Defense Minister Pistorius presents his new military service model – and immediately says that it “will not be enough.” He has made the most of it, but only for the moment. There is also a bit of obligation, but even more questions.
He would have the majority of Germans behind him for a new model of compulsory military service – but not his own party. Boris Pistorius had to find a compromise on military service between what he himself considers necessary given the situation and what can currently be implemented in the traffic light coalition. In view of this considerable dilemma, one can only be amazed that the Minister of Defense did not let his almost reliably good mood be dampened on this Wednesday afternoon. In Berlin, he presented plans for a new military service that clearly fall short of his own ideas.
And he will have to advertise even for them if one takes some of the SPD’s voices from the past few days seriously. For Pistorius, it is therefore important to first make it clear why there can be no doubt about the necessity of his new model: “The Duma has massively increased defense spending, Russia is producing weapons systems in stock, it has switched to a war economy and the verbal attacks against NATO countries and other neighboring states are visibly and audibly increasing,” the minister lists, concluding with a clear number: 2029. From then on, according to the assessment of all international military experts, Russia will be in a position to “militarily attack a NATO state or a neighboring state.”
Now it is time to make the Bundeswehr “war-ready” with a view to 2029. This is how Pistorius has formulated the goal often enough, just last week in the Bundestag. Because without an army that could wage and win a war if necessary, an enemy cannot be credibly deterred. That is how Pistorius sees it, but what he has not yet seen is this army. There is a particular lack of reserves. For decades, no one has cared that soldiers who quit the service are even recorded in a file. “We could not even mobilize in the event of a defense,” Pistorius sums up the misery.
The new regulation is therefore not intended to promote the necessary growth of the professional army, but to fill up the reserves. And it will do so like this: In future, the state will write to the entire cohort of young Germans who turn 18 every year. Around 700,000 people, women and men, asking them to fill out a questionnaire – about their own fitness, their own relationship with the Bundeswehr, and whether they would be willing to volunteer for their service. Women can fill out the questionnaire and send it back; men must do so. Anyone who is then ordered to take part in the medical examination because they are well-suited must take part – for women this is also voluntary.
With little mathematical knowledge to a sobering realization
But at this point the duties end. Of the approximately 40,000 men planned for the draft, Pistorius hopes to recruit 5,000 for the Bundeswehr in the first year, through selection. “That’s exactly what it’s about: we want the best and the most motivated and at the same time offer them something in return,” says Pistorius, calling the format a “selective military service.” Those drafted who accept the offer would have to do at least six months of basic military service. Preferably a year, ideally 23 months.
So far, so manageable. That is a good sign, and not a given in the confusing rules of the Bundeswehr. But as Pistorius himself calculated at the beginning, the Bundeswehr should manage to increase the number of reservists from the current 60,000 to 260,000. 100,000 of them should come from the group of those who previously served and have since left. Someone has to find out all the addresses and everyone will then be written to. The other 100,000, however, are to be generated through the new “selective military service”. Initially 5,000 per year, soon 10,000 if the plans work out.
However, you don’t need much math knowledge to calculate that with 10,000 additional reservists per year, it will take ten years to reach 100,000. But what was the number from the beginning again? The year when Putin would be able to attack again? Exactly. 2029.
He sees the model as an entry point, as a way to start now, Pistorius answers a question from a journalist who, after doing mental math on 100,000 new workers, has landed on 2036. Just like everyone else in the room. And then the minister says the following sentence: “In essence, you are right. It will not be enough.”
Capacities are “the limiting factor”
So for half an hour now, Pistorius has been presenting a new military service model that, in his own opinion, is not suitable for meeting existing requirements and goals. And he is not taking issue with the hesitant traffic light coalition, with his own party presidium, which recently pulled the compulsory teeth from him in such a public way and would prefer not to hear any more talk of “military readiness” from him?
Pistorius does not do any of this, because not only does his own coalition government put him in his place, but so does the capacity of the Bundeswehr. “I would like to train 20,000 conscripts per year, but we do not have the capacity for that,” he says. They are “the limiting factor.”
And this is indeed not empty talk, confirms Rafael Loss, security expert at the European Council on Foreign Relations. So many barracks were abandoned after the end of the Cold War, properties were sold, and the infrastructure for conscription was completely scrapped. “The suspension of military service in 2011 actually included the condition that the structures could be reactivated in the event of a defense,” says Loss. But nobody took care of that.
“Even with a more ambitious approach and higher goals, you couldn’t make any faster progress than Pistorius is doing right now,” says Loss. Because all the problems with infrastructure, personnel and finances have to be solved in order to make any progress. “If we walk 20 meters each year for the next five years, it will have the same effect as if we decide now that we want to have walked 100 meters in five years.”
Cheerfulness nonetheless
Is that why Boris Pistorius is in such a good mood? Because he knows that in the end, for the moment, he will not be able to achieve more than the little he is currently putting in place? And perhaps also because it is clear that reality will catch up with Germany in the end. When it becomes clear that NATO’s expectations of Germany’s contribution to defense capability cannot be met with just 203,000 soldiers in the standing force. NATO calls its expectations “minimum capability requirements”. In order to meet these, according to expert Loss, the Bundeswehr will need around 270,000 active soldiers in the future – a minimum.
There will be a lot more work to be done in the coming years, including possible conscription – also for women – if the current model does not show very good results very quickly. But for now, things are set to get rolling, and given the threat posed by Putin’s Russia, Pistorius hardly expects young people to decide against it out of fear. Germany’s experience with its conscription army has shown that there has never been a conflict “because we were able to deter effectively.” It is a matter of doing everything possible to ensure that Germany becomes so credible and capable of deterrence “that there is never a conflict in the first place and everyone can go home safe and sound.” A cheerfulness that the minister underlines with his own.