Germany braces for decades of confrontation with Russia

German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius has begun warning Germans that they should prepare for decades of confrontation with Russia -- and that they must speedily rebuild the country's military in case Russian Vladimir Putin does not plan to stop at the border with Ukraine.

Russia's military, he has said in a series of recent interviews with German news media, is fully occupied with Ukraine. But if there is a truce, and Putin has a few years to reset, he thinks the Russian leader will consider testing NATO's unity.

"Nobody knows how or whether this will last," Pistorius said of the current war, arguing for a rapid buildup in the size of the German military and a restocking of its arsenal.


Pistorius' public warnings reflect a significant shift at the top levels of leadership in a country that has shunned a strong military since the end of the Cold War. The alarm is growing louder, but the German public remains unconvinced that the security of Germany and Europe has been fundamentally threatened by a newly aggressive Russia.

The defense minister's post in Germany is often a political dead end. But Pistorius' status as one of the country's most popular politicians has given him a freedom to speak that others -- including his boss, Chancellor Olaf Scholz -- do not enjoy.

As Scholz prepares to meet President Joe Biden at the White House on Friday, many in the German government say that there is no going back to business as usual with Putin's Russia, that they anticipate little progress this year in Ukraine and that they fear the consequences should Putin prevail there.

Those fears have now mixed with discussions about what will happen to NATO if former President Donald Trump is elected and has a second chance to act on his instinct to pull the United States out of the alliance.

The prospect of a reelected Trump has German officials and many of their fellow NATO counterparts informally discussing whether the nearly 75-year-old alliance structure they are planning to celebrate in Washington this year can survive without the United States at its center. Many German officials say Putin's best strategic hope is NATO's fracture.

For the Germans, it is an astounding reversal of thinking. Only a year ago, NATO was celebrating a new sense of purpose and a new unity, and many were confidently predicting Putin was on the run.