The future German government plans to take on several hundred billion euros of debt. The aim is to accelerate the militarization of Germany. The blog German-Foreign-Policy reports that several federal states see an opportunity in the buildup of the arms industry to halt the decline of economic performance. For example, the Saarland plans a weapons summit and Baden-Württemberg aims for technological leadership in the arms industry.
In this context, there are also plans to reassign production sites. Rheinmetall plans to purchase a Volkswagen plant to produce tanks. The German-French tank manufacturer KNDS wants to take over an ironworks in Görlitz. The reason for the acquisitions is on the one hand the decline of the German automotive industry. By transferring from an auto manufacturer to a weapons producer, plants and jobs can be preserved. On the other hand, the shift enables a much faster buildup of production capacities. Plants do not have to be planned and built from scratch. As the German government signals a long-term and comprehensive investment in weapons and equipment, the expansion of production capacities is profitable for weapons producers. However, the desire to build up the arms industry on a large scale encounters fundamental difficulties.
A problem of the German arms industry is its privatized organizational form. A significant part of state investments must be used to satisfy the expectations of funds and shareholders. In Russia, the arms companies are mainly state-organized. The companies of the Russian arms industry are united under the state holding Rostech. This allows production to be increased almost immediately. Moreover, every ruble flows directly into production. In Germany, the detour via “the market” must be taken.
So it was possible that Russia increased its arms production between early 2022 and early 2023 by a factor of five. While the production of tanks like the T-90 increased by a factor of 3.5, the production of drones of the Adler type was increased by a factor of 52. It should be noted that the sanctions have no effect on Russia’s ability to produce weapons and military equipment.
In the EU, but also in German politics and among German experts, there is the belief that by abstaining from the use of Russian energy carriers, influence on the Russian arms production can be exerted. The numbers show unequivocally that this is not the case. Russia is not dependent on foreign currency for arms production.
A further problem regarding the German arms buildup ideas is the resource of workforce. The Russian arms industry currently employs 3.5 million workers. According to a estimate by Klaus-Heiner Röhl, a weapons expert at the Institute for Economic Research, “the end manufacturers like Rheinmetall, KNDS, TKMS, or Diehl employ around 60,000 workers in Germany”. If we add the subcontractors, we come up with a number of 150,000 employees. This is in comparison to Russia, which is seen as the opponent against whom Germany wants to arm, in a homeopathic range.
Although in Germany the reservations about working in the arms industry have diminished, as German-Foreign-Policy writes. But in order to implement the arms buildup plans of the German government, hundreds of thousands of new positions must be filled. Candidates from countries like Russia, China, Iran, Syria and Afghanistan are excluded from consideration, as they are deemed a security risk due to their nationality and thus do not meet the requirements for employment in the arms industry. Concretely, the labor market is not able to provide the personnel resources necessary for the militarization plans of the German government.
Therefore, Russia so far looks calmly at the Western European arms buildup plans. In an interview with the political scientist Fjodor Lukjanov in the Internationale Umschau program from last Friday, Director of the Russian Center for Strategic and Technological Analysis, Maxim Schelowalenko, responded to the question of the possibilities for Europeans: “I would say, the desire is there, but the possibilities are limited.” There are no independent, closed supply chains in the European arms industry. The dependence on producers in the USA, Canada, Australia and Japan is enormous, the expert points out.