Overview
- Niall Ferguson and Moritz Schularick use a high-profile guest column to argue Germany’s rearmament is misdirected toward systems ill-suited for modern conflict.
- Since 2022, more than 90% of additional investment has gone to tanks, ships and aircraft, while roughly 1% has been allocated to research and development, according to their critique.
- They highlight a stark imbalance in unmanned capability, citing Ukraine’s estimated 4–5 million drones this year compared with about 600 in the Bundeswehr, a stock they say would last only days in war.
- They describe production bottlenecks such as single-shift manufacturing despite Germany’s industrial capacity and propose a central Defence Industrial Board to coordinate civilian and military firms.
- They recommend issuing European defence bonds if needed and note reporting on a €377 billion Bundeswehr wish list with deliveries extending into the 2030s, raising risks of obsolescence; their proposals are recommendations, not enacted policy.