Germany's Rearmament Is Justified but Its Nationalist Approach Risks Reviving European Fears of German Dominance
Source: https://www.theguardian.com/profile/paul-taylor. "Germany is right to rearm. But Europe has well-founded fears about that | Paul Taylor | The Guardian." October 8, 2026. www.theguardian.com
The Gist
The author argues that while Germany does need to rebuild its military given real security threats, the way it's doing so—favoring its own companies and sidelining European partners—is worrying because of Germany's dark history and outsized influence in Europe. He says Germany should instead tie its military buildup to joint European projects, just as it once tied its reunification to the shared euro currency, to avoid reviving old fears of German domination.
Conclusion
Germany is right to rearm given the security threats it faces, but it must embed this rearmament within common European structures rather than pursuing a nationalist, go-it-alone approach, or risk reviving old continental anxieties about German hegemony.
Premises
- Germany's history of militarism and its central geographic and economic weight in Europe mean it bears a special responsibility to reassure neighbors through cooperative rather than unilateral rearmament
- Current German rearmament is coinciding with troubling political trends, including doubts about US commitment to NATO and the rise of the Russia-friendly, EU-skeptic AfD party
- Merz's government has in practice favored national and US arms industries over European cooperation, scrapping joint projects with France and directing the vast majority of a €123.3bn arms package to non-European partners
- Historical precedent shows that anchoring German power in common European structures (as Kohl did with the euro) successfully allayed fears of German dominance, suggesting this approach could work again for rearmament
- Germany is now geographically buffered by central European allies, giving it a practical self-interest in helping those allies build their own defenses rather than purely building up its own national capacity
- Poland and France, Germany's neighbors, have well-founded historical reasons to be wary of unchecked German military buildup
Assumptions
- European integration of defense industries and militaries is both feasible and would meaningfully reduce fears of German dominance
- Germany's current rearmament trajectory, if left nationalist, could plausibly lead to a revival of problematic German political dominance in Europe
- Other nations' neighbors (and readers) will find historical anxieties about German power to be reasonable rather than outdated given reunification and EU membership
- The AfD's rise is a meaningful enough variable to factor into judgments about the long-term direction of German military policy
- Nationalist defense procurement by other countries (France, UK) does not undermine the specific case against German nationalism, because Germany's history and size make it a special case