And if they finance their own military, what would they use it for? Remember that they’ve wanted such a thing for decades.
And assuming it becomes a giant Russian imperium, do we want such an entity to have access to the Atlantic, never mind full dominance of the Mediterranean?
Germany doesn’t want a military. Germany invades with BMWs now. They want to freeload under the American nuclear umbrella while stuffing billions into Putin’s pockets. NATO is a toothless paper tiger and everybody knows it. If Russian tanks rolled into Narva tomorrow nobody would oppose them and you know it.
BTW, how is Minsk going five years on? Doesn’t Germany have the lead on that? German leadership. Now there is an oxymoron. LOL.
Right; they’ve been saying for decades they want a EU military, with heavy overtones of it being under German command, even putting it in the EU treaties, and somehow suddenly they don’t want one now.
Again, the spirit of Molotov-Ribbentrop needs to be looked at here. Ukraine may be yet another cessation to that under the Nord Stream project; after all, they were just fine with letting Crimea go. Perhaps the Baltic States too. Now Poland would be a bridge too far, so keep eyes on that.