How Germany’s defence boost gives it new importance
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And with Freshworks AI-assisted service software, you'll work smarter, not harder. Freshworks uncomplicates. Learn more at freshworks.com. Welcome to the world in 10. In an increasingly uncertain world, this is The Times' daily podcast dedicated to global security. Today with me, Tom Noonan and Sinead Garvin.

Germany's new chancellor, Friedrich Merz, has come away from his meeting with Donald Trump, saying he's reassured and extremely satisfied. He says he's got absolutely no doubt Trump will stick with NATO. It was seemingly a successful meeting for a man who's previously warned about the potentially dire consequences of Trump's policy towards Europe.

It probably helped that Germany has heeded Trump's calls on military spending. Merz has pushed through a constitutional change, allowing him to borrow much more money for defence, which is, of course, particularly significant given Germany's economic might. So was Thursday's meeting a sign that Germany's boost to defence spending is giving it new importance and a new role on the international stage? Our guest today is The Times' Berlin correspondent Oliver Moody.

Oliver, there were lots of warnings before this meeting about how it might go and whether Mertz would run into trouble in the Oval Office, but it feels like it went a lot better than expected. Yes, people were very much thinking of the treatment that had been meted out to Volodymyr Zelensky and President Ramaphosa of South Africa, where they were both

ambushed in that slightly bizarre reality TV format in the White House in front of the press. But Mertz, I think, very much fell into the pattern that we've seen with leaders of other Western European countries plus Finland, where

His diplomats have prepared very, very assiduously for the visit and come with something that they can obviously bring to the table, an easy win for Trump. They've managed his personality very well. And then ultimately, they've extracted a few bits of language from Trump that can be regarded as kind of minor bits of progress without him saying anything earth shatteringly different or obviously changing his policy.

And Mertz was particularly forthright with Trump on Ukraine, wasn't he? I mean, when Trump tried to talk about some sort of equivalence between Russia and Ukraine, and particularly in terms of casualties, Mertz pretty stridently said, no, this is Russia's doing.

Yeah, unlike what we saw with Macron, where he developed the devilishly cunning trick of speaking in French when he wanted to contradict Trump on this point. Merz did so quite boldly, but very politely in English. And this seems to be a recipe that works quite well with Trump, where if...

you're on a basis of kind of almost mutual respect and you do stand your ground without being kind of irritable or provocative about it, he will often let that pass. And so that is basically what Mertz did, being very clear that Russia was the aggressor. And he even managed to extract from Trump a remark that Trump was with Ukraine.

which Trump pretty much immediately qualified after that by saying if there were sanctions, then they would possibly hit both sides of the conflict. One thing that struck me, Oliver, was that during the meeting, Trump repeatedly made references to and even jokes about the Second World War. I mean, for example, Mertz brought up the anniversary of D-Day, which is today. And Trump said, oh, well, that was a bad day for you, meaning Germany. How did Mertz deal with that?

Yeah, well, this is very much a line that the Germans have got used to over the past 80 years. It's very common for people from the outside to kind of naively assume that they regard the Second World War as a kind of embarrassing defeat. But the kind of landmark moment in Germany's history

Modern Germany's memory culture was a speech 40 years ago by the president at the time, Richard von Weizsäcker, where he famously said the 8th of May 1945, the final defeat of Nazi Germany, was not a day of defeat for us. It was a day of liberation. And that is exactly the language that Mautz used in response to Trump. So this is something the Germans have had 40 years of practice at.

Oliver, you said Merz brought something to the table which is a win for Trump. In this case, Germany essentially agreeing to US demands to massively increase its defence spending. How significant is the increase which Germany's agreed to? Well, it's tremendously significant just in terms of European NATO's capabilities because up to now, Germany has been bobbing along at 2%.

of its GDP on the military since 2022, the outbreak of the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine. That will now go up to 3.5%. In theory, it could go indefinitely higher. Mertz has bought himself the constitutional space for unlimited borrowing to fund the armed forces.

And these are really significant and staggeringly high amounts of money. We're talking potentially 50, 60, 70 billion euros more per year. So from the perspective of European NATO, that is like getting the entire British defence budget bolted on. It's like adding another country, another sizeable allied country to NATO's military capabilities in Europe. It's huge.

So it's symbolically, politically and just flat out militarily a tremendously significant move. And what does 50 to 70 billion euros, which is about 60 to 80 billion dollars, actually buy you? What will Germany be spending it on? Well, the German Defence Ministry has had a shopping list for precisely this eventuality. So it knows exactly where the most glaring gaps in its capabilities are at the moment.

And those are primarily ammunition. They just need shed loads of shells and bombs and bullets. And then air defense and long range strikes are basically cruise missiles. That's all pretty straightforward and uncontentious. Where it gets interesting is where you go next.

And there are two kind of outstanding questions here. One is, it's very, very obvious that NATO's new capability targets, what they want each national military to be able to do, in Germany's case, requires a lot of

require it to have far, far greater reserves of manpower, possibly up to 460,000 professional soldiers and reservists that can be mobilised at short notice. It currently has 180,000 professional soldiers and 30,000 reservists. So we're looking at roughly a doubling of the number of people with some level of serious military training. And there is a very live debate about whether

what level of conscription you have to introduce to get there. And so far, they've kind of fudged it and gone for a very, very light voluntary model of military service. Then the next question, which is also very interesting, is what hardware do you buy between conventional kit, tanks, fighter jets, warships, etc.?

And the AI and drones, ultimately, it will be lots of both. The question is really, you know, is it 60-40? Is it 70-30? That's where the kind of battle over distribution is happening right now.

And just finally, Oliver, Germany has been such an economic powerhouse in recent years, and so also a political one in the EU especially. But it's not, in its modern history at least, been a military powerhouse. How do you think this will change Germany's role in Europe and NATO? Well, it would result if the military recruitment targets are hit in Germany having by far the largest military

defence budget in Europe in absolute terms, pretty much double France's or Britain's, for example. And it would also result in Germany having the largest conventional army in the European Union. That's a big deal. The question is, what kind of leverage and influence does it buy Germany?

And also, what does it want to do with that leverage? And right now, we're still waiting to get a sense of what Merz's long-term strategic priorities are. When I've spoken to sources in his party about this, they've said right now,

The idea that Merz has of Germany's role in all these questions is to be the country that makes things happen, that has the financial, military and organisational muscle to take up initiatives from other countries, most notably Britain and France, and make sure that they are done really well. So he doesn't necessarily see it right now as his role to start suggesting new directions for the other Europeans, but I'm pretty sure that that will come.

At some point in this chancellorship, we're right at the start of it, and there are another four years ahead, and an awful lot of geopolitical changes is undoubtedly going to happen in that time.

OK, Oliver, thank you. That is Oliver Moody, The Times correspondent in Berlin. Germany's increased defence spending is reflected across NATO, which yesterday said members have agreed to push up their targets. They're agreeing to spend 3.5% of GDP specifically on defence by 2035, and then they'll spend another 1.5% on top of that on military infrastructure.

For yesterday's episode, former US official Jim Townsend explained to us why it's a bit of creative accounting by NATO to placate Donald Trump, but it could also make a big difference to how NATO mobilises. It's called NATO's New Target to Keep Trump Happy. Do go back and have a listen. That's it from us. Thank you for taking ten minutes to stay on top of the world with the help of The Times. See you tomorrow.

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