Berlin In normal times – and those were long periods of peace – interest in the report of the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Armed Forces was mostly limited. It was about right-wing extremists in the troops, the modernization of barracks, foreign missions and again and again about a lack of equipment and the army’s lack of operational readiness. All of this was recorded on hundreds of pages and then disappeared into the drawers.
Everything is different this year. While Defense Commissioner Eva Högl is presenting her annual report on Tuesday, Russian troops are advancing on Ukrainian cities. War is raging right on the border with the NATO countries Poland, Hungary, Slovakia and Romania. The Bundeswehr, trimmed for foreign missions, suddenly has to think back to its core task.
In view of the “brutal war of aggression in our immediate vicinity”, the Bundeswehr is “more challenged than ever in defense of the alliance and the country”, said the former deputy leader of the SPD parliamentary group in front of the capital’s press in Berlin. Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine at the latest, there have been serious doubts that the German armed forces are prepared for this task.
A few weeks ago, Army Inspector Alfons Mais admitted in a LinkedIn post that the Bundeswehr was “more or less blank”. The options that the armed forces could offer politicians in support of NATO are therefore “extremely limited”.
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With his “very emotional contribution”, the top army soldier rightly pointed out existing deficits, says the military commissioner. “But the Bundeswehr is ready for action.” It needs to improve on “cold start capability”, i.e. the ability to react quickly to acute crises. And if 77 percent of the large military equipment is ready for use, then that is an improvement compared to the previous year, but: “That’s not enough.”
Read more about NATO’s additional defense efforts here
The operational readiness of the Bundeswehr has also suffered because servicewomen and men have recently been involved as flood workers or contact tracers in the health authorities. At the peak last year, 19,000 soldiers were involved in administrative assistance, currently there are still 3,900.
One is rightly proud of that, but the administrative assistance is busy and a burden on the troops and must therefore end now, demands Högl. In a radio interview a few days ago, when asked whether servicewomen and men could get involved in caring for Ukrainian refugees, she became even clearer. The Bundeswehr is not a “girl for everything”.
The Parliamentary Commissioner for the Armed Forces visited the troops more than 60 times last year, this year she was last with Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht (SPD) on the German deployment contingent in Lithuania and she stopped by the Panzer Engineer Battalion 803 in Havelberg, Saxony-Anhalt, which is currently on the multinational battle group to secure NATO’s eastern flank.
During her visits, she was repeatedly asked about missing or defective equipment, says Högl. In Mali and Niger, she experienced “that not everything is ready, even when deployed” – from the protective vest to the Fuchs armored personnel carrier. And the combat swimmers in Eckernförde had been waiting for a swimming pool where they could train for ten years.
“This is good news for the Bundeswehr in difficult times,” says the SPD politician about the planned special fund.
(Photo: dpa)
That is why it is “good news for the Bundeswehr in difficult times” that the federal government now wants to set up a special fund worth 100 billion euros, emphasizes the Commissioner for the Armed Forces. Money urgently needed to close capability gaps.
But experts also see a danger in the sudden flood of money: With the special fund and the promise to the NATO partners to spend at least two percent of economic output on defense every year, politicians have made a spending target the benchmark for success, said Christian Mölling, Research Director of the German Society for Foreign Policy (DGAP), the Handelsblatt. “In other words, that means: the money has to go.” That is a fatal signal to the market, which then thinks that quality is no longer important, but above all getting rid of money.
>> Read here: More money for the Bundeswehr: These are the difficulties of the 100 billion euro plan
Högl also warns that the money should be spent wisely – first and foremost for the soldiers’ personal equipment, but also for urgently needed equipment such as night vision devices, ships or heavy transport helicopters. It should first be procured what is available on the market, before one embarks on in-house developments.
A day before Högl’s report, Defense Minister Lambrecht had announced as a first step that the Bundeswehr would procure 35 F-35 fighter jets from the US manufacturer Lockheed Martin.
However, Högl also knows that money is not everything – on the contrary, the regular defense budget has not been exhausted for many years. The problems are well known: lengthy procurement procedures, excessive demands from German buyers and a procurement office that is considered to be completely outdated mean that years often go by before urgently needed material arrives at the troops.
DGAP security expert Mölling therefore recommends handling orders from the 100 billion euro special fund bypassing the procurement office via an agency that is to be newly founded. Because the current bureaucracy is not properly set up “to spend the money quickly and sensibly”.
Högl, who was a member of the SPD for eleven years and resigned her mandate in 2020 to become a military commissioner, warns that Germany should not always implement European procurement law in such a “small-scale” way if material is to be procured more quickly. Other countries used the existing options much more flexibly. However, the SPD politician does not have much hope that things will change quickly. The whole system is “pretty persistent”.
Högl considers the discussion about the reintroduction of conscription to be a “theoretical debate, which at least now does not help in this situation”. But one must very well discuss how the Bundeswehr can become even more attractive for young people. Because the troops are expected to grow from the current 184,000 to 203,000 soldiers by 2031.
This is a “mammoth task,” says Högl. However, the war in Ukraine could definitely contribute to more people choosing a career in the Bundeswehr. But they should know that this isn’t a normal job, says the military commissioner, while tanks continue to roll and grenades fly in Ukraine. Because: “In case of doubt, they stand up for the assignment with their lives.”
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