.
Europe
Germany
Sun March 23, 2025 Europeans, for the first time in decades, are focusing on their own military might. As the Trump administration continues to pursue a deal to end the war in Ukraine, Germany is unlocking billions to supercharge its military. The Bundeswehr have been the victim of years of underinvestment – but that is set to change. Germany has just passed a major reform to its constitutional debt brake, unlocking billions of euros in funding. "Over a 10-year period", with Germany spending 3.5% of GDP, it could amount to €600 billion ($652 billion). In Berlin, the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 kickstarted the period known in German as the Zeitenwende (turning point). In effect, it was the beginning of the effort to step up military spending once again. Only as recently as 2024 did Germany meet the NATO threshold of 2% spending on defense - marking the first time in more than 30 years. Olaf Scholz, the now-outgoing chancellor, established a one-off €100 billion fund for “comprehensive investment” into the Bundeswehr. To do so, Scholz had to amend the Basic Law – essentially, the country’s constitution. The change could unlock hundreds of billions of dollars of debt just on military spending. The implementation of the policy has been lackluster. A report released last week by the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Armed Forces, Högl, suggested the work to be done was significant. It outlined that the Bundeswehr didn’t meet recruitment targets, had an aging fighting force, with barracks and basic infrastructure lacking. In 2018, Germany committed to boosting its standing forces to 203,000 by 2025. The target date that was later revised to 2031. Since the mid-1960s, Germany’s standing army size has declined dramatically to over 500,000 to just over 180,000 in 2024. Högl said that the current Bundeswehr fighting force is 181,174 personnel. Germany officially put conscription into abeyance in 2011. I think some kind of obligatory service has to be in place to increase the numbers in the way we want to see it, German Brig. Gen. Hammerstein said. The Högl report also highlighted the serving age of the army, saying servicemen and women are getting older and older. The average age in 2019 was 32.4, but has now increased to 34. A bill attached said €67 billion were required for infrastructure projects, and described barracks and properties as still in a disastrous state. There is a shift in the national psyche towards the Bundeswehr. A survey conducted by German public broadcaster ARD in March found 66% of respondents believe it’s right to increase spending on defense and the Bundeswehr, while 31% said spending should remain the same or be cut further. 59% of those surveyed ’agreed that Germany should significantly increase its debt’ in order to cope with upcoming tasks, especially in defense and infrastructure. (Source: CNN - U.S.)
Ireland
23 Mar 2025 As a result, the proposed 25% tariffs imposed on the EU by the US from early April could cost Ireland up to 80,000 jobs, in the worst case scenario, over the next four to five years - an impact of between two and 4% on its GDP, Finance Minister Donohoe has warned. Trump has threatened to impose 200% tariffs on alcohol from the EU. The Irish Whiskey Association is outlining that the export value of Irish drinks to the United States is over €800 million a year. US Secretary of Commerce Lutnick said that Ireland is his favourite ’tax scam’, which had “all our great tech companies and great pharma companies” because of its low rate of corporation tax, and said “that’s got to end”. (Source: The Journal - Ireland)
European Commission
23/03/2025 Speaking in Cairo where she was attending a meeting of the Arab-Islamic Committee on Gaza, with representatives from Egypt, Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, the European Union's foreign affairs chief Kallas, today announced plans to visit Israel 'and raise questions' about the return to war in the Gaza Strip. (Source: Euronews - based in Lyon, France)
United Kingdom
(Sunday), Mar 23, 2025 The prime minister is the only person in the United Kingdom authorized to order a nuclear strike. The Vanguard must be maneuvered to the right depth to launch its Trident missiles. Prowling silently in the depths of the Atlantic Ocean, for nearly 30 years, ’it is designed to deter a nuclear conflict with Russia’ (at least one of the four Vanguard-class submarines is always on patrol). Starmer said these mighty boats were an ironclad symbol of Britain’s commitment to NATO. He now finds himself ’fighting to avert a rupture’ of the post-World War II alliance between Europe and the United States. The immediate question is whether Britain and Europe will play a meaningful role in Trump’s negotiations with Russian President Putin. Starmer ’is trying to assemble a multinational military force that he calls a coalition of the willing’. ’The goal, he says, is to keep Ukraine’s skies, ports and borders secure after any peace settlement’. Behind Starmer’s even more elusive goal: persuading Trump of the value of NATO, that the president disparages as a club of free riders, sheltering under a U.S. security umbrella but failing to pay their fair share. Britain? It faces hurdles on every front. Russia has rejected the idea of a NATO peacekeeping force; Trump has yet to offer security guarantees; Aside from Britain and France, no other European country has done so. Senior British military and defense officials said they expected that ultimately, multiple countries would contribute planes, ships or troops to the effort. Starmer said ’he felt he had little choice but to get ahead of the pack’. Unlike French President Macron or Germany’s incoming chancellor, Merz, Starmer has not called for Europe to chart an independent course from the United States on security. He insists that the special relationship is unshakable and that, in any case, British and U.S. forces are deeply intertwined. (The United States supplies the Trident missiles on British submarines.) Two men could hardly be less alike: Starmer with leftwing political roots, Trump, with habits and instincts that shade into the regal. Trump occasionally calls him on his cellphone, to discuss favorite topics such as Trump’s golf resorts in Scotland. ’I understand what he’s trying to achieve’ Starmer said of Trump. The president - from imposing a 25% tariff on British steel to berating Zelenskyy - had generated ’quite a degree of disorientation’, he said. The right response, was not to get provoked by it. In offering himself as a bridge, Starmer said, that after a period in which Britain had been disinterested and absent from the world stage, ’we’re back, if you like.’ But there are limits to Britain’s role in a post-Brexit world. The EU said it would exclude British weapons manufacturers from a defense fund worth €150 billion ($162 billion), unless 'Britain signs a security partnership agreement with Brussels'. Britain, analysts say, will find it harder to act as a bridge if Trump spares it from more sweeping tariffs that he has vowed to impose on the EU. Dogged by a torpid economy, Starmer said the crisis ’had injected an urgency’ into his government. Domestic woes keep piling up, events can temporarily swamp a government’s agenda. Starmer has faced a backlash over decisions such as cutting payments to help retirees with winter heating costs. Even the fire at an electrical substation in London on Friday, which shut down Heathrow Airport is a reminder. Painful trade-offs loom, further down the road. Starmer has pledged to increase military spending to 2.5% of Britain’s gross domestic product by 2027, financed with a cut to overseas development aid. It is not clear how Britain will pay for a promised further increase to 3% of GDP within a decade. PM Starmer is noting that Europe is moving into a darker era. I don’t want to veer into scaremongering, he said, but he added, ’We need to think about defense and security in a more immediate way.’ A new fleet of ballistic missile submarines are being built at a shipyard in Barrow-in-Furness, in northwest England. Four Dreadnought-class vessels, each almost the length of St. Paul’s Cathedral, are scheduled to go into service in the early 2030s, at an estimated cost of 41 billion pounds ($53 billion). The Vanguard-class submarines being replaced by the Dreadnoughts are nearly 30 years old, which necessitates prolonged maintenance periods. That has extended the patrols for the other vessels in the fleet and put acute pressure on their roughly 130-person crews. The Vanguard set a Royal Navy record for longest patrol, seven months at sea. Sailors said the food, excellent at first, deteriorated as the submarine’s provisions dwindled. This has doubled my resolve to ensure we go further and faster in our capabilities, the PM said, "to make sure they are not put in that position again.” (Source: The Japan Times / The New York Times - U.S.)
Asia
Gaza
(Sunday), 23.03.2025 Israel’s Security Cabinet has approved the formation of a directorate for voluntary departure of Palestinians from Gaza Strip. The head of the new directorate will be selected by the defense minister soon. /Photo/ (Source: Anadolu Agency - Turkey)
.5 3 23 14:29
