2024-04-05 08:30:11
German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius presents the reform of the Bundeswehr to the press, in Berlin, April 4, 2024. MICHAEL KAPPELER / AP
In November 2023, German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius made a lasting impression by declaring that the Bundeswehr should become “warworthy” (“capable of waging war”). To achieve this, he explained, it will not be able to be satisfied with additional financial resources but will also have to be thoroughly restructured. Five months later, he unveiled his plan on Thursday April 4, presenting the measures which, according to him, should allow the German army to be “optimally prepared for the most serious situations, whether defense or war”.
The main announcement concerns the creation of a “single operational command”. Until now, Bundeswehr missions were managed by two separate commands, one responsible for interventions abroad, based in Potsdam, the other responsible for the defense of national territory, located in Berlin. By merging the two structures, Mr. Pistorius wants “avoid duplicates”, “clarify responsibilities” and allow the Bundeswehr’s interlocutors, both at the regional level (the Länder) and internationally (the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, NATO), to have a “one-stop shop”.
Another announcement: the creation of a fourth armed force called “cyberspace and information”, alongside the army, navy and air force. Until now, these missions were carried out by a simple command, created in 2017 and based in Bonn, the former federal capital. By deciding to make it a full-fledged armed force and announcing it on the very day of NATO’s 75th anniversary, the German government is sending a primarily political signal to its allies in order to show the importance it attaches cyber defense in the face of the proliferation of “hybrid” threats.
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In this area, Berlin has credibility to restore, as demonstrated in early March by Russia’s interception of a telephone conversation between four senior German officers discussing a possible sending of long-range missiles to Ukraine.
Reintroduce a new form of conscription
Highly anticipated, Mr. Pistorius’ announcements left experts wanting more. “What has been decided goes in the right direction but it is not the major reform that the Bundeswehr needs, and the question now is to what extent and at what pace the changes will be implemented », explains Sönke Neitzel, professor of military history at the University of Potsdam and member of the scientific council of the Federal Academy for Security Policy (BAKS). On certain points, he recalls, the reorganization presented by the Minister of Defense on Thursday is even less ambitious than that which had been imagined by his predecessor, Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, Angela Merkel’s last Minister of Defense , in 2021.
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