NATO Needs to Fix its German Problem

the USA has other priorities to attend to

This has not been a good month for Germany and those, like me, who for decades wished she would take her place as a full-time partner in the defense of Western interests.

The need for Germany to step up has always been important as with or without the USA she is the key for securing Central and Western European security interests against any present or future threat from Russia.

As America cannot delay any further a focus on the Pacific threat by the People’s Republic of China (PRC), Germany must rise to the occasion to be a robust presence in the security environment in Europe. Regardless of what Great Britain, France, or Italy do or do not do, if conventional deterrence is to be maintained in Europe, it must include a fully funded and ready German military.

Continental European military is land-centric. Germany, by geography and interest, is primarily a land power.

The Pacific’s military security is maritime specific. Due to its geography and strategic interests, the USA is primarily a maritime and aerospace power.

The last 80 years, from the Cold War and its inertia to defend the European continent from threats to its east, the American defense posture has been unbalanced towards projecting land power with the resulting warping of investments to that end.

As a result, in 2024, the USA finds itself undercapitalized at sea and in the air for what is expected in the fight west of the International Date Line.

That money must come from the American land component to its sea and air component. To keep American in NATO and to keep NATO’s capability where it needs to be, Germany must step up.

Now, over a decade after then President Obama’s call for a “Pacific Pivot,” the pull of Europe and the Middle East for American military power has not let down. Indeed, in Europe, it has increased—but not as much as the pull of the Pacific. America will have to make choice and decide where to accept risk and where to put resources.

It must shift risk towards Europe and land power in order in increase its presence and capability in the Pacific. A stronger American presence in the Pacific needs to move from light-hedge and theory, to heavy-fact and action.

Let’s be clear about another thing; while there is no question that if war involving our NATO allies erupts in Europe, the USA will respond with support, should war involving the USA erupt in the Pacific, few if any European allies will respond in any meaningful way—and no one will hold their breath for Germany to be one of them except perhaps on the margins if at all. That’s OK and does not reflect poorly on them per se. A maritime fight in the Pacific simply is not their fight.

European NATO has been given enough warning that they need to shoulder their fair burden of alliance defense. The Baltic Republics, Poland and other frontline states have—but they don’t have the economic or population heft that Germany does. They and the other NATO nations will have to do what they can to drag Germany with them.

The USA is not going to leave NATO, regardless of what some overly dramatic heavy breathers may say. But again, choices must be made. The smart move for the USA in FY2025 is to assume risk on active-duty land forces so we can rebalance towards sea, the air, and the Pacific.

The rebalance to natural comparative advantage is smart in another way. With interests ashore in Europe and across the expanse of the Indo-Pacific, any forces the USA creates at sea and in the air in the Indo-Pacific can be shifted quickly to any European fight. However, if the USA has over-invested in land forces to cover European land powers’ insufficient investment, those forces will not only be difficult to shift to the Pacific; they also won’t be of much utility there.

Helping Germany wake up is the key. The problem is, Germany and their ruling coalition government simply does not realize where their nation needs to be in 2024. Their worldview is simply divorced from reality and even at this late hour, still layers weakness upon weakness. Weakness enables aggression—aggression Germany is not ready to meet.

Usually I go into the percentage of GDP that Germany spends on defense, but not today. I’ve got two other examples that goes more towards mindset.

First, I think we can all agree, as we approach the 4th year of the Russo-Ukrainian War, that the force that is keeping Russia away from NATO’s borders is Ukrainian. Keeping supplies headed to the fight on NATO’s eastern front is essential. One would think this would focus the mind in a “whole of government” manner. Well…via Steve Skove at Defense One:

U.S. shipments of ammunition to Ukraine were delayed for at least two months last year because of problems with a U.S. military contract with Germany’s Deutsche Bahn railways, according to a Defense Department Inspector General report. 

…

In at least one instance, “no rail service was available to transport the ammunition.” The problem was eventually solved by chartering boats to deliver it instead, at a cost of $1.6 million to the United States. 

I may have to do a story about the water transport on the continent at some point, but I’ll try to focus today.

Germany’s rail network’s ability to move military goods is hampered by extensive bureaucracy, too little investment in infrastructure, and not enough flat-bed wagons for military goods, according to a June report by the German Council on Foreign Relations. 

Military shipments also must compete with commercial goods, the report noted. While the Germany military signed a 2023 agreement to reserve 343 flat wagons, Deutsche Bahn Cargo would struggle to do more because of commercial transport reservations, it said.

Does that sound like a civil society and a government that has a mature understanding that Russia is engaged in the largest war she has had since WWII? That the distance from Frankfurt an der Oder to Kyiv is the same as the distance as Washington DC is to Green Bay?

While we are doing distances, Munich to the Suez Canal is the same as San Diego to New Orleans.

Speaking of access to the Red Sea. While much of Europe is doing what she can to secure civilian shipping in the area, how about the German Navy?

Two German naval ships are avoiding the Red Sea, where Yemen's Huthi rebels have attacked passing maritime traffic, and are instead sailing around Africa, the defence ministry said Wednesday.

Defence Minister Boris Pistorius had ordered the longer route for the frigate and supply ship on their way back from an Indo-Pacific deployment, ministry spokesman Colonel Mitko Mueller told a press conference.

"The threat level is quite high" in the Red Sea, Mueller told a Berlin press briefing, citing the "very complex attacks" carried out there in recent months involving tactical ballistic missiles, drones and other weapons.

He said that, unlike other German naval vessels, the two ships are not "specifically designed to carry out air defence operations" to protect themselves as well as fleets of nearby vessels.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz had during an India trip last week visited the two ships, the frigate Baden-Wuerttemberg and supply ship Frankfurt am Main, in the southwestern state of Goa.

The frigate in question is the lead ship of the Baden-Württemberg Class frigates. She was commissioned only five years ago.

How were they designed?

…the Baden-Württemberg-class frigates will have much enhanced land-attack capabilities. This will better suit the frigates in possible future peacekeeping and peacemaking missions. For such reasons, the frigates will also mount non-lethal weapons.

At 7,100 tons, she is not a small ship. How, exactly, is she armed?

The Baden-Württemberg-class frigates are equipped with one 127mm main gun, two 27mm auto cannons and seven 12.7mm machine guns for defence against air and surface targets. The vessels are also armed with non-lethal weapons, such as water cannons and searchlights for non-provocative deterrence and defence. Beyond capabilities that might be provided by the ship's helicopter(s), sensors for anti-submarine warfare have not been integrated into the platform while the ship's air defence capability is limited to relatively short-range point defence systems

So, against an air target she has her 5” general purpose gun and two SeaRAM.

She is only 500 tons smaller than the Royal Navy’s Type 26 frigate that has a robust armament.

Ahem.