Peace Time: Trusting Russia Does Not Pay

March 27, 2022: The Russian invasion of Ukraine has motivated Germany to respond to three decades of complaints that it was not fulfilling its military obligations as a NATO member. In early 2022 Germany decided to increase defense spending in each of the next five years. The 2022 defense budget will be nearly $60 billion. The 2021 defense budget was $51 billion, which was only 1.4 percent of GDP. It would have to be $72 billion to meet the NATO standard of two percent. Germany will reach that in 2023 or 2024 and keep it there at last as long as the Russian threat remains. Germany has also made some radical, for them, procurement decisions i…