Wind of change: Germany gets serious about plans to make military 'fit for war'

With Russia and Ukraine still locked in combat after nearly two years and a major Israeli-Palestinian conflict underway, the European Union and NATO are feeling their way into a chaotic new world security order – and Europe's largest economy is shaking up decades-old ideas on what its military is actually for.

When the Ukrainian war first beckoned, Germany was initially wary of offering Kyiv direct military supplies. But shortly after Russia invaded, Chancellor Olaf Scholz recast Germany's moral obligations to help resist Russian aggression in dramatic terms.

In his so-called Zeitenzwende or "turning point" address to the Bundestag, he decribed "Putin's war" in Ukraine as one that risked a return to the dark days of Europe before the 1940s, alluding to Germany's history as he pressed parliamentarians to support the shipment of weapons and supplies to a non-EU, non-NATO ally.

"Many of us still remember our parents’ or grandparents’ tales of war," he said. "And for younger people it is almost inconceivable – war in Europe. Many of them are giving voice to their horror...

"The issue at the heart of this is whether power is allowed to prevail over the law. Whether we permit Putin to turn back the clock to the nineteenth century and the age of the great powers. Or whether we have it in us to keep warmongers like Putin in check.

"That requires strength of our own."

The speech was a major turning point not just in the Ukrainian conflict, but in the German government's way of discussing military strategy, which given the country's history until 1945 has long been a difficult subject. Until recent years, contributing to world security via NATO rather than unilaterally increasing German military power has proven sufficient to avoid