President Donald Trump began his campaign for Europe in general and Germany in particular to spend a greater share of their budgets on defense during his first term, and that is starting to pay off in Europe’s economic engine, the Federal Republic of Germany.
Germany’s coalition government – Christian Democratic Union/Christian Social Union and Social Democrats – agreed to a new system of incentives for voluntary military service to tackle the growing Russian threat to the European continent after a heated debate last week.
Incentives to generate recruitment include free access to driver’s licenses. The cost of driver’s licenses can cost up to several thousand dollars. The second incentive is an increase in existing pre-tax salary at the starting level, to approximately $3,000 per month.
US TAKES CARE OF GERMANY’S DEFENSE BUDGET PLANS AFTER IT DEFITS
North Rhine-Westphalia, Ahlen: Recruits during combat training as part of a media day for basic training in the reconnaissance battalion of the Bundeswehr 7. Politicians from the CDU/CSU and SPD have agreed on a nationwide draft for the new military service. (Federico Gambarini/Photo Alliance via Getty Images)
German conservative Chancellor Friedrich Merz declared at the start of his term that Germany’s armed forces would be transformed into “the strongest conventional army in Europe,” Jens Spahn, the parliamentary leader of Merz’s CDU party, told reporters on Thursday. “We want to convince as many young people as possible to serve the fatherland.”
Spahn added that if the voluntary model does not produce enough military soldiers and personnel, “we should make it mandatory.” However, Spahn noted that the move towards mandatory conscription would mean passing a new law.
“Although it has never been their official policy, Europeans have in recent decades taken the American umbrella and the unthinkability of war for granted in order to both largely minimize the defense burden they share and position themselves as a kind of moral conscience ruling the world, extending to pacifism and impossible moral perfection. It is a good thing that they are now being forced to think soberly about their defense and what that might entail.”
President Donald Trump and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz meet in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC, on June 5, 2025. (Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images)
‘MAKE NATO GREAT AGAIN’: HEGSETH URGES EUROPEAN ALLIES TO INCREASE DEFENSE EFFORTS
He added that “it is important that we in the United States begin to understand that the center of gravity of European civilization is shifting eastward. The fact that Germany, before Britain and France, seemed to understand the threat the country faces and the resulting need to mount a more robust defense is symbolic of that shift eastward.”
According to Wurmser, Germany’s actions symbolically represent a realization that is long overdue but not yet universally understood. That what happened in February 2022, as well as what is happening in the Middle East against Israel, are merely localized versions of a much larger, dangerous and potentially deadly global competition led by several countries opposed to Western civilization.
CLICK HERE FOR THE FOX NEWS APP
Russian President Vladimir Putin, center, watches the Victory Day military parade marking the 75th anniversary of the Nazi defeat in Moscow. (Sergei Guneyev/Host Photo Agency via AP, file)
He said: “That axis represents the fusion of communist, Islamic and fascist thinking. That unholy alliance, which is an unlikely alliance, is anchored primarily in the abhorrence of Western civilization. The West will not survive unless it realizes that, and what Germany is doing is to some extent a first small step in that direction.”
Trump urged Germany to pay the US more for its military defense of Germany during his first term.
