The treaty underscores the countries’ mutual defence obligations as NATO allies, which is made especially significant given the UK’s status as a nuclear power. The goal is to boost European deterrence and defence over the next decade. The two sides plan to jointly develop a European-made long-range weapons system capable of striking targets up to 2,000 kilometres away, addressing a capability gap with Russian medium-range missiles.
The delivery is to be financed by Germany. However, the final technical, logistical and financial details still need to be clarified, German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius said after his talks with U.S. Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth, saying these “appear to be solvable for both of us, so we will get to work quickly,” and underlining Ukraine’s urgent need for additional air defence systems.
The Bundeswehr had a strength of 181,150 soldiers at the end of 2024, falling short of previous recruiting targets. NATO member states are to be assigned new national targets for their military capabilities, including weaponry, that are expected to be increased by around 30%.
Germany’s Federal Court of Audit warned that a ‘signal of unlimited willingness to incur debt’ could lead prices in defence industry to soar, with incentives for industry to charge higher prices for the same services due to ‘almost unlimited availability of financial resources and increased demand.’
The €150 billion SAFE fund will come into force on May 29, offering loans to EU states for defence procurement, that will require 65 percent of all purchases to be of European origin, with contractors required to fully control design to avoid new dependencies.
The German military has stationed a permanent presence abroad for the first time since the Second World War with the activation of a new brigade in Lithuania that will number 5,000 and with headquarters near the Belarusian border.
According to Helsing, hundreds of SG-1 Fathoms can be deployed with the Lura AI software platform by a single operator to autonomously detect threats at 10% of the cost of crewed Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW) patrols.
The proposed 2,000+ km range deep precision weapon planned to be fielded in the 2030s could fill a capability gap uncovered by the death of the INF Treaty between Russia and the U.S., which barred land-based intermediate range missiles.
Europe appears to have accepted the prospect of acting independently of the United States, with a new rearmament program proposed by the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, last week.
Ukraine has agreed to a U.S. proposal for a 30-day ceasefire with Russia in exchange for resumption of suspended military aid and intelligence after talks between the two countries in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday.
As NATO races to supply Ukraine before Trump takes office, Europe is struggling to touch two percent of its GDP on defence expenditure while Russia plans to spend more than 32 percent of its national budget on its military.
Russian President Vladimir Putin “has long since switched completely to a war economy,” and the country is currently producing as many weapons and ammunition in three months as the entire European Union does in a year, Pistorius said.
Ukraine struck Russia’s Bryansk region with U.S.-supplied ATACMS systems while President Vladimir Putin has signed into decree, his country’s revised nuclear doctrine, which has enlarged the conditions under which adversaries would be subject to nuclear deterrence.
Shortly before the conversation with Putin, however, Scholz also reiterated in remarks to parliament that Germany would not supply Ukraine with the long-range Taurus cruise missiles, which Ukraine has repeatedly requested.
In the September survey, Defence Minister Boris Pistorius’ (SPD) proposal to increase defence spending to 3% to 3.5% of the gross domestic product received 50% approval, while 15% said that was too low.
