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Defense Minister Boris Pistorius has begun warning Germans that they should prepare for decades of confrontation with Russia \u2014 and that they must speedily rebuild the country\u2019s military in case Vladimir V. Putin does not plan to stop at the border with Ukraine.<\/p>\n
Russia\u2019s 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 Mr. Putin, Russia\u2019s president, has a few years to reset, he thinks the Russian leader will consider testing NATO\u2019s unity.<\/p>\n
\u201cNobody knows how or whether this will last,\u201d Mr. Pistorius said of the current war, arguing for a rapid buildup in the size of the German military and a restocking of its arsenal.<\/p>\n
Mr. Pistorius\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
The defense minister\u2019s post in Germany is often a political dead end. But Mr. Pistorius\u2019s status as one of the country\u2019s most popular politicians has given him a freedom to speak that others \u2014 including his boss, Chancellor Olaf Scholz \u2014 do not enjoy.<\/p>\n
As Mr. Scholz prepares to meet President Biden at the White House on Friday, many in the German government say that there is no going back to business as usual with Mr. Putin\u2019s Russia, that they anticipate little progress this year in Ukraine and that they fear the consequences should Mr. Putin prevail there.<\/p>\n
Those fears have now mixed with discussions about what will happen to NATO if former President Donald J. Trump is elected and has a second chance to act on his instinct to pull the United States out of the alliance.<\/p>\n
The prospect of a re-elected Mr. 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 that Mr. Putin\u2019s best strategic hope is NATO\u2019s fracture.<\/p>\n
For the Germans in particular, 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 Mr. Putin was on the run.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
But now, with an undependable America, an aggressive Russia and a striving China, as well as a seemingly stalemated war in Ukraine and a deeply unpopular conflict in Gaza, German officials are beginning to talk about the emergence of a new, complicated and troubling world, with severe consequences for European and trans-Atlantic security.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Their immediate concern is growing pessimism that the United States will continue to fund Ukraine\u2019s struggle, just as Germany, the second-largest contributor, has agreed to double its contribution this year, to about $8.5 billion.<\/p>\n
Now, some of Mr. Pistorius\u2019s colleagues are warning that if American funding dries up and Russia prevails, its next target will be closer to Berlin.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf Ukraine were forced to surrender, that would not satisfy Russia\u2019s hunger for power,\u201d the chief of Germany\u2019s intelligence service, Bruno Kahl, said last week. \u201cIf the West does not demonstrate a clear readiness to defend, Putin will have no reason not to attack NATO anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
But when they are pressed about a possible conflict with Russia, or the future of NATO, German politicians speak carefully.<\/p>\n
In the decades since the Soviet Union collapsed, most Germans have grown accustomed to the notions that the country\u2019s security would be assured if it worked with Russia, not against it, and that China is a necessary partner with a critical market for German automobiles and equipment.<\/p>\n
Even today, Mr. Scholz, a Social Democrat whose party traditionally sought decent ties with Moscow, seems reluctant to discuss the far more confrontational future with Russia or China that German defense and intelligence chiefs describe so vividly.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
With the exception of Mr. Pistorius, little known before he was picked to run the Defense Ministry a year ago, few politicians will take on the subject in public. Mr. Scholz is especially careful, tending to Germany\u2019s relationship with the United States and wary of pushing Russia and its unpredictable president too hard.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Two years ago, he declared a new era for Germany \u2014 a \u201cZeitenwende,\u201d or a historic turning point, in German security policy, one that he said would be marked by a significant shift in spending and strategic thinking. He made good on a promise to allocate an extra 100 billion euros for military spending over four years.<\/p>\n
This year, for the first time, Germany will spend 2 percent of its gross domestic product on the military, reaching the goal that all NATO countries agreed to in 2014, after the Russian annexation of Crimea, but that most experts warn is now too low. And Germany has committed to beefing up NATO\u2019s eastern flank against Russia by promising to permanently station a brigade in Lithuania by 2027.<\/p>\n
Yet in other ways, Mr. Scholz has moved with great caution. He has opposed \u2014 along with Mr. Biden \u2014 setting a timetable for Ukraine\u2019s eventual entry into the alliance.<\/p>\n
The most vivid example of his caution is his continued refusal to provide Ukraine a long-range, air-launched cruise missile called the Taurus.<\/p>\n
Last year, Britain and France gave Ukraine their closest equivalent, the Storm Shadow\/SCALP, and it has been used to devastate Russian ships in Crimean ports \u2014 and to force Russia to pull back its fleet. Mr. Biden reluctantly agreed to provide ATACMS, a similar missile<\/a> though with a range limited to about 100 miles, to Ukraine in the fall.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The Taurus has a range of more than 300 miles, meaning Ukraine could use it to strike deep into Russia. And Mr. Scholz is not willing to take that chance \u2014 nor is the country\u2019s Bundestag, which voted against a resolution calling for the transfer. While the decision seems to fit German opinion, Mr. Scholz wants to avoid the subject.<\/p>\n But if he remains reluctant to push Mr. Putin too hard, it is a caution Germans share.<\/p>\n