Germany Doubling Defense Spending in 2022

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz announced to parliament on Sunday Germany will raise its defense and military spending above 2% of its total GDP. They will spend €100 billion ($112.7 billion) of the 2022 budget for the armed forces. Germany spent €47 billion in 2021.

Germany will be third place in defense spending after the USA and China. Longer term (2023 and onwards) Germany will have 2% of GDP which will be about $80 billion per year and increasing as Germany’s GDP increase.

Scholz also said Germany would supply the Ukrainian military with weaponry, in a reversal of previous policy.

Germany will change its energy plans to eliminate or greatly reduce dependence on Russian natural gas.

Germany relies on Russia not only for 55 percent of its gas but also for 45 percent of its coal and 40 percent of its oil.

Germany will rethink its nuclear energy phaseout plans.

Nextbigfuture has said that Germany needs to restart three nuclear reactors that were “shut” in January 2022. Nuclear reactors closed for 6 weeks are not truly closed. Nuclear reactors shut every 18-24 months for 3-8 weeks for refueling. Germany could eliminate half of their natural gas imports by turning on nuclear reactors that are in perfect working condition.

Old Military Spending Estimates for 2022 with New German Spending Inserted

1. The United States ($778 billion)
2. China ($252 billion [estimated])
3. Germany ($112 billion) [New Budget]
4. India ($72.9 billion)
5. Russia ($61.7 billion)
6. United Kingdom ($59.2 billion)
7. Saudi Arabia ($57.5 billion [estimated])
Germany ($52.8 billion) [Old budget]
8. France ($52.7 billion)
9. Japan ($49.1 billion)
10. South Korea ($45.7 billion)

SOURCES- DW
Written by Brian Wang, Nextbigfuture.com

36 thoughts on “Germany Doubling Defense Spending in 2022”

  1. Not with zombies.
    Perhaps, the cheapest source of new electricity in human history and expensive storage.

  2. As things are looking, the remaining 3 nuclear plants will be shuttered next year. Although public opinion is nearing 50/50, the greens are in government. Coal is given favour over nuclear.

  3. Unfortunately, much of that money will go towards gender identity training, building of safe space bunkers, and other assorted "soft power" projects.

  4. The cooling towers are probably the easiest part to replace, though you're undoubtedly right about the motive.

    I suppose it will provide a sufficient excuse not to do the rational thing, though.

  5. No, they can't restart them. They destroyed the cooling towers from the beginning, no doubt in order to make sure the destruction of the nuclear plants is irreversible.

  6. The Greens are backtracking and it now looks like Germany will extend the life of their nuclear plants and their coal plants while accelerating their construction of further wind farms. I think it’s less likely Germany will push ahead with fracking to extend production from their existing gas fields.

    Germany is fully interconnected to the rest of the Western European gas and electricity network, so can take advantage of under-utilised capacity in LNG terminals across Europe, including the U.K. and France. The Netherlands could reverse their decision to shut in the massive Groningen field which borders Germany and all the northern transit pipelines. It’s a fully developed and operational, world scale gas field with plenty of proven reserves, but is being shut in prematurely due to local earth tremors.

    A lot of the dependence on Russian gas in Germany is a legacy of political decisions and the former administrations. Nothing like a common enemy to clear minds and strengthen defence alliances.

  7. By 2030, maybe, this will make a difference. Maybe
    But will they use solar, wind for energy?

  8. That last is not quite true, there are a very few places on Earth where the wind blows strongly essentially all of the time, and wind does have some niche applications in some places where it's less consistent. But I will say that the last time I was in Germany, I saw plenty of windmills, and virtually none of them were actually turning.

  9. If we need to provide you evidence that Biden is incompetent then you haven't been paying attention for the last 50 years.

  10. A lot of people don't understand that solar and wind energy are part of the problem. Solar doesn't make sense in Germany, and wind doesn't make sense anywhere.

  11. Fission "died" because there are opportunists in the Green Energy sector who use government force to push for "solutions" that don't work. Like Germany switching to solar.
    Fission is the safest, cleanest, and most reliable energy source. By far.

  12. Yes, it was hysterically stupid, but the destruction isn't accomplished yet, they could still restart them at this point.

  13. Germany can't escape dependency from russian natural gas for years to come. USA doesn't have enough natural gas to give, nor enough LNG export terminals.

    It was a hysterically stupid decision on the germans' part to destroy their nuclear power plants.

  14. Putin should have just have gone the "let's split this country into multiple independent countries route, like happened with Yugoslavia"

    This annexing of parts of foreign countries is so 19th century, like USA annexing half of Mexico.

  15. The standing army of Ukraine is 5 times larger than the German Army. And, the Germans have fewer than 200 MBTs and 75 operational jets.

  16. After the horrors of 2nd world war, there was a hold on German army and some people are still afraid. Hope there wont be any domino effect. I mean If germans get strong military, than also others will follow(If Germans have it than we need it too?) and I hope it will be used for defense of Evrope not against each other.

    Russian regime uses dirty tactics. Cluster bombs, Russian soliders using Ukraine uniforms, mercenary Wagner group, …They will try too encircle the capital and probably attack western part of county, where Ukrainian defenders can get their supplies. Todays talks were most likely just a russian public deception (so that they look less hostile, that they want a deal,..) but in reality they needed time to regroup, to prepare for larger offensive.

    Hope Ukrainians find their strength, will to fight and resist the enemy.

  17. Wonder if this will accelerate SMR research within Germany, or possibly joint work with France, since France just committed to replacement of it's existing nuclear fleet.

  18. The defense spending increase is an enormous waste of resources, a meaningless metric for terrified old men. Over a trillion in defense related spending, and the result is complete impotence.
    All the Germans will be getting is more expensive and impotent war machine that serves no useful function.

    The Germans need to forget natural gas imports and focus on the coal first.

    Fission died long ago, you should let it rest in peace.

  19. More could be done by subsidizing EVs, solar, wind and heat pumps. Germany needs to get ready for next winter. They should look into what they can do to expand their capacity to import and store LNG.

  20. He called Putin smart, in comparison to our "west" leaders Like Biden & Trudeau. He's not wrong, Fidel Trudeau loves the power a dictator wields, and desperately wants it. While Biden can't string together once coherent sentence. Not hard to look smart next to those 2.
    Also, Trump didn't try to eliminate NATO, he tried to get all NATO members to commit more money, 2% of their respective GDP's. Which they all agreed to initially, but have failed to actually do so. Nice to see Germany finally step up, all it took was a communist regime decided they wanted to expand.

  21. It is time to stop russian foreign interference and their attemps to sow division in west with divide and rule strategy. They had done more than enough damage. Russian regime is the enemy.

  22. Good news on many fronts. Germany today is not the Germany of the early 1900s. Thank God.

    Watching Ukraine stand up for itself is inspiring. I have heard it expressed that the old Eastern Bloc countries may become the inspiration for the liberal West to shake itself from the tendrils of its selfish, narcissistic, Woke, virtue signaling, socialist/communist delusions.

    Putin had no idea the whole world was looking for a villain to blame the terrible mental depression caused by the insane lockdowns thrust upon the healthy and the young. Maybe Putin himself has become so mentally unstable during the lockdowns that he forced the invasion against the advice of his own advisors.

    Who knows? But Putin just gave Biden, Trudeau, and the other grossly incompetent leaders of the West an enormous gift. Finally, someone else to blame for their own mistakes and jackassery…

  23. Also announced support for two new LNG import terminals to reduce dependence on Russian pipeline gas. While this and the defence spending increase will take time to have a physical impact, they send an important message to Putin that his actions have not split the West, but unified it in support for freedom and democracy.

  24. This is a historical shift on defense spending. It makes sense to extend the changes to reopening the nuclear plants and changing German policy there too. Germany could readily substitute electric heat pumps for natural gas furnaces.

Comments are closed.