We need the Germans to build a new army

Germany is building a new army. That is a big piece of news by any standards. The new German Chancellor, Friedrich Merz, told the German Parliament last week that all the resources needed to make the German army the strongest conventional army in Europe will be provided.

Merz’s speech followed on from a major debate within Germany about how to respond to Donald Trump’s re-election as US President and the new security reality in Europe. He didn’t just address the need for an enlarged and better equipped army. He outlined how Germany will deepen ties with Paris, Warsaw and with London, politically and militarily. He also said that Germany will always be a close partner and ally of small and medium-sized countries, most especially such countries in the EU. That means us.

Wow. A newly built German army – the biggest in Europe – is about to arise. You wouldn’t need a PhD in 20th-century European history to get the significance of that. Germany after World War II did have an army, but it was smaller than a country of its size would expect to have. It also positioned and set its army as more or less a component of NATO.

In other words, the German army provided divisions of soldiers and lots of equipment as part of an integrated NATO-led defence of Europe. So the Germans had in theory independent control of their army, but everyone knew it would only act under NATO command. That was a safeguard against German aggression after two devastating world wars.

After the end of the Cold War, German investment in their armed forces declined significantly. And so, even though it was no longer as necessary as it had been until 1989, the reliance on the United States for security in Europe actually grew in the decades after the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Now Merz is creating a German army which will still aid NATO, but which is designed to be capable of independent action to defend Europe with or without NATO. That’s not a small business – and arises because of Trump and Trumpism. The only place the debate about it is small is here. Germany is building a new army to defend Europe, and we will shield behind it. But will we contribute?

It doesn’t seem likely, because many people here would see it as dirtying our hands in some way. It would mean signing up to ‘a militarised Europe’. As opposed to what? A totally undefended one?

Lots of leaders and countries talk about increasing military spending, but the Germans are approaching it seriously, so they have also indicated how they are going to pay for this new army. They are going to loosen what is called a constitutional ‘debt brake’, which means they will be able to borrow more money to pay for their defence. That will mean an estimated €60 billion budget this year, up 15% on the previous year. Merz also promised to make voluntary military service an attractive choice for young people in Germany, which will be a hard ask in their quite pacific culture.

We can imagine the counter arguments here already, the charges of hypocrisy and inconsistency. ‘Oh they can change the rules to find money for arms, but what about when they made us take on the Anglo debt (or whatever)…’ or ‘oh they wouldn’t lift their debt brake to spend money on health or education or whatever…’ 

This kind of argument suggests that the German government should not do whatever it takes now to raise the money it needs to defend its people, its territory and its neighbours and friends, because it didn’t spend money on something else in the past. But this isn’t the past. Just in case someone missed the subtlety of Donald Trump, the reality is that we can’t be sure the Americans will play this role anymore. And the Americans do have a point in this one respect: why should they pay to defend Europe when we should be well able to do it ourselves?

Chancellor Merz has been clear that the purpose of growing the country’s military is to deter aggression. Last week he said: “Our goal is a country, a Germany and a Europe that are together so strong that we never have to use our weapons.” Or as he more pithily put it: “We want to be able to defend ourselves so that we don’t have to defend ourselves.” 

That seems sensible, but it is also the case that democratic societies have to remain highly vigilant about large armies. Armies created for one reason can be turned into something else. If we ever experienced the political disaster of the AFD - the Alternative for Germany -being elected to government, then we would be rightly concerned about a large German army being in their nationalistic hands.

But in the cool light of 2025 reality that is ultimately an argument to support Merz’s wider political agenda to keep the AFD out of power. It certainly doesn’t mean we can ignore Europe’s security needs, and if we can’t be sure the Americans will do it anymore, we need the Germans instead. That is a simple political reality. What we in Ireland do about it is another thing entirely of course.

In our debate on neutrality, many will say - or foretell - that Ireland is going to be pressured by our EU partners into contributing more to Europe’s defence.

They misunderstand who is under pressure. When Merz spoke last week about the reason for building this new army, he said: “Our friends and partners also expect this from us, and what's more, they are actually demanding it."

European defence and security matters to us. Security doesn’t start at your national frontier and you are asleep if you think it does. What happens beyond the far field matters to us, whether that be injustices being done to the weak, or in the protection of our own vital interests in the world. Whether we realise it or not, whether we say it out loud or not, we need the Germans to do this.

In our discussions on these German moves, some will have the good sense to be more or less quiet and be silently glad they have done it. Others will feel it appropriate – with the Germans and all our EU friends sitting between us and trouble – to lecture them on why they shouldn’t. These era-defining issues deserve a better debate than we normally manage.