German MoD pledges to sort out air defense portfolio within weeks

COLOGNE, Germany — Top German defense officials plan to finish an analysis of the country’s air defense requirements in March, according to a new strategy paper co-written by the defense minister and the chief of staff of the armed forces.

The announcement amounts to a promise of conceptual clarity about where future investments are headed, even though funding decisions will have to wait until a new government takes up the matter sometime after the September national elections.

German officials have been brooding over what to do with the TLVS program, an envisioned next-generation missile defense weapon originally designed to replace the country’s Patriot fleet. The upcoming analysis is expected to show to what degree — if at all — the program still fits into plans to protect deployed formations from missiles and drones.

Also up for a decision between the spring and the summer is the path forward for a new heavy transport helicopter, dubbed STH in German, wrote Defence Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer and Gen. Eberhard Zorn. By that time, officials hope to have sufficient information from the Pentagon about potential purchases of either the Boeing-made Chinook, or the King Stallion made by Lockheed Martin subsidiary Sikorsky.

As in the case of TLVS, the next government will have to try to get the helicopter program across the finish line of parliamentary funding approval.

Plans about the future of two key acquisition programs are embedded in a raft of proposals by the two defense leaders aimed at positioning the Bundeswehr as a powerful policy tool for German leaders as they confront challenges emanating from Russia and China.

On Russia, Kramp-Karrenbauer and Zorn wrote that Moscow is “defining itself as a counter-power to the West,” with massive military modernization of its conventional and nuclear forces.

Germany must follow suit and sharpen its own military prowess by weeding out needless programs and upping overall defense spending, the pair argued, lest Berlin exposes itself to blackmail on the geopolitical stage.

Christian Mölling, a senior defense analyst with the Berlin-based German Council on Foreign Relations, said the new strategy document reflects Kramp-Karrenbauer’s goal of remaining defense minister in the next government.

The publication of a defense-themed manifesto out of Kramp-Karrenbauer’s own agency, presumably without cross-government coordination, presents perhaps the greatest chance of success in advancing reforms across the Bundeswehr, Mölling said.

At the same time, Kramp-Karrenbauer will have to contend with anemic financial trend lines that may make her vision of a more ready and deployable force difficult to realize. As a result, recent government spending decisions bear the imprint of a pure “budgetary logic” rather than a strategic, military calculus, Mölling said.

Sebastian Sprenger is associate editor for Europe at Defense News, reporting on the state of the defense market in the region, and on U.S.-Europe cooperation and multi-national investments in defense and global security. Previously he served as managing editor for Defense News. He is based in Cologne, Germany.

德国科隆——据国防部长和武装部队总参谋长共同撰写​​的一份新的战略文件显示，德国高级国防官员计划在3月份完成对该国防空需求的分析。

该声明相当于承诺明确未来投资的方向，尽管资金决策必须等到9月全国大选后的新政府处理此事时才能做出。

德国官员一直在斟酌如何处理TLVS项目。TLVS是德国设想的下一代导弹防御武器，最初旨在取代现有的“爱国者”导弹防御系统。即将发布的分析报告预计将揭示该项目在多大程度上（如果有的话）仍然符合保护部署部队免受导弹和无人机攻击的计划。

国防部长安妮格雷特·克兰普-卡伦鲍尔和埃伯哈德·佐恩将军写道，在春季和夏季之间，还将决定一种新型重型运输直升机（德语代号STH）的未来发展方向。届时，官员们希望从五角大楼获得足够的信息，以决定是否采购波音公司生产的“奇努克”直升机或洛克希德·马丁公司子公司西科斯基公司生产的“种马王”直升机。

与 TLVS 项目的情况类似，下一届政府将不得不努力争取让直升机项目获得议会拨款批准。

两位国防领导人提出了一系列提案，旨在将德国联邦国防军打造成为德国领导人应对来自俄罗斯和中国的挑战的强大政策工具，其中就包括两个关键采购项目的未来计划。

关于俄罗斯，克兰普-卡伦鲍尔和佐恩写道，莫斯科正在“将自己定义为对抗西方的强权”，对其常规部队和核部队进行大规模的军事现代化。

两人认为，德国必须效仿，通过剔除不必要的项目和增加整体国防开支来提升自身的军事实力，以免柏林在地缘政治舞台上遭受讹诈。

柏林德国外交关系委员会高级国防分析师克里斯蒂安·默林表示，这份新的战略文件反映了克兰普-卡伦鲍尔希望在下一届政府中继续担任国防部长的目标。

莫林表示，克朗普-卡伦鲍尔自己的机构发布一份以国防为主题的宣言，想必没有跨政府协调，这或许是推动联邦国防军改革取得最大成功的机会。

与此同时，克兰普-卡伦鲍尔还必须应对疲软的财政趋势，这可能会使她打造一支更随时待命、更易于部署的部队的愿景难以实现。莫林表示，因此，近期政府的支出决策更多地体现了纯粹的“预算逻辑”，而非战略军事考量。

塞巴斯蒂安·斯普伦格是《防务新闻》欧洲版副主编，负责报道该地区的防务市场状况，以及美欧在防务和全球安全领域的合作和多国投资。此前，他曾担任《防务新闻》执行主编。他现居德国科隆。