Friedrich Merz, the Untested Incoming Chancellor of Germany

Will he now help Germany build defense capabilities?

Friedrich Merz is the chancellor candidate of the CDU/CSU union which came in first place overall in the German elections on Sunday, with 28.52% of the vote and 208 seats in the Bundestag (German Federal Parliament). In second place was the notorious AfD party, one that I still cannot understand why it is legal to have in Germany, since Nazi parties are not allowed. I call it the New German Nazi Party. They had 20.8% of the votes and 152 seats in the Bundestag. Their party is the kin to Donald Trump and his MAGA party. In fact, they want to make Germany great again but it is unclear which time period they want to go back to, the time when most Germans were serfs under a Duchy or Princedom, or just more recently back to the time when Hitler had a fascist government, or when the Eastern states were part of the DDR, where Honecker and Krenz ruled the land and Germany was divided in two. That is the region where it got the most votes.

In third place was the SPD, which is considered a Center Left party. They got 16.41 percent of the vote and 120 seats in the Bundestag. Then, in fourth place we have the with 11.61% of the votes and 85 seats in the Bundestag. Then in fifth place there is the Left party, which won first place in Berlin thanks to the interest of young women who are reviving the party. They won 8.77% of the votes, and 64 seats in the Bundestag. Finally, in 6th place a regional party representing the Danish and Frisian minority population in Schleswig-Holstein, the SSW won 0.15% of the vote, and have 1 seat in the Bundestag.

While it is alarming that so many people, particularly in the formerly Eastern German States voted for the AfD in such large numbers, what is fortunate is that Merz is not going to form a coalition with them. Such a coalition with the first and second place parties is called a Super Coalition, but instead because he is forming a coalition with the party that got the third number of votes it cannot take this name. Who cares what it is called? What it will represent is that both parties want to stand up to Russia and the US in alliance with Europe. This is important.

Merz has already spoken up for the need for Germany to turn away from the USA as it is under Donald Trump. We only know him by what he says because he has not governed before. I appreciate his outspokenness in backing Ukraine and helping Germany and Europe to be independent from the USA. It clarifies for the people where he stands. I have not heard such words from Olaf Scholz, who will now be taking a back seat in the SPD once Merz takes over. In fact, while Scholz has said he will still run Germany until Merz has formed a new coalition and finalized it, Merz has already asked that Scholz’s party not make any political moves without his party. So, whatever Scholz thought his final days would be, in reality he is now a lame duck leader. Scholz did not have the willingness to lead Germany strongly against Putin and now Trump’s siding with Putin makes this even more necessary. He cannot now ride on Merz’s coattails allowing Merz to speak up and then speaking up behind him. Scholz also cannot take steps to commit Germany to any course of action.

It seems to me that people have been looking at Olaf Scholz and seeing him as weak in European politics. The EU has been looking to Germany to lead and Scholz was hedging every bet, and underplaying Germany’s contributions to supporting Ukraine, which includes taking in about 1.2 million Ukrainians fleeing the war. So, it looks as though Germany has done very little, although this is not true. This makes it easier for Donald Trump to claim that the US has given Ukraine much more support than it has, particularly because he hampered Biden on this.

Thus Germans were ready for Merz who is talking in a stronger way than Scholz, even if he too is unwilling to commit German troops to Ukraine, at least not before the election. Will he stick with this reluctance? It seems to not be a popular position here. Under Scholz Germany has dragged its feet in supports for Ukraine. Only after Biden gave the go ahead would Scholz provide military support. In a Germany whose nuclear weapons all belong to the Americans, Putin’s nuclear threat has seemed to terrify Scholz. Germany also has the second largest number of US troops stationed in its country after Japan. There is no way that the German military can replace them at this point in time. I am heartened that Merz does seem to recognize that right now that is exactly what Germany needs to do. Now, we will see if Merz is the strong leader he appears to be.

Right now the two strongest and most battle tested armies in Europe are Ukraines and Russias. They have also had great innovation in terms of drone and other weapons production. Europe needs the Ukrainians if there is to be a larger war. If there is no war against Ukraine, it is estimated that Russia will be ready to attack Europe in 3 to 10 years. I hear most people saying Europe needs to be ready for such an attack before 2029. Estimates are that Europe needs to have around 300,000 additional troops to make up for loss of US troops, and more unified strategic leadership, something that might be harder to do. This would be just to support Ukraine as peacekeepers. For defending from an expanded Russian military attack there will need to be more people and more weapons.

It seems that re-instituting mandatory military duty would not be popular in Germany. The AfD is saying that we can be friends with Russia and that will make life cheaper again. The idea is that Germans can have their cake and eat it too with the AfD. Die Linke revived itself shortly before the election with the youth vote and particularly young women who used Tiktok to influence young voters. These young people are against war and support immigration and green climate policies. They point out that wars are bad for the environment, they would also like to use the money to focus more money on supports for people in housing and other necessities. First we had Covid and then Putin’s war on Ukraine which has slowed down the German economy. Many people are feeling it. So, these two opposites parties on the far right and far left will be allied against increasing our military through the draft.

In Germany doing military duty seems a relic of the Cold war, and even amongst our friends, my husband is the rare one who did not opt out of military duty by choosing civil service instead. So, he got military training. Perhaps our daughter will now be getting it too if a draft is revived. The discussion is including women and men now. I might be necessary to have someone say, we are not having a military without more Germans signing up. Especially since Merz is entering under a nationalistic platform that would see non-European immigrants leave. Who is going to be training for military duty so that we do not find ourselves in the position Ukrainians were in 3 years ago? We shall see.

There also needs to be a greater percentage of GDP spent on the military but a doable amount for Germany if the debt ceiling is raised. Merz will have to make a case for this in the parliament, and make sure that a finance minister is not obstructionist in the way that FDPs Christian Linder was in the now dead traffic light coalition.

The Greens will ally with the CDU/SPD to support increased military production. I assume to increase the size of the military as well. The case needs to be made that civilians need to have training, since if attacked we all want to be in a better position than the Ukrainians were. In fact, Europe will benefit from Ukrainians playing a leading role in any military action if other European countries face Russian attacks on their territory.

While Germany does not share a border with Russia, it certainly is within drone strike range. Let us hope that the enemy does not need to start bombing us before Germans reluctantly realize that they need to increase their military. If Trump follows through on his threats to pull the US out of Germany, at least Germans can take over their bases that will be in better shape than the German ones from what I read. What they will not be able to do is speed up the larger weapons systems that they have placed on order. Putin is spending 6.3% of GDP on his war, and Germany has just reached 2%. Now Germany has a bigger GDP than Russia, but still Russia is far ahead in military preparedness. Germany needs to join with other EU countries and figure out how they are going to increase weapons production for Ukraine, and themselves.

Germany is capable of being a big weapons manufacturing nation. They have a small infrastructure and weapons manufacturers have been reluctant to expand their businesses if it is for short term plans. Merz is going to have to convince the weapons manufacturers that it is a good long term investment as part of the Zeitenwende that Germany is in, which is now a changed relationship to the USA that was held for the last 80 years. The dying auto factories should be retooled to be useful in making robots and drones and other weapons just as auto workers should get retraining on these new industries. This is starting to happen with Rheinmetall announcing that they will be retooling auto plants to be hybrid for weapons and car manufacturing and will increase their weapons manufacturing. The German people will be supportive of increases in weapons productions in three of the parties, CDU/CSU, SPD and Greens. We thought with the wall coming down that we were headed for peaceful times, but Putin could not let that happen. Will Germany rise to the occasion? I certainly hope so. I am ready to do my part.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cpv4n0dg3v3o

https://www.bruegel.org/analysis/defending-europe-without-us-first-estimates-what-needed

https://www.dw.com/en/germanys-military-is-aging-and-shrinking-says-report/a-68504942

https://www.ifw-kiel.de/publications/news/germany-is-rearming-too-slowly-to-stand-up-to-russia/

https://internationalsocialist.net/en/2025/02/germany-2

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/finnish-president-trump-if-putin-wins-ukraine-us-loses-2025-02-24/

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russia-hikes-national-defence-spending-by-23-2025-2024-09-30/

https://www.kyivpost.com/post/46892

https://www.reuters.com/markets/europe/rheinmetall-repurpose-two-german-factories-make-defence-equipment-2025-02-24/

https://ontheworldmap.com/germany/

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1312584/ukrainian-refugees-by-country/