Merz and Pistorius

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz reiterated Germany’s determination to play a leading role in European defense under Russian threats.

He commemorated the 70th anniversary of Germany’s entry into NATO on Wednesday at a ceremony in Berlin, highlighting a significant increase in defense spending.

“With these resources, we will do our best in the coming years to make the German Wehrmacht the most powerful conventional army in the EU, which is the right expectation of our country of size and economic strength, and our allies for us,” Melz said.

Meers said Germany will lead to strengthening NATO’s European flank in the coming years.

This also applies to supporting Ukraine, which he said was defending shared freedom in a war with Russian invaders.

“The path to just peace lies in strength, not through weakness or even aggression,” Meles stressed.

The Nazi past in Germany and the destruction of World War II made many Germans distrust military means, but Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said sitting on the court was no longer an option.

“For our alliance to succeed, Europeans must assume more responsibility,” he said. “Germany will take the lead.”

Pistorius believes that Russia’s war against Ukraine has silenced its correlation with NATO.

He added: “We will defend every inch of NATO territory together if necessary.”

The Defense Minister also thanked NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte for successfully holding the June summit on Berlin’s anniversary, where the mantra of “attack on one person is attack on all people”.

“The NATO summit in The Hague sent a very clear message: Article 5 is inviolable. We stick to our alliance commitments,” Pistorius said.

Air power still exceeds drones

Meanwhile, the new Luftwaffe commander said the use of drones in Ukraine’s war was “not a blueprint” for NATO’s air capabilities, as he highlighted the lessons learned from the Israeli-Iran conflict.

The use of “smallest drones” on the battlefield in eastern Ukraine is an important tactical and operational factor, but they do not affect the importance of traditional air force capabilities, said Holger Neumann, a new inspector of the Luftwaffe, in Berlin.

“I remember more about the actions we see between Israel and Iran,” Neumann said. “This is more of the way NATO exercises air power: perform decisive strikes in the depths of the enemy and control the air situation.”

In the recent 12-day war with Iran, the Israeli Air Force was able to destroy or destroy Tehran’s air defense system.

This is a prerequisite for modern military forces to attack troops, weapons systems, storage areas and production facilities on enemy territory.

To stop Russia, Germany and its NATO allies are seeking to develop and build far-reaching weapons systems for this purpose.

Given the current level of threat, Neumann noted that the military must remain prepared, citing the principle of “fight tonight”.

He said: “If someone challenges us today or tomorrow, we can’t say: ‘Please come back in 2029.’

Neumann also mentioned the growing threat to the security of satellite infrastructure in orbit, which is crucial to the military and economically.

He said security and possible protection measures are being expanded under the protection of the Air Force.

“We’re watching satellites orbit each other and do things I can’t really do,” he said. “But we can see that it’s a controversial dimension.”