Why Germany must spend more on defense
Sophia Besch is a research fellow at the Centre for European Reform, specializing in European defense policy. The opinions in this article belong to the author.
(CNN)Now that Germany has a new government, investing in defense and the transatlantic relationship has to be a priority for Angela Merkel.
The United States has long provided a security guarantee to Germany, both through NATO’s solidarity clause and through the US protecting Germany’s wider security interests, including freedom of navigation in the Gulf of Aden or the South China Sea or fighting ISIS.
This has made it possible in the past for Berlin to avoid facing difficult questions on the use of force. Germans like to think of themselves as pacifists. But being a pacifist country is easy when security is guaranteed by someone else. German pacifism has often served as camouflage for a reluctance to engage.
Today, German views toward America are shifting, particularly since Donald Trump became president. A survey by the Koerber Foundation in December shows Germans see him as a bigger challenge for German foreign policy than authoritarian leaders in North Korea, Russia or Turkey.
But while a growing number of Germans now say Germany should cooperate less with the US, about two-thirds are still confident the United States would come to their aid in any conflict with Russia. These views look increasingly incongruous.
Trump’s posturing is undermining US influence on Germany even in areas where Berlin deserves criticism, like on defense spending, which in 2017, amounted to just 1.2 percent of gross domestic product. And while Germany has committed to raising its defense spending to NATO’s target of 2 percent of GDP by 2024, this ambition has been met with considerable political resistance.