have not solved yet. The industry, neither Germany nor US or in other countries of the world, is yet at the level to produce as much as we need, that matches with ammunition [demand], with missiles, with Patriot systems or whatever you name, so we have to synchronise that. We need more money, there’s no doubt about it, and I think we will rather arrive at 3 per cent or even more.
However, Pistorius has not given a timeline for when he would like to see that goal achieved, and there are potential obstacles. German lawmakers are currently debating how to fund a €25 billion budget “gap” in 2025, with decisions to cut social security or raise taxes. If Pistorius’ request for €6.5 billion ($7 billion) in defence spending is not agreed, purchases of new equipment will suffer.
As of the end of 2023, 181,514 servicemen were in duty, down 1,537 from the previous year. The Bundeswehr was set to grow to 203,000 men and women. That’s roughly the number of troops in 2011, when conscription was suspended. Berlin officially cancelled compulsory military service in 2011.
