-The author is director of the Center for Advanced Security, Strategic and Integration Studies (CASSIS) at the University of Bonn.
ISTANBUL
Boris Pistorius has now been German defense minister for over 2 1/2 years. The press and public opinion remain favorable towards him. His predecessor, Christine Lambrecht, was considered unlucky and leisure-oriented, while he is seen as hands-on and determined. A Defense Ministry press release dated Aug. 1 announced that Pistorius has once again reorganized it. This is its third reorganization in just over two years. Anyone familiar with large organizations knows how disruptive restructuring of this magnitude can be. The reasons given are similar. According to the ministry press release, the aim this time is also to “strengthen military and strategic leadership capabilities, further accelerate procurement, and organize the necessary expansion of the armed forces.” The statement succinctly states that the move aims for “even closer integration and a resulting adjustment of the top structure and leadership organization.”
Specifically, this means that in the future there will be three instead of two permanent state secretaries (i.e. ultimately four, if the inspector general is considered on par with the state secretaries), a new situation and command center will be assigned to the inspector general, central mission management will remain with a control staff introduced by Pistorius in the management area, the planning and command staff, also introduced by Pistorius just two years ago, will lose responsibilities, the number of departments will be slightly reduced from 10 to eight, but a new level of main departments – “Armed Forces” and “Growth” – is introduced, which can be considered prime inter pares among the now eight departments. Pistorius has thus achieved the dubious feat of having tinkered with the structures of the ministry the most frequently in the last 30 years within a comparatively short period of time, repeatedly correcting himself and, overall – with the increase in the number of state secretaries to three and the introduction of two main departments – having made the ministry even more top-heavy. Whether the declared goal of strategic control can be achieved this way is more than questionable.
Capability gaps in German Armed Forces and Defense Ministry
The German Armed Forces and Defense Ministry remain significantly below their potential, particularly because the ministry is plagued by duplication of work, excessive hierarchical structures, and a climate of widespread frustration. The work of military staff and the requirements of ministerial bureaucracy are incompatible. Strategic decisions cannot be prepared exclusively in military departments. Errors in the leadership organization lead to divisions and information blockages. A lack of a strong culture of trust leads to mistakes being covered up, and behind the big picture, hidden systems with their own agendas and dual loyalties emerge.
For many years, the German Armed Forces have suffered from stalled reforms, empty promises of reorganization, and the spirals of a change management process with an unclear outcome. In addition, the gap between political leadership and the technical levels of the ministry and the armed forces has widened in recent years. At the same time, the ministry has grown considerably in terms of permanent positions. The associated bureaucratic effort has led to considerable personal and professional frustration and ultimately has not resulted in any streamlining of processes. Even today, there is no uniform understanding within the ministry as to how the organization should be effectively and efficiently organized in the future and how the individual areas of reform should be linked. The fundamental question for the leadership of the ministry is how to strike a balance between cross-service and cross-organizational leadership on the one hand and the involvement of personnel and expertise from the ministry and its subordinate departments on the other.
Pistorius' restructuring gamble backfires
It is striking that the ministry restructuring took place before the government's organizational decision to introduce a National Security Council: this is a topic on which Pistorius is conspicuously reticent in his commentary. If the government is serious about the structural adjustments in security policy associated with the establishment of a National Security Council, it would have made more sense to wait for further decisions in this area, because the consequence of this plan can only be: "After the reform is before the reform."
The yardstick for this reform is whether the new leadership structure facilitates the political role of the defense minister as a departmental minister and holder of command-and-control authority. His Social Democratic predecessor Helmut Schmidt complained about the top-down structure of the ministry in 1968, while still serving as parliamentary party leader. The Blankenese Decree, which he issued in 1970 as defense minister, did not solve all the problems, but for the first time clearly outlined and strengthened the role of the inspector general. In 2011, then-Defense Minister Thomas de Maiziere made adjustments in a Dresden decree and further strengthened the role of the inspector general of the Bundeswehr. And Pistorius also issued the Osnabruck Decree last June, a document named after his former political seat, in which he regulated the top-level structure.
However, Pistorius has not yet made any progress on crucial issues relating to the reorganization of the Bundeswehr. The problems that have existed for years in military procurement remain unresolved. The aid deliveries in the Russia-Ukraine war make it more necessary than ever to replace outdated equipment, replenish stocks that have been significantly reduced in recent decades, and promptly carry out the resupply necessitated by the changing capability profile. The potential for rationalization has been largely exhausted in recent years. Underfunding has largely depleted the substance and reserves of the armed forces. Within defense investment expenditures, current projects can just about be maintained. For a long time, the budget for material maintenance has been set below the stated requirements. This has long since led to the decommissioning of weapon systems and a massive reduction in operations. Even with the various restructuring measures of recent years, it has not been possible to bridge the growing gap between the demand side, the armed forces, and the armaments sector, which sees itself as the supply side. The operationalization of armaments policy priorities still has a number of weaknesses. The processes in customer product management in particular, with their claim to seek “golden solutions,” lead to bureaucratic bloat, the hierarchization of decisions, and the diffusion of responsibility, thus resulting in an unacceptable slowdown of the process.
On the question of reintroducing universal conscription – more precisely, it is only a matter of ending the suspension of conscription for basic military service decided by the Bundestag in 2010 by means of a simple legal regulation, i.e., without amending the Basic Law – Pistorius favors the neither-fish-nor-fowl solution of voluntary military service because he is reluctant to speak out in favor of universal conscription for party political reasons. In terms of the strategic orientation of the armed forces as an instrument of politics, Pistorius did not leave his mark on the national security strategy adopted by the “traffic light” coalition government, and in 2023 he allowed the lead role to shift from the Defense Ministry to the Foreign Office, unlike in previous white papers on Germany's security policy and the future of the Bundeswehr. The National Security Strategy adopted in 2023 virtually excludes the role of the armed forces (as well as that of the Federal Intelligence Service), and the ministry was only peripherally involved in the drafting of the document.
Uncertainties surrounding the Bundeswehr
The conceptual foundations for the Bundeswehr's new role remain unaddressed. It will be interesting to see how the National Security Council implements the tasks of the instruments derived from a national umbrella document in line with the logic of a new security architecture. Pistorius' track record will become clearer when he is measured against the yardsticks of his third structural reform within a year. Will the Bundeswehr become less bureaucratic when another state secretary responsible for innovation and digital affairs joins the team in the future? Will the role of the inspector general as military advisor to the federal government and as the highest-ranking soldier in the German armed forces be strengthened, especially in his internal role in the management of the ministry? How is a minister supposed to cope with such a wide range of tasks if he continues to inflate his political management structure and imposes an increasingly complicated bureaucratic superstructure on the units where the actual ministerial work is to be done, i.e., the departments? Finally, what role does the ministry play in the overall structure of the new architecture, a question that will sooner or later arise with regard to the National Security Council?
Last autumn, Pistorius gave a master class in political power politics when he waited too long to withdraw from the race for the chancellorship, putting then-incumbent Chancellor Olaf Scholz, his party colleague who wanted to run again but was less popular than Pistorius, in a difficult position. Pistorius secured his return to the federal government after the SPD lost the elections, and he probably also had a free hand in choosing his position. Since then, he has been considered a papabile. However, after several attempts at structural reform, he has yet to deliver on his cabinet piece as defense minister.
*Opinions expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Anadolu's editorial policy.
