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-1-
Overhauling the Bundeswehr
Adapting Germany
’
s Military to the 21
st
Century
 
 Anthony F. HillenUNC - CharlotteDecember 2006
 
-2-
Introduction
Since the end of the Second World War, Germany has adopted a stringent foreignpolicy of non-aggression and the strict limitation of her armed forces to a level scarcelysufficient for national defense. Adherence to these policies has persisted to the present.Primarily driven by political pressure stemming from domestic sentiments of collectiveguilt for the atrocities committed by Nazi Germany during WWII and the desire to neverlet that happen again, contemporary German leaders have skirted the issue of restructuring the antiquated cold-war-era German military into a force more inline with
the contemporary geopolitical situation and Germany’s new role as one of the world’s
great powers.
Germany’s new leadership position also implies new resp
onsibilities andcommitments. One of which is commitment to regional and global security. Alongsidethe North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the European Union (EU), Germanyis party to several other security initiatives including the Bremen Declaration and theEuropean Security and Defense Policy (ESDP). The days of European reliance onAmerican military power for protection against external and internal conflict are clearly
over. With no Soviet behemoth lurking on Europe’s doorstep and with the e
conomicresources to provide for its own security, American policy makers have begun to realizethe futility of a large military presence on the continent. This has become more evidentwith the closure of over 8,000 military bases in Europe over the past ten years. Theadvent of globalization and the emergence of new symmetric and asymmetric, internaland regional threats to European security predicate a revision of post-Cold War securitypolicy as well as the means of implementing that policy.To the detriment of national
 
-3-security, the altered
strategic environment has rendered Germany’s force projection
capabilities virtually inept, and remedying the situation will require wide-sweepingchanges.Martin Aguera (2002)
, a correspondent with the US Army’s Str 
ategic StudiesInstitute asserts that
…there is a distinctive mismatch between Germany’s internationally political
commitments and the domestically political willingness to allocate the necessaryfinancial resources to rigorously fulfill that modernization of the armed forces tocomplete the transformation. The defense budget of the past ten years shows avery negative figure for all defense planners
 – 
it has constantly decreased (179-202)Compared to the other two primary powers in the region, France (2.6% of GDP) and theUnited Kingdom (2.4% of GDP), Germany has the smallest defense budget (less than1.5% of GDP). Yet, with a GDP of about $2.27 trillion, Germany has by far the largesteconomy in Europe. A US Department of Defense Report on Allied Contributions to theCommon Defense (DoD, 1998)
stated, “We are concerned about the current and
projected German defense budget trends, and are urging the German government to give
close attention to this matter.” (
p.32)
Germany’s political consensus on the use of 
force and its legitimacy has shifteddramatically since the end of the cold war. The UK and France have responded to thealtered geopolitical environment with a multitude of reforms to their armed forces,allowing effective participation in crisis managem
ent operations, the Bundeswehr’s
reform measures have been paltry in comparison (Szabo/Hampton, 2003). Policy makersappear to remain fixated on the concept of territorial defense. However, modern securitypolicy involves much more than traditional border defense, it entails the containment of conflicts and crises, so defense can no longer be geographically restricted. Regional
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