A safe country is more important than a bloated welfare state

In a dramatic development, the entire global security order has changed in recent years, the Ukraine war is only a temporary highlight. China and Russia threaten the free world, militarily and economically. The Americans, with their nuclear deterrent, remain the guarantors of European security. But will it stay like this?

"The Europeans can no longer assume that in future all of the US military capabilities that were previously intended for the defense of Europe will also be available for Europe if necessary," writes Heinrich Brauss, who holds high positions as a general in the EU and NATO had clothed.

Washington sees Beijing as America's greatest threat, not Moscow. The result: there will have to be a new sharing of the burden. The Europeans must be prepared to do significantly more for stability in neighboring crisis regions.

That finally seems to have arrived. Under the chairmanship of EU chief diplomat Josep Borrell, the European governments have drafted a "strategic concept" based on a clear threat analysis, but also noble goals: significantly more investment in military capabilities, which should also be coordinated, and modernization of the total armed forces potential.

Notorious EU skeptics may smile at that. But this concept can also be understood as ambitious, as an expression of the fact that the Europeans have finally woken up to defense policy.

The concept also includes a crisis intervention force of up to 5,000 men, which is to intervene from 2025, primarily to evacuate EU citizens from crisis areas and to ensure stability in countries threatened by war or unrest. This is what the EU defense ministers decided at their meeting in Brussels on Tuesday.

These can be very dangerous missions. And a lot can be said against it: the troops are too small, for example, to secure a precarious peace in a huge country like Ukraine. The intervention force would also need a UN mandate, but it would be difficult to obtain the necessary approval from Moscow.

In addition, the new European peacekeeping force will probably not always be deployable as quickly as it should be, because the tough coordination bureaucracy in Brussels first has to be passed through. Nevertheless, the new EU intervention force sends out the signal: We understand.

So far, however, the plans only exist on paper. The EU countries must now be ready to invest enough money. As the largest country, Germany has a special role model function. Annual national defense spending of around 50 billion euros will not be enough.

Social benefits in Germany are currently over a trillion euros. It is therefore time to cut social spending and significantly increase defense budgets. It is about our prosperity and our freedom.