Overview
- IfW president Moritz Schularick publicly accused Defence Minister Boris Pistorius in early August of directing a large share of the roughly €700 billion modernisation pot toward tanks, frigates and other traditional platforms instead of AI, robotics and unmanned systems.
- Schularick proposed creating a politically empowered procurement coordinator in the Kanzleramt to cut through slow ministry processes and align industry, start‑ups and government around rapid‑production goals.
- He urged buying production capacity rather than single bespoke platforms, saying the state should pay premiums to keep idle factories ready so weapons output can scale from hundreds to thousands per year in a crisis.
- The Defence Ministry rejected the one‑sided portrayal and pointed to parallel investments in F‑35s, digitalisation, space capabilities and several billion euros for drones while stressing NATO readiness deadlines around 2029.
- The debate raises practical trade‑offs: re‑allocating large programmes would require parliamentary and industrial coordination, could reshape Germany’s defence‑industrial policy, and risks leaving short‑term capability gaps if done too fast.