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Gert Nultsch is responsible for the Bundeswehr’s planning. He says: Putin’s Russia will soon be ready to attack again. Now it needs more resources and soldiers in the army.
Oslo/Berlin – Gert Nultsch looks like what you would expect a lieutenant general of the armed forces introduces himself: Square chin, square haircut, square moustache and a look that seems a bit stern. The officer has a friendly sense of humor – the stern look may be because he is worried.
The officer is the head of the planning department in the Federal Ministry of Defense. In other words, he has to keep an eye on what the Bundeswehr needs in order to be able to defend itself. Security circles have been saying for years that the army is lacking in everything: material, soldiers. It is not for nothing that Defense Minister Boris Pistorius (SPD) now the Debate about reintroducing conscription rekindled.
Meanwhile, the threat to Europe from Putin larger, Russia is replenishing its war reserves faster than expected and will soon be able to attack again, observers are certain of that. “Many thought that the wake-up call was the start of the Ukraine war in 2022,” said Nultsch recently in a speech to high-ranking military and business representatives at the “German-Norwegian Defence Industry Seminar” hosted by the German-Norwegian Chamber of Commerce in Oslo. “But the wake-up call was already in 2014. It took a while to wake up.”
The army’s chief planner explains why this was the case and what the eleven billion euros from the federal government’s special fund will be spent on in an interview with IPPEN.MEDIA.
Mr Nultsch, you yourself say: The wake-up call was not the beginning of the Ukraine war two years ago, but the annexation of Crimea in 2014. Why has so little happened in the meantime?
The question is how strong a signal has to be for it to get through and for society to take the threat seriously. We have actually been working on an increased budget since 2014. We have consistently increased the year close to the budget, but the budget has plummeted in subsequent years. However, this has not resulted in long-term “planning security”. We have been operating on a day-to-day basis.
Your new boss is Boris Pistorius. Are you happy?
I can say from personal experience and conviction that this man is in the right place at the right time. Boris Pistorius is fighting like a beast; I have rarely seen such commitment. That is incredibly impressive and gives us strength.
However, there is currently friction between him and Finance Minister Christian Lindner. Pistorius wants eleven billion euros for the new Lithuania Brigade. Too expensive, says Lindner. How should we assess this?
First of all, the figures: we are talking about investments in the range of six to nine billion, plus a little less than a billion for ongoing operations. However, this sum only applies if all the equipment for the troops, i.e. around 100,000 items, were to be purchased new. However, we already have some of this in stock, as the troops bring their equipment with them. So the figure is constantly updated.
Pistorius reignites debate on conscription: “Citizens in uniform are the greatest added value”
Nevertheless, that still amounts to around seven to ten billion euros extra, right?
We are bringing procurement forward. The tank battalion of the Lithuanian Brigade, for example, is to be equipped with Leopard 2 tanks; expenditure on this was already planned for the 2030s. So we are currently making necessary expenditures that will relieve us of the burden at some point later. Of course, this is not apparent at first glance in the current financial plan because the distribution as such is not immediately apparent.
Boris Pistorius has reignited the debate about conscription. Is conscription necessary in Germany?
I was drafted into military service on July 1, 1981 as a conscript. The security situation was shaped by the NATO double-track decision. As you can see, I am still an active soldier. From this you can deduce my position on a type of duty. The minister has commented on the extent to which modern forms are more effective today. We cannot implement conscription like in 1981 in the short term, but we are taking a first step. For me, the greatest added value of conscription has always been the citizen in uniform, the anchoring of military capability in society. In modern terms: Anyone who understands multi-domain operations as a national defense architecture cannot avoid this discussion.
In his speech about the turning point in history, Chancellor Olaf Scholz established a special fund of 100 billion euros for the German armed forces. Is it even possible to invest that much money sensibly?
Definitely yes. But industry must also implement the investments in a technically sound manner. Let me approach the question of whether this makes sense from a different angle. An example from local politics: including precautionary expenditure on fire engines in an annual plan may seem excessive to some people and people would rather save. But when things really get serious, they wish they had decided differently. It’s the same with defense. We have reaped the so-called peace dividend and concentrated on international crisis management. But the war in Ukraine shows how quickly the security situation in Europe can change. This turning point is therefore also a return to the main task of national and alliance defense.
Special funds for the Bundeswehr: “There is hardly any production capacity available anymore”
Is it even possible to produce what the Bundeswehr currently needs and what it could buy with the money in the foreseeable future?
No, and that is also a downside to the peace dividend. There is hardly any production capacity available that can be ramped up in the short term. The majority of the orders from the special fund will not reach the troops until the next legislative period. You can’t just quickly buy a battle tank from a hardware store. We have to wait until it is actually produced. That takes time. If a country ordered Leopard 2 tanks a year ago, for example, the order falls somewhere in the production chain. If you look at the years from which deliveries begin, you can see that in Germany we have turned a volume industry into a manufacturing sector.
Observers say Russia will soon have replenished its war resources. How concerned are you about this?
That worries me a lot. We assume that Russia can be reconstituted for the first time and thus have an attack capability by 2029. Ammunition also plays a major role in this.
European ammunition factories are saying that, given the war in Ukraine, it could take decades for NATO reserves to be replenished. How can this be compensated for?
This must be put into perspective. Ukraine is very efficient when it comes to the use of materials. You don’t have to use an expensive artillery shell for every situation, you can, for example, use a cheap drone and drop a grenade or an IED, a simple explosive device, into an open tower. But resources are indeed running out. That is why our minister has decided that we will go beyond the stockpiling required by NATO and start a national stockpiling in order to become resilient. The groundbreaking ceremony for the Rheinmetall ammunition factory in Unterlüß was a first step. In Europe, this factory will be the second production facility alongside the cooperative venture between the ammunition manufacturers Diehl and Nammo. But it will take some time before we have all the supplies back where they should be.
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