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President Donald Trump started his campaign for Europe in general and Germany in particular to spend more of their budgets on defense during his first term, and it’s starting to pay off in the economic engine of Europe, the Federal Republic of Germany.
Germany’s coalition government — Christian Democratic Union/Christian Social Union and the Social Democrats — has agreed to a new system of incentives for voluntary military service after a heated debate last week to address the growing Russia threat to the European continent.
Incentives to generate recruitment involve free access to driving licenses. The cost of driving licenses can reach several thousand dollars. The second incentive is an increase in the existing pre-tax salary at the starting level, to around $3,000 a month.
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North Rhine-Westphalia, Ahlen: Recruits during combat training as part of a media day for basic training in the Bundeswehr’s Reconnaissance Battalion 7. Politicians from the CDU/CSU and SPD have agreed on a nationwide draft for the new military service. (Federico Gambarini/picture alliance via Getty Images)
German conservative Chancellor Friedrich Merz declared at the start of his tenure that Germany’s armed forces would be transformed into “Europe’s strongest conventional army,” Jens Spahn, the parliamentary leader of Merz’s CDU party, told reporters on Thursday. “We want to win over as many young people as possible for the service for the fatherland.”
Spahn added that if the voluntary model does not secure sufficient military soldiers and personnel, “we’ll need to make it obligatory” Spahn noted, however, that the move toward compulsory conscription would mean a new law would need to be passed.
David Wurmser, who worked for the U.S. Navy Reserve as an intelligence officer, as a Lieutenant Commander and was a former senior advisor for nonproliferation and Middle East strategy for Vice President Dick Cheney, told Fox News Digital that “Europe is finally beginning to contemplate defense and a more serious way.”
“While it has never been its official policy, over the last few decades, Europeans took for granted the American umbrella and the inconceivability of war to both largely minimize any defense burden they share, as well as placed themselves as some sort of moral conscience lording over the world that ranged into pacifism and impossible moral perfection. It is a good thing that they are now forced to start soberly thinking 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)
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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 appreciate the threat that it faces and the resulting need to stand up a more robust defense, is symbolic of that shift eastward.”
According to Wurmser, “Symbolically, Germany’s actions represent a realization that is long overdue, but is not yet universally understood. That what happened in February 2022, as well as what is happening in the Middle East against Israel, are only localized versions of a much larger, dangerous, and potentially deadly global competition that is led by several nations in opposition to western civilization.”
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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, Islamist, and fascist thought. That unholy alliance, which is an unlikely alliance, is anchored first and foremost to the loathing 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 U.S.more for its military defense of Germany during his first term.