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22 Apr 26. Germany unveils strategy for becoming Europe’s strongest military by 2039. Germany revealed a package of foundational strategic documents for its armed forces on Wednesday, including the country’s first standalone military strategy, a new capability profile, a personnel growth plan and a redesigned reserve strategy — the most comprehensive overhaul of Bundeswehr planning in decades.
Defense Minister Boris Pistorius first announced the package at the annual armed forces conference in November, framing the plans as a historic turning point. Defense leaders presented the finished documents to lawmakers this week, offering unclassified outlines for public consumption at an April 22 press conference in Berlin.
“Rarely has a military strategy been as necessary as in this historical phase,” he told reporters. The documents, which the ministry describes as classified “living documents” subject to ongoing revision, will serve as the strategic foundation for the Bundeswehr for the next 20 years.
Titled “Verantwortung für Europa” − Responsibility for Europe − the military strategy identifies Russia as the primary threat and sets out scenarios for potential attacks on NATO territory. Pistorius declined to detail the classified threat assessments, quipping that releasing them would be tantamount to “adding Vladimir Putin to our email distribution list.” The strategy also marks a doctrinal shift toward a “one theater approach,” treating NATO territory, the Middle East and the Indo-Pacific as interconnected security spaces rather than discrete theaters.
The accompanying capability profile moves away from rigid hardware quotas − the number of tanks, aircraft or ships − toward a flexible, effects-based planning model. The question is not how many battalions the German army needs, but what effects it must be able to produce, said the defense minister. He cited deep precision strike, air defense against hypersonic missiles, and drone capabilities as priority areas, stressing that Germany was essentially starting from scratch on long-range strike.
The personnel growth plan foresees expanding from 185,420 active-duty soldiers today to 260,000 by the mid-2030s, alongside a parallel reserve buildup from around 60,000 currently assigned reservists to at least 200,000, for a combined total of 460,000 combat-ready troops. The plan runs in three phases: a rapid buildup through 2029, a capability-focused expansion through 2035, and a longer-term technology-driven phase through 2039 and beyond. New legislation in force since January 2026 enshrines the milestones in law, with conscription (already embedded in the new military service law as a fallback) becoming an option if recruitment targets are missed.
For now, Nicole Schilling, the military’s deputy inspector-general, said recruitment is running 10% above last year’s pace and applications are up 20%.
The stated aim of the German military is to become the strongest conventional fighting force in Europe by 2039.
The reserve, long treated as a secondary force to be activated only in emergencies, is now explicitly positioned “on par with the active force,” with a dedicated strategy that envisions reservists taking on homeland defense and ensuring Germany functions as a logistics hub for allied forces moving east in a crisis. Pistorius called the reserve “the hinge between the military and civil society.”
Rounding out the package is an agenda for debureaucratizing and modernizing the military, dubbed Entbürokratisierungs- und Modernisierungsagenda 2026 (EMA26): 153 concrete measures and 580 implementation steps to cut bureaucracy, digitize workflows and deploy artificial intelligence in routine administrative tasks. A key novelty is that all internal regulations will be assigned automatic expiry dates.
Pistorius acknowledged the risks to his ambitious timetables, noting that surging Middle Eastern demand for air defense systems has already compressed global production capacity.
“We have the money and we’ve triggered procurement,” he said. “But we don’t control all the variables.” (Source: Defense News)
21 Apr 26. Royal Navy hosts Joint Expeditionary Force naval chiefs to reinforce deterrence in North Atlantic and Baltic
- The First Sea Lord will convene JEF Chiefs of Navy in Whitehall for a summit, bringing together senior maritime leaders to strengthen collective security.
- Discussions will focus on deepening cooperation through the UK‑led Joint Expeditionary Force to enhance deterrence in the High North, North Atlantic and Baltic.
- The summit comes amid increasingly assertive Russian maritime activity, including interference in shipping and critical undersea infrastructure.
The UK will strengthen naval cooperation with northern European allies on Thursday (23 April), as the First Sea Lord brings together Joint Expeditionary Force Chiefs of Navy in Whitehall to confront growing Russian threats and strengthen deterrence in the High North, North Atlantic and Baltic.
General Sir Gwyn Jenkins will host his counterparts to discuss how they can significantly deepen the partnerships and co-operation between the UK and allied northern navies, in particular through the Joint Expeditionary Force. The UK has led the partnership since it was established in 2014.
While the JEF, alongside NATO, has provided deterrence in the North, Russian aggression both on the surface and undersea, has only grown more brazen in recent years.
Across Northern Europe, the North Atlantic and the High North, Russia’s interference in shipping and its probing of critical national infrastructure now requires the UK and its allies to move beyond coalition activity towards a permanent joint force that is more ready to fight and able to generate a significant increase in collective combat power.
The discussions at CHoNS will focus on improving collective warfighting readiness and enhancing the ability of allied navies to operate together from day one.
The Royal Navy will look to go further in the future and create a force in which interchangeability – the ability to substitute, swap, or mix equipment, parts, ammunition, or personnel – is possible because member nations would be operating common systems and platforms, shared digital networks, logistics and stockpiles.
Already, the UK is exporting its most advanced warships, the Type 26 frigate, to Norway and Canada and is in advanced talks, meaning there is real potential for a family of allied fleets built around a common British design.
The UK has also demonstrated the potential of deepening naval partnerships through its Lunna House Agreement with Norway, through which the two navies are working together to counter Russian activity in the North Atlantic.
Ahead of CHoNS, General Sir Gwyn Jenkins hosted a memorial lecture in honour of former Admiral of the Fleet, Sir Henry Leach, who led the Royal Navy during the Falklands War and helped convince Margaret Thatcher to send a naval taskforce to recapture the islands in 1982. The First Sea Lord used the speech to set out his ambitions for the CHoNS summit.
The Leach lecture will be delivered by the guest of honour, Air Chief Marshal Sir John Stringer, who in January was appointed NATO’s Deputy Supreme Allied Commander Europe (DSACEUR), the most senior UK role in the Alliance.
First Sea Lord, General Sir Gwyn Jenkins, said: “The security of the High North and North Atlantic depends on our ability to act together with allies, not occasionally, but permanently and at pace.
“That is why we need to build on the work of the Joint Expeditionary Force and our closest naval partnerships, moving from irregular responses towards a much deeper partnership. This requires a joint force that is integrated, interoperable, and capable of providing meaningful deterrence. Like the JEF, it would be there to complement NATO.
“By deepening trust, aligning our capabilities, and operating common platforms and systems, we will generate the collective combat power that can protect our people, our infrastructure, and our shared interests, and if required, fight as one from the very first moment.”
Ahead of the CHONS summit, senior Royal Navy leaders emphasised the importance of unity and practical cooperation among JEF navies, noting that close integration, common standards and regular combined training are key to maintaining deterrence and stability.
The JEF CHONs meeting will reinforce the UK’s commitment to working with its closest partners to safeguard the North Atlantic and adjacent seas, underlining the Royal Navy’s role as a trusted leader, convenor and integrator in support of shared defence and security objectives.
22 Apr 26. “Prolonged war requires mass, but the UK’s regular and reserve forces are small, and fewer members of society have prior military service…Policymakers and the public should be disabused of the idea that the UK’s armed forces do not need to field a large force to match a potential enemy or adversary, or that the UK can get away with leaving detailed planning until the event itself.”
This is according to Mobilisation and Training for War: Preparing to Break Glass, a new RUSI research report by Nick Reynolds and Paul O’Neill. With Russian military expansion accelerating, and a widening rift between Washington and its European NATO allies, the report says the risk of protracted conflict on the continent has grown significantly and that Britain’s regular and reserve forces are neither large enough nor sufficiently prepared for the role they would be expected to play. Recruitment to the Army Reserve – to add to the current approximate 32,000 military reservists – is slow and bureaucratic, taking an average of 209 days; while only six admissions into the Volunteer Reserve occur per 100 applications, a rate which assessors have deemed unfit for purpose. The Strategic Reserve, largely made up of former services personnel, is theoretically substantial but remains poorly understood and inadequately mapped. Drawing on interviews with officials across the UK armed forces, defence industry and NATO allies, the study offers practical recommendations for closing these gaps.
Key Findings
- Britain’s mobilisation and training systems lack the capacity to handle large-scale force expansion. The training estate has been significantly reduced in recent decades, creating critical bottlenecks. The report says: “The UK cannot deliver a force that resembles the first echelon, given constraints in the system, the volume of personnel, the forces required and the limited time available.”
- The Strategic Reserve is poorly tracked, limiting its practical utility. Many former regulars now work in roles critical to the defence industrial base, meaning recall could prove counterproductive. “The absence of a War Book identifying protected occupations and outputs poses a significant challenge to intelligent mobilisation of the Strategic Reserve.”
- Ukraine’s mass mobilisation offers a cautionary tale rather than a straightforward model. Insufficient training time and too few experienced instructors seriously undermined force quality. “Limited training time and resources, and too few experienced trainers, undermined the quality of Ukraine’s determined and brave forces.”
- Unit cohesion cannot be surged. This psychological requirement is especially difficult to cultivate in rapidly mobilised forces and cannot be assumed to extend beyond the all-volunteer force. The report says: “One cannot surge trust.”
Key Recommendations
- Create detailed plans for the mobilised force with clearly defined roles for reserves. Veterans represent a critical untapped resource requiring systematic identification. “Leveraging sunk costs by getting the most out of veterans and their skills will be critical.”
- Shift from a single centralised mobilisation centre to a distributed approach. Decentralisation from the Reserves Training and Mobilisation Centre at Bassingbourn would reduce bottlenecks and improve resilience. “Greater capacity can be achieved through a distributed approach to mobilisation rather than a single training and mobilisation centre.”
- Develop better systems for mapping and accrediting civilian skills. Individualised learning pathways recognising varied starting points could shorten training pipelines without sacrificing quality. “Developing a better system of mapping and accrediting civilian skills is an essential part of this, to maximise individual talent and reduce the training burden.”
- Use synthetic training technology to enhance – but not replace – live collective training. Investment should prioritise mobilisation effectiveness over cost savings. “Bear in mind that this can also increase operational risk if misapplied or inappropriately used to replace live training.”
Conclusion
Britain is not ready to mobilise at the scale a protracted European conflict would demand, and the planning, infrastructure and political will to address this vulnerability have not yet materialised. This paper draws a parallel with the 1934 Defence Requirements Committee, whose unheeded warnings about defence spending contributed to the disasters of 1940. NATO membership affords the UK more preparation time than Ukraine had following the Russia invasion in 2022, but the window for orderly action is limited and the costs of acting too late − measured in battlefield failures and reduced alliance credibility − would far exceed the costs of acting now. What is required above all is political leadership and an honest national conversation about what collective defence truly demands.
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