Germany's social contract - the combination of widespread manufacturing employment with eurozone membership that has sustained the country for decades - is now facing simultaneous threats that could prove explosive, "Hvylya" reports, citing a new Foreign Affairs analysis.
Hugo Bromley, an Applied History Research Fellow at the University of Cambridge, argued that advocates of European defense power are asking German taxpayers to do three things at once: increase defense spending, purchase military equipment predominantly manufactured outside Germany, and subsidize the defense spending of other European countries. "In isolation, each of these requests would be incendiary, risking increased support for extreme parties of both left and right," Bromley wrote. "Together, they amount to a powder keg ready to blow."
The strain is compounded by existing economic pressures. German manufacturing is still struggling to adjust after losing access to cheap Russian energy following Putin's invasion of Ukraine. Chinese competition is mounting. And in February, Brussels decided to support Ukraine through common debt issuance rather than seized Russian assets - over Berlin's explicit objections.
Under the current EU system, common defense debt would effectively amount to fiscal transfers from Germany and the Netherlands to France, Greece, Italy, and other high-spending countries. These likely beneficiaries have security concerns concentrated in the Eastern Mediterranean, Middle East, and North Africa - regions with little connection to the Russian threat that dominates German strategic thinking.
Bromley urged a more flexible approach: defense spending commitments should vary among NATO members depending on fiscal space and voter appetite, rather than being equal in percentage terms. The states of northern Europe and NATO's eastern flank, he noted, are the most able and willing to increase their budgets in response to Russia.
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