Defense Minister Pistorius and Inspector General Breuer are taking a step further towards “war-fighting”: their reform of the Bundeswehr structures is creating fundamental changes and at the same time reaching its limits.
If the news of the day is that the Bundeswehr in the future a should have operational command, so one position that would lead the armed forces in the event of a defense and would be the point of contact for NATO allies, then one thing above all becomes clear: the boards that Boris Pistorius had to drill for his reform of the armed forces must have been thick. Because the sensible question that arises at this point for an interested layperson is: “Oh, and that wasn’t the case before?”
Fact: Since October 2022, the Bundeswehr has had two leadership structures: a so-called Territorial Command has been added to the operational command that has existed since 2001. According to the Bundeswehr’s definition, the former plans and leads all of the troops’ operations and is therefore the operational management level of the Bundeswehr. The second command position was set up a year and a half ago “as the highest national command for Bundeswehr operations in Germany”, i.e. national and alliance defense, disaster relief, but also the transfer of troops from German soil to operational areas. Overlapping competences in this dual leadership seem almost unavoidable. And you can’t even imagine the jurisdictional wrangling that could result from this in an emergency.
Predecessors put reform plans in the drawer
It’s only logical that this double-headed person must be the first to believe in Boris Pistorius’ structural reform, since the minister, according to his own statement, has set himself the goal of “adapting the structures so that they become leaner, that we have fewer positions of responsibility, that “we have less diffusion of responsibility, clearer positioning”. On Thursday in Berlin, Pistorius announced that in the future there would be one operational command instead of two – given the current system, this is actually a headline. “Absolutely positive,” CDU defense expert Roderich Kiesewetter assessed this decision to ntv.de.
In general, Pistorius received a lot of support for his decision to reform the basic structure of the Bundeswehr. Possibly also because so many ministers before him have failed with this claim or – like her immediate predecessor Christine Lambrecht – directly buried their fully developed reform ideas in a particularly deep drawer. Pistorius also refused for months to change the sails on a ship that was in full sail. This is how he described the scope of such a reform. The minister did not specify on Thursday what made him change his opinion on this issue by 180 degrees.
However, there are further plans to slim down the structure of the force, which is criticized by many, including internally, as being too branched and top-heavy: the medical service and the armed forces base will be combined into a support command, and NBC defense forces, military police and logistics will be assigned to each branch of the force assigned individually. The number of pillars on which the force structure rests is reduced from six to five, as is the number of responsible inspectors: In addition to the army, navy and air force, there will only be one central support area and the new “cyber and information space” branch of the force “.
The fact that the previous organizational area “Cyber and Information Space” is now becoming its own branch of the armed forces, at the same level as the Army, Navy and Air Force, does not automatically mean more personnel, but rather an upgrade within the force structure. “There is hardly a combat situation in Ukraine where digital leadership does not play a central role in ensuring that a battle can be fought successfully,” says Pistorius. That’s why this was “considered in every question”, including with regard to the issue of drones, where Inspector General Carsten Breuer in particular is putting pressure on Germany to develop further. For Breuer, the way drones are currently being used in Ukraine is “state of the art”. But he sees the cyber sector as a new branch of the armed forces in such a way that “we will have points of reference further forward. And that is exactly what it has to be about, that we think about war further than what we are currently doing.”
So far, no position has been cut
Sustainability, suitability for war – these terms inevitably come up when Breuer or Pistorius comment on where they want to lead the troops in the coming years. But with the consistent decisions and far-reaching changes at the top of the apparatus, it also becomes clear where the limits of the reform lie: if, for example, the main pillars of the troops were to be reduced from six to five and responsibility was to be concentrated there, you would only need five Sixth of the service posts – commanders, generals. A sixth could be saved.
However, not a single one of these positions has been eliminated so far, which means that the high-ranking soldiers are being transferred and should theoretically have new responsibilities in the new position in accordance with their rank. Exactly what Pistorius doesn’t really want anymore. CDU man Kiesewetter also sees “the streamlining of command and staff structures has not yet been concretized,” and the extent to which this will actually be implemented remains to be seen. But it would be surprising if the minister didn’t face strong headwinds at this point – what leadership structure voluntarily abolishes itself?
The lack of finances is also a problem, because extensive structural restructuring is expensive. “We need around 6.5 billion euros more next year,” says Pistorius, quantifying the costs, and that is a number that seems small. Kiesewetter also criticizes the fact that “the planning scope – currently 203,000 soldiers, including currently around 4,500 reservist positions – remains unchanged.” There is a lack of will to build efficient and growth-capable reserve structures. What if there are no resources?
So the fact that Pistorius’ reform plans don’t turn out to be a big hit, but rather a mixture of what was most urgently needed and what was cheapest to do, is perhaps not to be blamed on the minister, but rather on his lack of resources and a defense budget a real reform project simply cannot be financed. But the traffic light coalition is ultimately responsible for this.