Like reading the ‘Schland for free?
On a cracking corner in former East Berlin, a high-rise hotel currently owned by the world’s 10th richest listed hotel chain overlooks a neighborhood of lingering communist decrepitude and victorious capitalist malaise. Gas stations, wholesaler warehouses, and Plattenbau sprawl fill the void. Even on sunny days a pale of gray hangs over the concrete expanse.
It was even grayer on a recent visit there, and not only because that’s the standard issue color of the German army uniform. Snow was falling gently onto slippery sidewalks, as trams and traffic lumbered by through chunky slush. Inside the hotel, hundreds of business suits and military uniforms were keeping warm. The men and, less so, women filling them were gathered for two days to discuss the urgent need to more robustly defend the Way of Life™ that was freezing outside.
Defend against what was not always made so explicit — kind of how the Top Gun sequel referred only to “the Enemy,” in a revealing psychoanalytical portrait of a hegemon in need of an adversary — but it’s unlikely that anyone there was heading across the street to the Intermarkt Stolitschniy. The stubby Russian grocery, which for more than 20 years has been a staple of the ethnic-German repatriate community that settled in the area during the final throes of the Soviet Union, is one of Berlin’s best spots for stocking up on fatty smetana and cheap kasha. Also, freshly grilled shashlik and knock-off Apple products.
The cuisine does not agree with everyone, and the Ostalgie you can find there is about as much Russian influence as Europe’s American-backed Military-Industrial Complex can stomach. A key question I took with me to the gathering of Complex elites was why their combined $1.5 trillion is not enough to come up with a potent antidote to stay the resulting geostrategic nausea. Even putting aside the lion’s share from the United States, NATO’s Canadian and European contingent looks to exceed $460 billion in 2023.
Russia went all in on Ukraine on less than $50 billion, and whacks the West with repeat waves of disinformation and Novichok for far less. The Complex will counter that autocrats, even those under sanction, inherently get more bang for their buck. Fair enough. Vladimir Putin can tip his industry into total war mode and order a mobilization of cannon fodder in ways Western leaders — with the burden of electoral accountability, pesky political opposition, and would-be conscripts easyJetting to Athens — can only dream of. The comparison isn’t apples-to-apples.
It’s also because the principal maker of the F-35 wants all the Good Guys to buy them, and those exceed the average defense ministry’s stocking stuffer budget. The next-generation aircraft that’s been under development for a generation is the most expensive weapons system ever, coming in a decade late, $183 billion short, and still not fully ready for primetime. Germany has committed to putting some of its Zeitenwende money towards 35 of them, though at a lifetime program cost of $1.7 trillion it’s reasonable to wonder if these advanced planes will one day experience as much trouble taking off as the aging Luftwaffe ones they’re set to replace.
Quite the contrary was the takeaway at the company’s stand. A flatscreen display projected an F-35 marketing video, on loop, extolling the many benefits of this unique, aerial war-fighting solution. Key among them: As a multi-role aircraft that replaces several others, air forces can do more with less. Sure it’s pricey, but what you spend on quality you save on quantity. Though when the threat might come from east or west, and who knows what shape it might actually take, probably wise to stock up.
Better safe than sorry, after all; what’s a couple billion among military-industrial friends?
The exhibition area was a who’s who of household names that build the bombs that sometimes fall on households. By my count, 18 of the world’s top 100 military manufacturers were there as conference partners, accounting for more than one-third of the industry leaders’ annual revenue of around $600 billion. Like defense spending itself, most of that is American, but German, British, French, and Israeli prowess was all on hand in a spirit of competitive camaraderie — the multinational corporate inverse of the allied and partner militaries they service.
And they didn’t come empty handed. Rifle scopes, VR goggles, and a Taurus cruise missile were just a few of the hard-power accessories there to try out and gawk at. If Gamescom and Comic-Con had a baby this is probably what it would look like. Presumably, someone was checking to make sure the Ukrainians didn’t try to make off with the Taurus at the end of the event. I considered it, as it would have made a great coffee table for my living room.
The industrial show of force comes at a time when Russia appears mostly focused on digging trenches and planting mines. You can get that for pretty cheap, especially when a lot of the labor is of the chain-gang variety. That Russia needs a war of attrition just to hold onto a part of eastern Ukraine should come as some comfort to those worried about a conventional march on Warsaw anytime soon, if ever.
Or not. The war in Ukraine presents a difficult circle for the Complex to square. If ragtag Ukrainian forces can beat the vaunted Russian military to a stalemate on too-little, too-late assistance from the West, then does the West really need hundreds of billions more to do the same thing for itself in a future scenario? That said, Russian forces may have gone into Ukraine over-confident and under-prepared, but that hasn’t stopped them from inflicting a level of death and destruction that NATO probably does not want to see done to, say, Estonia.
So, Cold War-like deterrence it is. “Prepare for war to avoid war,” as the German defense minister has made popular among the kids on the NATO block. Word on that street tells itself a story of a Russia undertaking four land grabs along the alliance’s periphery since Putin came to power. That is technically true — Georgia 2008, twice Ukraine 2014, and now the big one since 2022 — but conveniently leaves out of this telling NATO’s many preceding missteps and miscommunications as it expanded towards Russia’s border following the Soviet demise. Putin’s corresponding moves are unjustified, but hardly unprovoked.
As generals talked strategy, politicians policy, and salesmen synergy — in a mix-and-mingle that would make a lobby watchdog blush — a common thread emerged. They all wanted more and better even as they couldn’t quite seem to put their finger on exactly what for. Policymakers bemoaned production delays while industry leaders complained about a lack of contracts; and both would simultaneously boast about the collective size of defense budgets while insisting it wasn’t enough.
One senior executive said his company could build cheaper and more efficiently if five armies didn’t ask for five ways to design the door on an armored vehicle. A Dutch officer reminded his audience that you would currently have trouble loading the bullet of one NATO ally into the gun of another’s. A retired German general was skeptical that anyone was really prepared, least of all for “contingencies,” no matter how much money the Complex got. NATO beats Russia on tech, but in a war where satellites and cyber are fair game it’s unclear how much that matters. An F-35 needs internet more badly than a Kardashian.
What he thinks will matter more, he told me, is who can hold out longer. Right now, on both political and military fronts, that’s Russia. He used the example of the Second World War to illustrate his point: “What turned out was that the Americans could sustain longer than the Germans.” That’s why the Allies won.
It’s rare for a German to speak about the war they started in anything but moral terms, so I was taken aback somewhat to hear such a detached tactical assessment of German defeat after millions were killed. If not for American support, we’d have made it to Moscow! If only the Nazis could have churned out more tanks, we could have won!
No judgment there, just sayin’.
Displeasure in the state of affairs was clearly visible. Fortunately, an attentive and well-staffed catering service kept the filter coffee flowing and platters of mini-muffins fully stocked. Following buffet lunch of knödel bathed in mushroom sauce, muscly men in tight-fitting uniforms could be seen gripping tiny glasses of mousse — the contents of which they gingerly extracted with equally small spoons.
Some returned to the spread for seconds, which seemed to me like an appropriate analogy for the matter at hand. Money for the military is like portions of food. Like I was told growing up: Eat what’s on your plate first, and you can have more later if you’re still hungry.
Germany’s regular annual defense budget is more than $50 billion, and officials readily acknowledge they have trouble spending it. The Dutch defense minister concurred. That is no reason to feel bad, though. The Pentagon gets around $900 billion and has failed six consecutive audits. In the most recent one only seven of 29 sub-audits passed.
All that external controlling can’t possibly come cheap. It’s easy to forget that war is a public pursuit like any other, and it takes a bureaucracy to pursue it. If only it were like any other routine government task, like renewing a passport, there might be world peace by default. Sorry, this military is only open for invading before 3 p.m. on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and every second Wednesday. Please do not forget to enclose payment in advance for the resulting insurgency, or your war will not be processed. Checks or money orders only.
When efficiency and efficacy fail, outside consultants are ready to assist, advising defense departments on how to “streamline” operations, “synergize” resources, and take a “holistic” view of the battlefield. The officer corps is really just middle management, anyway. Cost-effective procurement is good, but filling out the right form is better. How about a meeting to do a round of ideation?
I have been here long enough to sometimes successfully detect the driest of dry irony that defines the German sense of humor, and I am pretty sure that was the German general’s intended tone when he introduced a panel of fellow, clean-cut counterparts all in snappy dress uniforms emblazoned with ribbons and insignia — and one consultant from a major business accounting firm in a crumply, gray suit and a mop of hair bookending the table. It seemed a little mean to hone in on his completely unrelated “dissertation on theoretical physics,” but I appreciated the detail. Now, he spends his days pouring over spreadsheets, searching for ways to optimize business models — that is, continental counter-offensive plans.
A study of contrasts, you might say, though jargon and euphemism are hardly the exclusive language of the consultant. The panel, which focused on how NATO can operate better together with what it already has, discussed the many logistical challenges to ferrying war-fighting personnel and materiel about a “contested” space. In case you’re wondering, “contested” means you are getting bombed or DNS-denied while trying to do the same to the other side. And since, in this scenario, the one doing the “contesting” is Russia, the “contested” space here is not some faraway empty desert, but Vilnius.
If matters of transport, logistics, and equipment fulfillment bore you, the work of death, destruction, and defense might not be your thing. It is these tasks that decide wars. To that end the conference did a solid job reflecting just how banal wars can be. The American officer sitting on the aforementioned panel was fond of quoting John Pershing, who led U.S. Expeditionary Forces in World War I:
“Infantry wins battles. Logistics wins wars.”
He should know. Before rising the ranks to take charge of the U.S. military’s version of Amazon in Europe he was jumping out of airplanes for Delta force. So I imagine there was more brute strength there than his shaky, squeaky voice suggested.
That was reassuring. I mean no offense, but this was a meeting of military might; after two days circling it I was left wondering if the myriad sprightly, wiry-looking service members mulling about the hallways in a variety of ill-fitting uniforms were really the ones we are relying on to defend the international rules based order. A few of them, several years my junior, seemed more impressed with the ping-pong tables and mini-golf green the hotel had set up off to the side.
It was an underwhelming scene. If this were instead a conference of surgeons, for example, I’d want to feel that anyone there at any moment could competently slice me open, should the situation called for it. I’m no warmonger, but I do respect a job well done — and projecting the confidence that it will be.
Fortunately, there’s NATO’s military committee chair for that. When the Dutch admiral took to the stage, he seemed ready to go to Moscow and strangle Putin with his bare hands himself if called upon to do so. His woodsman’s beard and clipped, gravely tone left little doubt that his parents were big Sean Connery fans, and he was conceived right after a movie marathon of Bond, The Rock, and Hunt for Red October.
Beyond the brawn, his firmware version also came with the brains to issue some great one-liners:
“Deterrence is like oxygen. You only miss it when it’s gone.”
When a young woman during Q&A asked if NATO’s build-up risked escalation, as increased defense posture could be misread as aggression, he replied: “If a two-foot bouncer is outside the club, you walk right by him. If a seven-foot bouncer is standing there, you don’t.”
It was getting late. Before I left, though, I caught a glimpse of a man I was sure was Larry David’s doppelgänger. Trailing him to confirm this important development, I found myself back in the main speaker hall, bathed in Facebook blue. I was too distracted by the task at hand to notice the event that was about to begin: security for Israel — one of the only events on the program not focused directly on Europe. The mood in the room subtly shifted from military conference to AIPAC convention, and it was then I saw the wisdom of putting the keynote events in the hotel basement. From there, the pro-Palestinian protesters out on the street couldn’t get to you.
Time to go. Much to my chagrin, it meant missing the evening G&T soiree brought to you by the people who brought you supersonic flight. Sources tell me that the hotel features a rooftop bar that’s worth the elevator ride up, so I will have to return to check it out. Perhaps from there it’s possible to look out east, towards Poland and — beyond that — the Suwałki Gap. Or, just look down on the Intermarkt Stolitschniy and think about some borscht for dinner.