The Political Economy of Germany’s Remilitarization
Zeitenwende and Capital: The Political Economy of Germany’s Remilitarization
PERCEPTION OF GEOPOLITICAL THREATS AND SOCIAL UNREST
The primary and most powerful source of legitimacy for Germany’s rearmament policy in official discourse is the security crisis that has escalated alongside Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Berlin defends this rearmament and militarization by arguing that Moscow poses a direct military threat to Eastern Europe and that the traditional reliance on the U.S. security umbrella is no longer reassuring. This position is further supported by the argument that Europe must achieve its own strategic autonomy. However, this geopolitical necessity is not the kind that will be met with the same enthusiasm in the minds of the German public or in their daily lives. Comprehensive public opinion surveys reveal that while citizens accept external threats as a rational reality, they remain extremely distanced and skeptical toward this process of militarization. The picture becomes even clearer when it comes to individual responsibility: the majority of the German public explicitly states that they are not prepared to take up arms and defend the country in the event of a potential crisis.
Beyond this, amid rising living costs, growing unemployment, corporate bankruptcies and layoffs, inflation, and economic stagnation, the fact that the lion’s share of the state budget is being funneled into the military is causing serious unease. While resources are being diverted from infrastructure, education, healthcare, and social welfare spending to the defense industry, a deep sense of “war fatigue” (Kriegsmüdigkeit) prevails in society. Although the public has been led to believe, through various propaganda tools, that this state policy is an unavoidable foreign policy necessity, they appear extremely reluctant to embrace this militaristic transformation, make sacrifices in their daily lives, or take up arms individually.
THE GOLDEN AGE OF THE ARMS INDUSTRY AND NEOLIBERAL MARKETIZATION
Looking at the economic context, it is clear that the rearmament process is not merely a “defense reflex” but also involves dimensions of capital accumulation and market share. Germany’s leading arms manufacturers (particularly giants like Rheinmetall) have achieved the highest financial growth and profit margins in their history during this process. In 2025, Germany ranked third in the global arms trade with a volume of approximately 15 billion euros. However, the German arms industry plans to produce weapons worth approximately 400 billion euros for the domestic market of the Federal Republic of Germany alone. Of course, this trade volume is nowhere near enough to compete with the United States. Yet Germany—which was actually supposed to be completely demilitarized following the wars for which it was responsible—continues to be one of the giants of the arms industry right before the world’s eyes.
We can say that global demand for ammunition, armored combat vehicles, and air defense systems—including in Turkey and many other countries—has created the most sought-after sector on the German stock market. In our view, this is precisely where the classic and powerful link between neoliberalism and militarism comes into play: Neoliberal economic policies, which under normal circumstances advocate for cuts in public spending, can completely reverse this rule when “national security” is at stake. The state—and the ruling power in charge at that moment—can open the purse strings of the budget, funded by public taxes, and channel funds directly to private defense industry companies. This will sound familiar to those from countries like Turkey: While the welfare state is being cut back, capital-owning companies are being fed through massive state-guaranteed contracts.
When we approach the issue from the labor perspective, a highly skewed balance of interests emerges: On the one hand, this massive arms industry ecosystem provides employment—directly and indirectly—to hundreds of thousands of people. Across Germany, approximately 250,000 to 300,000 people are employed in defense technologies, aviation, and critical supply chains. Let’s keep this in mind: IG Metall, the country’s—and the world’s—largest industrial union, is at the center of this picture. Despite its historical left-social democratic roots, which have long championed a “peace dividend,” the union does not shy away from using this process as a practical lever to secure job security and high wages for its members amid today’s geopolitical crisis. To put it simply: Keeping factory wheels turning and increasing employment have taken precedence over ideological anti-militarism in union policy, because more jobs in this sector mean an expected increase in union membership—and thus a strengthening of union organization.
POLITICAL POLARIZATION AND RIGHT-WING POPULIST CONTRADICTIONS
While the rearmament policy creates sharp divisions not only among unions but also across the political spectrum, the approach of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) and German nationalists to the issue also harbors a major structural contradiction.
On the one hand, the AfD claims to advocate, in principle, for a strong German military and national sovereignty; on the other hand, it strongly criticizes the country for having neglected its military for decades. Interestingly, in practical politics, the same AfD consistently votes against the massive special defense funds and rearmament budgets that the government brings before the Federal Parliament (Bundestag). The reason for this is their belief that the current military buildup is not an independent nationalist policy, but an extension of U.S. and NATO hegemony. The AfD harshly criticizes Germany’s transformation into a vehicle for Washington’s proxy war policies and the severing of ties with Russia.
It is precisely at this point that the AfD’s foreign policy becomes mired in a deep contradiction. On the one hand, this party—which advocates a rigid nationalist and Nazi ideology, declaring that “Germany’s interests come first”—sees no problem in relying on global figures such as Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump, and Elon Musk for its foreign policy prescriptions. This mindset—which forges ideological ties with the right-wing populist MAGA movement in the U.S. and admires Moscow’s traditional leadership model and cheap energy—claims to defend Germany’s national sovereignty while in fact pursuing a policy dependent on “strongmen” abroad. This situation demonstrates that their nationalism is less about being domestic and independent and more about being a local extension of a global right-wing populist wave.
CONCLUSION
Germany’s remilitarization is a multilayered transformation process, with geopolitical fears on one end and the profit-driven greed of capital and industrial monopolies on the other. The “Zeitenwende” policy is being imposed through a state-capital partnership, despite the economic hardships in people’s daily lives, their traditions of peace, and demands for a social welfare state.
The gulf between the unrest in Germany’s streets today and the record profits in the stock market towers clearly reveals that this militarist transformation is not merely about defending borders, but is also a project to revive an economy in crisis and create new markets.
To summarize the situation in broad strokes: Although the Coalition Government led by Merz is responsible for the dismantling of the welfare state and the plundering of resources, it seems to deem it more appropriate to conceal this fact: The hundreds of billions of euros the state channels into the defense industry are not funded by money printed out of thin air or through borrowing, but rather by direct cuts to the public budget. Consequently, items that directly affect the public’s quality of life—such as school renovations, hospital investments, public transportation infrastructure, social housing projects, and pension funds—are being cut from the budget.
Military spending is non-productive expenditure; in other words, it does not return to the public in the form of bread, milk, or housing. On the contrary, it fuels inflation by increasing the money supply and costs in the market. As the cost of living rises, the wages of workers and laborers lag behind this increase, while the middle class is rapidly impoverished and slipping into the lower classes. While the record profits reaped by the arms giants and capital are stashed away in tax havens or corporate coffers, the financial burden of this massive military budget is once again being shifted onto the backs of workers, laborers, and low-income individuals through indirect taxes (such as VAT and excise taxes) and income taxes deducted from workers’ wages.
For broad segments of society, this process signifies not only economic impoverishment but also the complete loss of hope for the future. The social wealth that should be spent on building a peaceful and social future is being squandered on technologies of death and destruction. In short, while this period is a “golden age” and a festival of profits for capital owners and arms monopolies, for the working class, laborers, and the poor, it is a multi-layered project of economic and social destruction in which public services are being cut, the cost of living is rising, and the future is being darkened.
How Germany can continue to fulfill its role as a social welfare state in the face of pressure from global capital elites is another question.
*Retired IG Metall Secretary
Note: This article is translated from the original article titled Zeitenwende ve sermaye: Almanya’nın yeniden askerileşmesinin politik ekonomisi, published in BirGün newspaper on August 4, 2026.
