German Military Modernization Hampered by Slow Procurement

The German government's efforts to modernize and expand its military, the Bundeswehr, is in danger of being derailed by the country's slow procurement processes, according to critics.

The wars in Ukraine and Iran have shown that drones costing just tens of thousands can be an effective against weapons that devoured countless millions to develop and manufacture. Ukrainian air defenses, for example, have shown that they are able to hold their own against Russian attacks despite the fact that the Ukraine air force has only a fraction of the number of fighter jets and bombers.

Meanwhile, Germany has massively boosted its defense spending in the past few years. On top of the €100 billion ($114 billion) "special fund" announced in the wake of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the state has been rapidly raising its regular defense spending: From €62.4 billion in 2025 to €82.7 billion in 2026, with plans to raise that to €152 billion by 2029.

But critics are wondering whether these vast sums are being spent in the best way, not least since the FCAS Franco-German fighter jet, which cost over €100 billion, was scrapped in June.

Defense analyst Nico Lange, who once worked for the German Defense Ministry, gave a scathing verdict on the current strategy. "It's the same dysfunctional system as before. They're just pouring significantly more money into it," he told the news portal Web.de. "The point is: Unless you actually change the structures of military planning and procurement, nothing better will come of it."

Germany learning its procurement lessons

Germany is currently climbing a steep learning curve, according to some politicians. Andreas Schwarz, Social Democrat member of the Bundestag defense committee, said the war in Ukraine is "completely changing how war is being fought."

On a visit to Ukraine earlier this month, Schwarz found that the debates that had dominated German politics in the first year after Russia's full-scale invasion of the country — about whether Germany should send Taurus rockets or Leopard tanks to help Ukraine — had become entirely irrelevant.

"When I was in Ukraine last week and visited the Defense Ministry, no one asked me about a Taurus cruise missile or a Leopard tank," he told DW. "What they need is help with drones, with ammunition, with modernizing their IT sector, with satellites and communication."

Can an army still fight with 'legacy' weapons?

But the Ukrainian experience doesn't mean that heavy weapons systems — often called "legacy systems" have become obsolete, as some analysts have been arguing in recent months. Max Becker, policy fellow at the German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP), said that the Ukrainian war had shown, on the contrary, that tanks or artillery systems were still important to capture and hold territory, as well as for long-range strikes.

"It's about having the right mix of legacy systems, which you still need, and drone technology," Becker told DW. "That is a dilemma because, on the one hand, you still need to invest in very expensive systems like combat tanks, which take a long time from order to delivery, but you also have to invest in systems like drones and loitering munitions."

The Ukrainian military, Becker added, had developed its drone-based strategy partly out of necessity, because of its lack of conventional artillery and combat tanks. "I think the scenarios that Germany and NATO are preparing for are very different from those of the war between Russia and Ukraine because NATO has very different equipment."

Andreas Schwarz also thinks that the Bundeswehr still needs the old weapons. "I don't want to say that we don't need tanks anymore — not at all, we're always going to need them," he said. "But the question is: Do we still need them in that quantity? And could I not complement or even optimize them with smaller, more flexible units?"

Drones are not only becoming more sophisticated, but also easier and cheaper to control — whereas expensive special computer systems were vital in the past, some military drones can now be steered with apps on a smartphone. Schwarz believes that though the German government and defense industry have grasped this new reality, they still need some time to implement the necessary measures to deal with it.

The procurement problem

The devil is in the detail — or, as so often, in the bureaucracy. Defense procurement is notoriously slow and complicated, and has proved especially so in a country where the arms industry is dominated by major companies such as Rheinmetall that have made a lot of money building tanks and submarines for the world's militaries.

"We have an arms industry that for decades has relied on certain tried-and-tested technologies," said Schwarz. "Of course, we also have an army that has spent decades preparing for scenarios that are no longer very likely today. And of course, it’s difficult to establish this new way of thinking when we’ve been operating on the basis of different scenarios up until now — which requires those in charge to be willing to rethink their approach."

In an attempt to speed things up, the German government introduced a new law at the beginning of the year, whose name is as self-explanatory as it is unwieldy: the Bundeswehrbeschaffungsbeschleunigungsgesetz — or, the Military Procurement Acceleration Law.

This measure hopes to decentralize procurement by raising price thresholds so that certain purchases can be made without extra decision-makers being looped in, and removing paperwork for defense procurements between governments.

These are all good things, said Becker, because they help to change the received logic of defense procurement: In a world where drones and weapons can become obsolete within weeks, it makes no sense to make an order and then stockpile weapons that will be outdated in months.

"You create this new logic by agreeing innovation clauses in the procurement process, which obligate the companies to update their systems," Becker said. Seeing that the German government had grasped that such innovations were important had given him hope, he added.

What Germany should be concentrating on, he suggested, was setting up a new manufacturing infrastructure that can react quickly to new orders. "I can't buy a million drones," he said. "I need a stockpile of drones for training, and for exercise purposes, but I also need the industrial capacities so that the production of a mass of drones can be set up within four to six weeks."

The German military is also in the middle of a massive recruitment drive that is proving unpopular among young people — but, despite the increased automation of warfare, Schwarz believes that new human recruits are still essential. "We still need those people as drone pilots for example, but we also need people who can work with this technology," he said. Not only that, he added, new recruits were necessary to strengthen the reserve army to protect German territory for the worse case scenario.