Letter from Berlin
from Our Own
Correspondent
GERMANY, long admired for its steadiness, moderation and sense of proportion, has a new national obsession: rearmament.
Our defence budget – one of the world’s largest even before the Ukraine war – is set to double over the next three years to €152bn, close to Britain and France combined. Berlin is determined; so determined that mandatory military service is even set to make a comeback. The prospect of conscription triggered nationwide student protests, but media outlets were mostly indifferent.
The new narrative is to panic about Russia and fear China. Fair enough. Putin is marching on our doorstep; everyone in Europe knows the US security blanket is kaput and we’re on our own. But all the talk is on how much we are spending, with little focus on how that might lead to better security.