Fit for war in decades: Europe's and Germany's slow rearmament vis-a-vis Russia

Authors

• Wolff
• G.B.
• Burilkov
• A.
• Bushnell
• K.
• Kharitonov
• I.

Publication Date

JEL Classification

Key Words

Related Topics

War is back in Europe and as it becomes long-lasting, the question of armament gains central im-portance. This report finds that Russian military industrial capacities have been rising strongly in the last two years, well beyond the levels of Russian material losses in Ukraine. Meanwhile, the build-up of German capacities is progressing slowly. We document Germany’s military procurement in a new Kiel Military Procurement Tracker and find that Germany did not meaningfully increase pro-curement in the one and a half years after February 2022, and only accelerated it in late 2023. Given Germany’s massive disarmament in the last decades and the current procurement speed, we find that for some key weapon systems, Germany will not attain 2004 levels of armament for about 100 years. When taking into account arms commitments to Ukraine, some German capacities are even falling. The new Tracker provides detailed information on quantities, value of the orders, predicted delivery dates, as well as the companies from which Germany procures. The situation of slow and insufficient procurement can and needs to be remedied. Failing on deterrence would mean a higher likelihood of a costly war. Instead of Germany pursuing a “war economy”, as some have argued, Germany’s defence budget needs to durably and credibly increase. Higher and credible long-term demand will lead to increasing supply capacities. A long-term European armament strategy is needed. Germany and Europe need to focus on speed in procurement, on cost effectiveness through econo-mies of scale in an integrated European market, on innovation, and on technological superiority. Tracking military rearmament is essential to the security of the continent.

Kiel Institute Experts