Nearly two years ago, Argentina’s newly appointed punk-haired President Javier Milei stood up on a podium in front of global elites in Davos and accused them of letting their societies drift into socialism and poverty. He went on to argue that the “main leaders of the Western world have abandoned the model of freedom for different versions of what we call collectivism,” and that all market failures were by-products of state intervention. This week, however, Davos had the last laugh: U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent threw Milei a $20 billion lifeline to help Argentina defend a currency that is collapsing despite nearly two years of shock therapy programs that had had supply-side economists and investors in raptures. “Argentina faces a moment of acute illiquidity,” Bessent posted on X. “The international community — including the IMF — is unified behind Argentina and its prudent fiscal strategy, but only the United States can act swiftly. And act we will.” The rescue act, which many have described as a country-to-country bailout, is an abrupt departure from the usual playbook of international financial diplomacy, an unusually direct intervention in a sphere normally reserved for multilateral institutions. In a strong signal that this was the result of political will, rather than financial apparatchiks just trying to keep the system stable, the money will be directly extended by the Treasury, rather than by the Federal Reserve, in the form of a currency swap. It stands to entangle the fate of the U.S. economy intimately with that of resource-rich Argentina, and tie the Trump administration directly to Milei’s shock therapy programs. At the same time, it reasserts U.S. influence in a region that China has increasingly penetrated through growing trade ties. For Europe, the corollary is that access to dollar liquidity, the essential backstop of the world financial system for nearly a century, is being politicized, and may increasingly depend on how closely its policies align with those of the U.S. “Europe should be concerned about the politicization of the swaps,” one former New York Federal Reserve official told POLITICO. The episode “underscores the need for the rest of the world to prepare for dealing with a dollar crunch without the Fed[to turn to],” added the official, who was granted anonymity to speak freely. CHAINSAW ECONOMIC MASSACRE Milei was explicitly elected in 2023 on the promise that he would take a chainsaw to Argentine government excesses. Positioning himself as the defender of freedom, once in office, he initiated a bold economic agenda focused on radical deregulation, welfare cuts, and liberalization. Within months, the country’s welfare bill had been slashed by nearly half, with the government balancing the books (before interest payments) for the first time since 2008. But it was Milei’s initial move in December 2023 to devalue the official peso exchange rate by nearly 50 percent that rocked markets the most. The hope was to better align the peso with its black market (i.e., real) rate before slowly introducing a floating exchange rate, with sliding bands. Throughout, the International Monetary Fund, the world’s lender of last resort for countries, championed Milei’s policies, which allowed Argentina to return to capital markets earlier than expected. “The agreed ambitious stabilization plan is centered on the establishment of a strong fiscal anchor that ends all central bank financing of the government,” the lender cooed in January 2024. EGG ON THE IMF’S FACE? Except things didn’t go exactly as planned. Rather than stabilize, the peso just kept depreciating, especially after Trump’s tariff announcement in April destabilized global markets. The declines threatened to make imports more expensive for ordinary Argentinians just as Milei’s disinflationary successes were beginning to become entrenched. The road to that point evolved predictably enough. In the immediate aftermath of Milei’s great devaluation, inflation hit 25.5 percent, spiking to 276 percent by February 2025. But, as social welfare cuts began to bite, inflation predictably turned into disinflation. By June 2024, monthly price rises had slowed to 5 percent, and by July-August, inflation had hit single digits for the first time in years. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) and independent observers were quick to credit Milei’s strict fiscal surplus, monetary tightening, and peso stabilization. But by April, the peso’s soft float was proving increasingly challenging to defend. Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs, which set a baseline rate of 10 percent for all countries, had hit Argentina’s export-dependent economy hard. Capital started to flow out amid fears that a global slowdown would crush demand for its agricultural and mineral exports. The Argentinian central bank moved to defend the peso, burning through scarce dollar reserves. Markets began to doubt that Milei’s agenda would survive, fearing that a sharp, uncontrolled depreciation would rekindle inflation just as prices were calming down. To avert a currency crisis, Argentina turned to the IMF and was granted $20 billion through the agency’s Extended Fund Facility (EFF). But despite an initial positive impact on the peso, the depreciation picked up speed again. From the perspective of both the IMF and the U.S., the failure of Milei’s reforms stood not just to unravel Argentina once again, but to delegitimize the ideological foundations of the free-market system he had touted as infallible if deployed correctly. PROXY ECONOMIC WAR WITH CHINA As confidence in Milei’s program faltered, focus shifted to whether the U.S. would make dollar support conditional on the cancellation of a pre-existing $18 billion swap line with Beijing. U.S. Special Envoy for Latin America Mauricio Claver-Carone publicly dubbed the facility “extortionate.” In September, Bessent confirmed negotiations between the U.S. and Argentina for a direct dollar swap line, reinforcing speculation that the U.S. was trying to supplant Chinese influence in the region. The news had an immediate positive effect on the peso, breaking its fall. After peaking at over 1,475 pesos, the dollar was back at 1,421 by late Friday in Europe, helped by news that a dollar-support package from Washington was imminent. How long-lasting that effect will be is yet to be determined. For now, Bessent and the IMF appear resolute that it’s just a matter of time until Milei’s policies will deliver the stability they’ve been promising. Rather than framing the U.S. swapline as a bailout, Bessent is treating the intervention as a trading play. “This is not a bailout at all, there’s no money being transferred,” he told Fox News on Thursday. Under a swap line, two parties agree to exchange up to a certain amount of their currencies, on the understanding that it will be reversed at some time in the future. “The ESF has never lost money, it’s not going to lose money here,” Bessent went on, arguing that the peso is “undervalued”. He added that Milei remains a great U.S. ally who is committed to getting China out of Latin America, and said the U.S. was going “to use Argentina as an example.” Not everyone is convinced that Milei’s policies will deliver the goods. “They’ve done this over and over and over again,” said Steve Hanke, a professor at Johns Hopkins University and a veteran of various currency reform and stabilization packages. He argued that the package will provide “a little bit of a temporary band aid, but it won’t last very long.”

LONDON — Nigel Farage is gambling that a hardline stance on migration is a surefire vote-winner. But it’s a risky bet. Amid a spate of protests outside hotels housing some of Britain’s asylum seekers, Farage’s insurgent Reform UK party faces a dilemma. Should it condemn the demos and disappoint voters on the right? Or lean in — and risk alienating the more moderate voters who are now powering its rise? Reform UK’s base is increasingly mirroring the average Briton, according to fresh polling from the think tank More in Common. Just 40 percent of its current supporters backed the party in 2024, and just 16 percent of its current backers once voted for Farage’s old outfit, UKIP. Its gender gap has narrowed, its age profile has evened out, and many of its newest recruits are less glued to online culture wars. That makes Reform’s growth, in the pollsters’ words, both “a blessing and a curse.” The broader the party gets, the greater the risk of being defined by its more radical supporters — and losing the very voters Farage has worked to bring in. Members of the far-right have egged on protests outside the Bell Hotel in Epping. What began as a local protest quickly drew in the Homeland party — a breakaway from Britain’s biggest far-right group, Patriotic Alternative — alongside Britain First, and hard-right agitator Tommy Robinson. So far, Reform has backed the right to protest — Farage described people protesting as “genuinely concerned families,” and insisted that violence was caused by “some bad eggs.” “We don’t pick and choose the protest,” his Deputy Leader Richard Tice told POLITICO in an interview. “We don’t choose to support some and not others. We just say lawful, peaceful protest is an important part of a functioning democracy.”  DISTANCE But it’s a careful line for a party that has spent the past year trying to sharpen its operation — tightening vetting rules for candidates and putting distance between itself and overt racism. “They’ve drawn a clear line when it comes to distancing themselves from Tommy Robinson,” said Marley Morris, associate director for migration, trade and communities at the Institute for Public Policy Research. So far, Reform has backed the right to protest — Nigel Farage described people protesting as “genuinely concerned families,” and insisted that violence was caused by “some bad eggs.” | Neil Hall/EPA “That’s actually come at quite significant costs for Nigel Farage, because of its consequences for his relationship with Elon Musk.” The Tesla owner has been a staunch online backer of Robinson, who was jailed in the UK for contempt of court after he repeated false claims about a Syrian schoolboy. Farage — whose party descends on Birmingham for its annual conference this weekend in a jubilant mood — is riding high in the polls, and will be buoyed by polling that consistently puts migration at or near the top of Brits’ list of concerns. But the summer of tense protests risks complicating matters, according to some British commentators. Farage “feels under pressure from the online right,” argued Sunder Katwala, director of the British Future think tank. Over the past month, Reform has doubled down on its anti-immigration pitch — in language critics say edges closer to the far-right. In August, Tice told Times Radio that there should be more groups of men on a “neighborhood watch-style basis within the bounds of the law” to protect women from the “sneering, jeering, and sexual assaults and rapes that are taking place, coincidentally, near a number of these asylum-seeker hotels.”  Pressed by POLITICO, Tice doubled down on this position. “There is already vigilantism going on. No one wants to report it, but that’s the reality of life … It is much better to shine the spotlight on an issue, talk about it … and then government can make better policy.”  Tice likens asylum arrivals in the UK to “an invasion double the size of the British Army.” But the summer of tense protests risks complicating matters, according to some British commentators. | Tolga Aken/EPA “That’s how people talk about it in the pubs and clubs and bus stops and sports fields up and down the country. I know that makes people in Westminster uncomfortable — tough,” Tice told POLITICO. THE CONNOLLY FACTOR The party has also wrapped its arms around Lucy Connolly, a 42-year-old woman who was jailed after pleading guilty to stirring up racial hatred against asylum seekers with a post calling for migrant hotels to be set on fire. Reform has painted Connolly as a political prisoner of Keir Starmer’s government, with Farage even flying to Washington this week to slam Britain’s online safety rules and likening the UK to North Korea on free speech.  Cabinet ministers blasted Farage’s U.S. trip as a “Talk Britain Down” tour. Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds called it “as anti-British as you can get. More in Common polling shows that while voters are split on whether Connolly’s sentence was too harsh or too lenient, 51 percent want politicians to distance themselves from her, including more than a quarter of Reform voters. “The transnational neoconservative right is a massive danger to the British right, not an opportunity,” argued IPPR’s Morris. More in Common polling shows that many of Reform’s newer supporters view U.S.-style populist figures, such as Donald Trump, negatively. Social attitudes are also shifting, with six in ten voters supporting same-sex marriages, and 46 percent thinking the legal abortion limit should stay at 24 weeks. POLICY PITFALLS While Reform is confidently ahead in national voting intention polls, there is evidence of some unease about its specific policy pledges. A proposal to work with the Taliban to return Afghan asylum seekers got a mixed reception. Some 45 percent of Britons said that giving money to the regime to take returns would be “completely unacceptable,” according to a YouGov poll. The party has also struggled to clarify its stance on deporting children. Chairman Zia Yusuf suggested unaccompanied minors could eventually be removed under the party’s mass deportation plans — only for Farage to row back, insisting it wouldn’t happen in Reform’s first term. “When it came to deporting children, they realized that what they proposed isn’t really sustainable — it seems, frankly, inhumane,” said Morris. “If [Reform] wants to appeal to the wider public, and not just to its base, it can’t just appeal to this kind of narrow group of people.” Tice has since sought to narrow the focus. “We’ve said that we will start focusing on detaining and deporting males first,” he said. “If a husband is detained and deported, if he’s got a wife and children, they’ve got a choice to make. “The children of parents who are here illegally, those children are not British citizens by law,” he continued. “There are bound to be specific cases and things, but as a principle, we’re not going to go through a whole long list of exemptions. If you do that, you actually create a criminal gang focus on the exemptions, and then people try to game that system. So we’re not playing that game.”

BERLIN — It was a beating hot summer day and Gregor was dressed in the formal uniform of the German army: a sky-blue shirt and navy trousers, which he had received that week, the fabric still stiff. The 39-year-old office manager had never been patriotic, and like many liberal-leaning Germans his feelings toward the military for most of his life had been ambivalent at best. When he was 18 he’d even turned down the option of doing a year of military service, believing it was a waste of time. Now, two decades later, life had taken an unexpected turn. As a steel band played, he marched in time alongside 17 others dressed in the same freshly pressed outfits into an open square at Germany’s Ministry of Defense, a towering grey neoclassical building in western Berlin, following the commands they had learned just a few days earlier. They were all there to do the same thing: take the oath required of all new recruits to the German armed forces. Afterward, they would begin their official training as reserve officers, learning the basic skills needed to defend against a military invasion. Everything had changed for Gregor on Feb. 24, 2022, when news broke that Russia had invaded Ukraine. Suddenly, the peace he had always taken for granted in Europe didn’t seem so guaranteed. “I was watching videos of Ukrainian civilians joining soldiers to fight off Russian tanks as they rolled toward their towns,” he said. “I thought to myself: ‘If something like that happened here, I wouldn’t have any practical skills to help.’” It was a fitting day to take the oath: July 20, 2024, the 80th anniversary of the so-called Operation Valkyrie, when a group of German soldiers plotted, and failed, to assassinate Adolf Hitler. Usually oath ceremonies are low-key affairs, carried out at barracks with a few family members present — the close associations between the military and Germany’s dark history means servicemen are not celebrated with the pomp and pageantry they are in other countries. But in honor of the special date, around 400 other recruits from various divisions from all over Germany were gathered in the same square, ready to take their pledge. The country’s defense minister, Boris Pistorius from the center-left Social Democrats (SPD), gave a short speech, telling the recruits that the prospect of defending Germany’s democracy had “become more real after Putin’s attack on Ukraine.” Then a lieutenant colonel shouted out the words of the oath, as the group repeated them back: “I pledge to loyally serve the Federal Republic of Germany and to courageously defend the right and liberty of the German people.” As he repeated the words of the oath, Gregor felt an unexpected swell of emotion. “I realized this is going to be a big part of my life now,” he said. “I’m going to be dedicating a lot of my time to it, and I’m going to have to explain to people why I’m doing it.” His mother remarked afterward that she also experienced surprising feelings while watching from the benches. “That was the first time I ever heard the national anthem being sung and felt like I actually wanted to join in,” she told him. Across Germany, both politicians and members of the public have been going through a similar transformation. The country’s army, officially named the Bundeswehr — which translates as “federal defense” — was established by the United States during the Cold War. It was designed to support NATO rather than ever lead a conflict, for fear that a German military could be misused as it was during World War II. This supporting role suited Germany’s leaders: Throughout the latter half of the 20th century, the country’s politicians carefully shaped an image of a peaceful nation that prefers influencing global politics through trade and diplomacy. After the end of the Cold War the Bundeswehr began scaling down, with military spending falling from a high of 4.9 percent of GDP in 1963 to just 1.1 percent in 2005. But in the months following the Russian invasion, then-chancellor Olaf Scholz surprised the world by announcing a radical change in German foreign policy, including a €100 billion ($116 billion) plan to beef up its army. Then in early 2025, five days after the February election of new chancellor Friedrich Merz of the conservative Christian Democrats (CDU), Donald Trump invited Ukrainian President Volodymir Zelensky into the Oval Office for a browbeating broadcast around the world that signaled his lack of interest in standing up to Russia. A shocked Merz, who had campaigned on a platform of low taxes and low spending, immediately agreed with Scholz to work together to reform the country’s strict borrowing laws — which were embedded in the constitution — and build up its defense capabilities as quickly as possible with a €1 trillion loan, which amounts to about 25 percent of the country’s GDP. According to Lorenzo Scarazzato, a researcher at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), this type of defense spending was previously unheard of during peacetime. “Countries that spend this much are usually those at war, or autocratic states that don’t have democratic oversight,” he said. The following month, Germany’s lawmakers voted to back the plan, setting the country’s military on track to be the best-funded in Europe and the fourth-biggest in the world. In Merz’s view, Europe didn’t just need to arm itself against Russian aggression, but also “achieve independence from the USA.” Later in the year, NATO members would agree to raise their defense spending to 5 percent of GDP, at Trump’s behest. It marks a huge shift not just from how Germany manages its finances but how it perceives both itself and its place in the world. “After World War II, the allies did a tremendous job of re-educating the German population,” said Carsten Breuer, the Bundeswehr’s highest serving general. “This led to a society which I would say is peace-minded, and of course there’s nothing wrong with that. But it is also non-military.” So far, committing resources to the military has been fairly easy for the German government. But now it needs to convince thousands of people to do the same as Gregor and dedicate themselves to military service. After the end of the Cold War in the early 1990s, the government began scaling down the Bundeswehr from 500,000 soldiers to the current 180,000. The country’s national service, in which young men had to choose between serving in the army or undertaking another type of civil service, was scrapped in 2011. Now, General Breuer estimates the total personnel needs to rise to 460,000, including both full-time staff and reservists. Bundeswehr applications are up 20 percent this year, though not everyone will make it through the physical and security tests. Even then, that still isn’t enough to plug the gaps, and it is likely that conscription of some kind will return. Breuer believes the German public is softening up to the military after decades of standoffishness. The war on Ukraine, as well as the Covid-19 pandemic and the disaster response to devastating floods, have put many people in closer touch with the Bundeswehr, he says. “When I was talking to my soldiers in the early 2000s, they would always ask, ‘Why isn’t it like the U.S. here, where people thank you for your service?’” he said. “Nowadays, we’re starting to see this in Germany.” He recounted a recent moment when he was waiting for a flight in the city of Dusseldorf and an elderly man tapped him on the shoulder to offer his thanks. However, for many people, any glorification of the German military will always have uncomfortable associations with the country’s dark history: Neo-Nazi groups still use German military symbols and history as part of their recruitment propaganda, and the Bundeswehr has been plagued by far-right scandals in recent years. For some, the government’s push to embrace the army is one more sign of a dangerous transformation in the country’s political sentiments: The far-right AfD is currently second in the polls, and the ruling CDU has shed former leader Angela Merkel’s liberal image in favor of a harsh anti-immigration stance. And as welfare, social services and climate protection face possible cuts to support military spending, Germany’s politicians face a challenge in seeing how long they can keep the newfound support going. “When you have a hammer, everything starts to look like a nail, and you forget the rest of the toolkit, which includes diplomacy and cooperation,” said Scarazzato from SIPRI. “Military gives some level of deterrence, but engaging with the other side is perhaps what prevents escalation.” He warns that a beefed-up army “is not necessarily a panacea for whatever issue you are facing.” The Heuberg training ground in Baden-Württemberg has a long and dark history. Nestled in the southwestern part of Germany near the Swiss border, it was originally built as a base for the German Imperial Army, which existed from 1871 to 1919 and fought in World War I. Some timber-framed buildings and stables from this time still exist, many crumbling and disused. In early 1933 it became one of the country’s first concentration camps, housing 2,000 political opponents, before it was used as a base for the SS, the Nazis’ violent paramilitary group. Now, it is where the next generation of German military reserves come to train. This past June, I watched 18 people struggling through the same type of training Gregor undertook a year earlier. Heuberg serves as the anchor for recruits hailing from Baden-Württemberg, with each region of the country playing host to its own reserves trainings. The one I observed at Heuberg takes 17 days in total, spread out over long weekends throughout the summer. None of the recruits, including Gregor, can share their surnames for security reasons — the Bundeswehr says its soldiers have been targeted by foreign intelligence and been subject to identify theft. The lieutenant colonel leading the training, Stefan, told me that the sessions cover the most basic skills, meaning these recruits will know how to defend a barracks if Germany were attacked by a foreign power. They can then continue regular training as part of local defense units, learning how to secure critical infrastructure. The recruits range in age from their 20s to 60s, with most in their 30s and 40s, and work a variety of jobs. There’s a forester, a teacher, a chemical engineer and even an ex-journalist, although only three of them are women. Everyone mentioned the war on Ukraine as the catalyst that got them interested in the military. A German army spokesperson said a total of 3,000 untrained citizens have expressed interest in joining the reserve over the past five years, with a major peak just after the invasion of Ukraine and another in early 2025 following the U.S. election. The training is not for the faint-hearted. Recruits must learn to fire an 11-pound rifle, hike around the base in the soaring heat while carrying their 33-pound backpacks, and practice running and doing push-ups in their gas masks and protective clothing, which restricts their breathing. They will also learn orienteering and radio communication, with the 17 days eventually culminating in a simulation of a Russian attack, during which recruits will be fed information through their radios and organize themselves to defend the barracks. Stefan, who served in NATO missions in the former Yugoslavia, Mali and Afghanistan, explained that several people had dropped out already. “That’s normal, it’s not for everyone,” he said. As well as the physical strain, recruits often struggle with the emotional aspect of learning to fire guns. “I tell them, at the end of the day, you’re a soldier — it’s part of your job.” Kevin, 29, works as a banker. “In school, my best friend wanted to join the army, and I remember telling him he would be wasting his life,” he said. His father also had to do compulsory military service, “and he told me no one wanted to be there, it was so uncomfortable because you were reminded of history the whole time.” After the invasion of Ukraine, he remembers sitting in his office watching the price of commodities skyrocket. “We all watched Biden’s speech about the start of the war, and it really felt like a turning point in history,” he said. After many hours of running, shooting and hastily learning new commands, the recruits — many slightly red-faced — finish the day by learning to clean their guns, pushing strings down the barrel and out the other end. Some get stuck, prompting some awkward tugging. The commando deputy, Col. Markus Vollmann, looked on admiringly. “They are all quite extraordinary, how motivated they are,” he said. “They’re only a minority though.” So far, 45 percent of Germans say they are in favor of the country’s new 5 percent defense spending target, with 37 percent against and 18 percent undecided. It’s a marked difference from the days of the Afghan war, when two-thirds of the country wanted German troops to be withdrawn. Military sociologist Timo Graf says this fits with how most Germans have consistently viewed the Bundeswehr: The majority say its main role should be defense of the country rather than interventionist missions abroad. At Heuberg, Vollmann is nervous about how long support for military spending will be maintained once people see other services being cut around them. Germany is able to borrow much more than its European neighbors due to its low debt levels, but Merz is sticking to his low-tax-low-spend ideology with planned cuts to welfare spending. “We need to communicate better with the public about what we are doing and why it is necessary, but without scaring them,” he said, adding that debt-averse Germany needs better investment in all industry and infrastructure. “There’s no point having the most expensive tanks if, once you drive them out of the barracks, the roads are all potholed and the bridges are crumbling.” Stefan, the training manager, believes the many years of peace have left Germany ill-prepared to potentially face Russian aggression head-on. “We have too many soldiers who have never seen war,” he said. “If you have never smelt burning flesh or seen spilled blood everywhere, then you cannot understand how to make decisions in that environment. You can’t train adequately.” Just one week after the NATO conference sparked headlines around the world in July, I arrived at Germany’s Ministry of Defense to speak to Breuer, the highest serving general in the Bundeswehr. The building in western Berlin, also known as the Bendlerblock, was the home of the Nazi’s supreme military command and their intelligence agency, as well as the headquarters of the resistance soldiers who carried out the failed July 20 coup attempt. Breuer became a familiar face to Germans during the pandemic, as the head of the military’s Covid-19 task force. When we met, he was warm and jovial in his everyday combat uniform, rather than the formal jacket adorned with medals that he sports in his TV appearances. He is beaming about the budget increases, which he believes are long overdue. Following Germany’s post-Cold War disarmament, spending on everything from clothing to ammunition to helicopters was reduced — some argue by too much, leaving soldiers with out-of-date helmets and 30-year-old radio equipment. Breuer is particularly critical of how German troops were sent to support NATO missions abroad — most notably in Afghanistan — without adequate equipment. “It was clear to me that if you are sending soldiers on operations, risking their life and their health, then you have to give them everything they need,” he said. A total of 59 German soldiers were killed in the conflict. “We are now moving from a war of choice to a war of necessity,” he explained. From security analysis he believes Russia will be capable of attacking NATO territory by 2029, with the caveat that this depends on the outcome in Ukraine and whether the war exhausts the Kremlin. “Russia is producing around 1,500 battle tanks every year,” he said. In comparison, Germany currently produces 300. “And it is also building up its military structures facing West.” He says his main priorities are ramping up air defense, procuring battle tanks and drones, expanding homeland security, and beefing up the personnel that enables combat missions, such as engineers and logisticians. But tanks and drones don’t amount to much if the country can’t enlist and train to its goal of 460,000 personnel. German media is currently full of near-daily headlines about how this personnel target might be reached. Defense Minister Pistorius has proposed a hybrid voluntary draft, inspired by Sweden’s new model, in which all 18-year-old men will be sent a questionnaire. Only the most physically able will then be invited for service. However, if that fails to get the numbers needed, he has warned some kind of compulsory draft will be created. The country is already facing a massive skilled labor shortage and the Bundeswehr struggles to offer competitive salaries in fields such as IT. Business leaders such as Steffen Kampeter of the Confederation of German Employers’ Associations have claimed the German economy cannot cope with young people delaying their careers through serving in the army. One solution would be for service to be combined with vocational training, and Pistorius also wants to increase Bundeswehr salaries to make them more attractive. Breuer says he has no opinion on what system would be preferable for meeting the recruitment goals, explaining this is an issue for politicians to decide. “My military advice is: This is the number we need,” he said. At the same time as equipment and staff need to be beefed up, Breuer says administration and bureaucracy must be scaled down. Germany’s procurement offices have become so bloated over the past 30 years that multiple reports of their comical inefficiency can be found, such as parachutists having to wait over a decade for new, safer helmets that U.S. soldiers have already worn for years. Germany is also entering its third consecutive year of recession, and its heavy industries that are struggling to stay competitive are now hoping the defense spending will give them a boost: Shares in the steel sector have shot up since the announcements. However, the years of restricted budgets mean the country is starting the sudden ramp-up on the back foot. It is unlikely that industry can meet the targets in such a short space of time, meaning a large amount of equipment is likely to be purchased from U.S. companies, perhaps undermining the goal of European independence. “The fact is, once you buy the more complex weapons from the U.S., you become somewhat dependent on their systems,” said Scarazzato, the SIPRI researcher. “It would make more sense to be very deliberate in how the money is spent in order to avoid finding ourselves in the same position in 10 years’ time.” “For me it’s not about companies, it’s about capabilities,” confirmed Breuer. “This means that in a lot of cases we will have to buy off the shelf. We can’t afford the time you need to develop new items, new systems and new platforms.” With the rush across Europe to procure weapons and soldiers, Scarazzato warns that leaders should be careful not to “put all their eggs in one basket, which is the military.” Arms races also lead to issues such as price gouging and oversight processes potentially being circumvented. “You risk a race to the bottom,” he said. I asked Breuer if he had anything to say to people who are still skeptical about the need for rearmament. “I would like to take them with me on one of my visits to Ukraine.” How powerful the Bundeswehr should be, and even whether it should exist at all, has been fiercely debated ever since it was founded. As an institution, it has only existed since 1955 and was preceded by the Nazi-era Wehrmacht (1935 to 1945), the Weimar Republic’s Reichswehr (1919 to 1935) and, before that, the Imperial German Army. When the United States and its allies took control of Germany after the end of World War II, they dissolved the Wehrmacht and banned German military uniforms and symbols. As part of a larger “denazification” process, the country was prohibited from having an army in case it could be misused in the same way as the Wehrmacht. This changed as the Cold War intensified. After the 1950 North Korea invasion of South Korea, the United States urged its NATO partners to rearm Germany and admit it to the alliance. The country’s first Chancellor, Konrad Adenauer, believed it could be an opportunity for the young democracy to regain its sovereignty and establish itself as an equal partner amongst allies, and on Nov. 12, 1955, the first 100 volunteers joined the Bundeswehr. “The country had to answer the question of how to create an army that could integrate into a democracy and could follow the constitution,” said Thorsten Loch, a Bundeswehr officer and military historian. The founding officers decided to construct the new army around a concept known as “Innere Führung,” or “inner leadership,” meaning soldiers must think for themselves and not follow orders blindly. They decided soldiers should be “citizens in uniform,” with national conscription designed to keep the forces rooted within society. Parliament wields huge powers over the army, and its stated mission is supporting other NATO forces rather than leading battles itself. Germany’s constitution has strict rules about how and when the military can be deployed — for example, reserves can only be called up if another nation declares war on Germany. When it came to staffing the new army, however, making a complete break from the Wehrmacht was more complicated. As Loch points out, any army that needed to pose a serious threat to the Soviet Union couldn’t be staffed by 12-year-olds. Chancellor Adenauer declared in 1952 that anyone who had fought “honorably” in the Wehrmacht — that is, those who had not committed any war crimes — would be welcome in the new army. “The officers ‘cleaned’ themselves,” explained Loch. “I believe they knew amongst themselves who had committed crimes.” They are likely to have also had input from the British, French and American intelligence services. In comparison, communist East Germany opted to staff its Volksarmee (people’s army) with younger, inexperienced soldiers in order to avoid former Nazis. Whether this “self-cleaning” was effective is a point of contention. Only a tiny number of Wehrmacht officers were ever tried for war crimes, and the concept of “honorable” soldiers has led to what many perceive as a whitewashing of the Nazi-era army, often referred to as “the myth of the clean Wehrmacht.” “The narrative was born that it was the Nazi Party who committed the atrocities, not the Wehrmacht soldiers,” said Loch. “And of course this isn’t true, as things are more complicated in reality.” Some of those early Bundeswehr officers still have questions over their heads as to what they did in World War II. The first director of operations was Lt. Col. Karl-Theodor Molinari, who resigned in 1970 after it became public that he might have been involved in the shooting of 105 French resistance soldiers, although the allegations were never proven. And while care was taken to strip away the most obvious signs, symbols and rituals of the Wehrmacht, some remain, such as military music, which also pre-dates the Nazi era. Barracks were renamed after resistance figures but were not demolished. This is one of the reasons that German rearmament was unpopular with the public at the time, and the purpose — and even existence — of an army remains a divisive topic. There continues to be a push-pull between those who say the Bundeswehr must do more to fully break with its past, and those who argue the Wehrmacht is a part of military history that cannot just be ignored. On Sunday, June 15, around 1,000 people had decided to forgo summer picnics in the park to gather outside Germany’s Reichstag for the country’s first-ever Veterans’ Day celebration. After many years of campaigning by the Association of German Deployment Veterans the government finally decided to make the celebration official in 2025, symbolizing a major shift in how politicians seek to position the Bundeswehr in society. A German language EDM band blared loudly over speakers next to stalls selling beers and bratwursts, while children petted a military donkey. The turn-out was not huge: There was no line to enter, and the dancefloor in front of the stage was largely empty. All attendees I spoke to were from military families, rather than curious civilians. “We would like to build up a veterans’ culture like they have in the USA,” said Ralph Bartsch, who runs a veterans’ motorcycle club. “It’s an absolutely overdue event,” agreed another soldier, who was dressed in civilian clothes and did not want to give his name. “It makes the Bundeswehr stronger in our society.” Not everyone is so eager to see societal norms change. The day before, in the Berlin neighborhood of Kreuzberg, I watched as Kai Krieger, 40, and his companion demonstrated how they switch out bus stop posters for those of their own design. After unscrewing the case at the bottom, rolling up the existing poster and tucking it behind the frame — essential for ensuring they are not committing any crimes — they then unrolled a doctored Bundeswehr recruitment advertisement in its place. “German mix: Nazis, cartridges, isolated cases” it reads, alongside a banner, “No to veterans’ day.” It’s a reference to a series of scandals from recent years. In 2022, Franco Albrecht, a 33-year-old first lieutenant with far-right views, was found guilty of plotting terror attacks that he hoped would be blamed on refugees. Several members of the elite KSK — Germany’s equivalent of the Navy SEALs — were found to have been stockpiling weapons and Nazi memorabilia, and members were reported to have made Hitler salutes and played extremist music at gatherings. This led a parliamentary panel to determine in 2020 that “networks” of far-right extremists had established themselves in the Bundeswehr. Ex-military personnel were also involved in a bizarre 2022 foiled plot to overthrow the German state and replace it with a far-right monarchy. “I do think it’s possible for armies to not be fascist or far-right influenced, but the German army is so toxic to the country’s history that I don’t see how that can happen here,” Kai said. He would go as far as saying that Germany should not have an army at all, because “the history is just too heavy. … They say all these nice-sounding things about defending democracy, but then the nasty things always seem to come to the surface.” Despite the Bundeswehr’s efforts to emphasize its historical connections to resistance fighters and position itself as a defender of liberal values, Germany’s far-right groups continue to view the country’s military as their own. In 2019, the German office for the protection of the constitution reported that neo-Nazi groups were organizing lectures with former Wehrmacht soldiers around the country, in which speakers would praise the SS and deny or trivialize the Holocaust. Kai’s group posted around 100 of their posters across the city that weekend, but anti-military activism doesn’t currently have much momentum behind it. Outside the Veteran’s Day celebrations, only a mere cluster of protesters were holding signs and singing anti-war songs. It’s a far cry from the 1980s when the German peace movement was a major civic force, with four million people signing a petition that the West German government withdraw its promise to allow medium-range ballistic missiles to be stationed in the country. Kai doesn’t hold back on the reasons for the movement’s unpopularity. “Our organizations talk a lot of bullshit,” he said. According to him, many of his fellow peace activists “don’t agree that Vladimir Putin is conducting an illegal war in Ukraine. … They’ll say it’s NATO’s fault,” he added, rolling his eyes. While pacifism was long associated with the left, this has shifted in recent years as various far-right movements aligned themselves with Russia. The AfD opposed military aid for Ukraine and expanding the Bundeswehr, and peace marches have become associated with cranks and conspiracy theorists. The Bundeswehr’s recent far-right scandals give potential reserve volunteers pause for thought. Burak, 38, opted out of military service back when he was 18, but in February 2025 he withdrew his conscientious-objector status. “It took me two whole years to decide if I really wanted to do that,” he said. As someone of Turkish heritage, he is still worried about whether it will be “a safe environment” for him. Burak has been involved with the country’s Green Party for many years, and during the Covid-19 pandemic he began looking into the possibility of training in disaster relief. Then when the invasion of Ukraine happened, he considered the military for the first time in two decades. “I feel like this is going to be another burden on younger people, along with things like climate change,” he said. “My generation had the privilege to say that we didn’t want to do this.” Michael, who is 50, spent his youth in Berlin’s left-wing punk scene, putting on anti-fascist gigs in abandoned buildings, and still sports the tattoos and gauged ear piercings. The invasion of Ukraine “shocked me to my core,” he said. “I am an anti-fascist, and to me, the biggest fascist project in Europe right now is Russia,” he explained. “The whole symbol of Europe is under attack.” He added that he also wants “to know where I stand” if tanks ever did roll into Germany one day. “I don’t want to be sitting there thinking, ‘Do I flee or not?’” he said. “I don’t think we should allow the Bundeswehr to just be staffed by nationalists,” he continued, when I ask how it fits with his leftist politics. “We need to think: What brought the Third Reich down? What brought liberty to Europe? It wasn’t talking with Hitler for 10 years.” A year after Gregor completed his basic training, his life looks quite different. At home, he has three huge boxes of uniforms, gas masks and helmets that his girlfriend begrudgingly agreed could be stored in their apartment, as long as he kept them tidy. Other hobbies have had to make way for his continued service, which he now dedicates around 50 days a year to. With his defense unit he practices handling weapons and understanding the logistics of how to protect Berlin’s critical infrastructure and clear paths for military transport. “We learn about the motorways and railway network, and how troops can move through them without the risk of sabotage,” he said. As a major urban center, his Berlin unit would probably be one of the first to be called up if an invasion ever happened. His company, a Berlin-based tech startup, has been understanding of his time off: “My bosses said a war would be bad for business, so they’re happy I’m doing this.” Some of his closest friends are now those he went through training with. “You’re paired with everyone in the platoon for exercises at some point,” he said, which enables deep bonds. Whenever people struggled, the others rallied around them, invested in getting the whole team past the finish line. If someone got nervous learning how to handle rifles, the others were there to calm them down. Even when he’s not training, he’ll often spend his evenings mentoring others who want to join the reserves, talking them through the process. He wears his military uniform travelling to and from training, sometimes encountering people who thank him, other times being pestered by kids who want to try on his backpack. He often has conversations with friends who don’t understand why he is doing this, or who are politically opposed to the idea of a German military. “I have realized since I joined that people in the German military do tend to be more on the conservative side,” he said. “I would like to see more left-leaning people, to balance it out and make it more reflective of society.” He thinks some form of conscription would be a good idea, to help people understand what the army involves, and that there’s much more to it than frontline conflict. “But you need to make it meaningful to their lives. There’s no point in people feeling like they’ve been forced, or that they’ve wasted a year.” The idea of serving his country still makes him feel uncomfortable. “I don’t really like the term patriotism as it’s too closely associated with nationalism for me,” he said. “But I think about the things in my country that I like, such as free education and affordable health care, and how I want kids in the future to enjoy those, too. And I think that is worth defending.”

LONDON — Campaigners leapt for joy when MPs voted to legalize assisted dying earlier this year. But they shouldn’t pop the champagne corks just yet. Backbench Labour MP Kim Leadbeater’s Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill starts its journey through Britain’s unelected House of Lords next month after completing its Commons stages in June. A bumpy reception in the upper House is guaranteed — risking Brits’ ire if peers vote down the bill or take so long to scrutinize it that it runs out of time in this parliamentary session. Humanists UK and My Death, My Decision campaigner, Nathan Stilwell, said peers rejecting the bill “would be pretty disastrous for the House of Lords itself” because “the public image … would be quite difficult.” If the bill ran out of time, “it would just be egg on everyone’s faces,” Stilwell added. “The public would be furious.”  Opinion polling has repeatedly shown support among Brits for altering the current law, which threatens a person who helps another to die with 14 years in prison. After much debate and agonizing on both sides, the landmark vote by MPs in June resulted in 314 to 291 parliamentarians backing the right for terminally ill adults in England and Wales with less than six months left to live to receive support to medically ending their lives. But now that verdict will come up against legislators who never have to face voters and won’t have a party whip telling them what to do. And opposing peers are already considering undoing the lower House’s decision. “It would be legitimate for the Lords to vote it down,” said Tory peer and opponent of the bill, Richard Balfe. “It is, after all, a matter of conscience.” UNSHACKLED BY CONVENTION  Under the Salisbury Convention, peers typically do not prevent legislation in a party’s manifesto from becoming law. Backbench Labour MP Kim Leadbeater when the bill she introduced passed its House of Commons stages in June 2025. | Neil Hall/EPA But Labour’s election-winning manifesto did not mention assisted dying — Starmer only promised time for a debate. Government ministers have taken a hands-off approach, with Leadbeater sponsoring the Private Member’s Bill (PMB) in the Commons and former Labour Justice Secretary Charlie Falconer taking the reins in the Lords. Despite losing the Commons battle, opponents haven’t given up the war and think there’s still everything to play for. Peers will have a second reading debate on Sept. 12, where 122 members are registered to speak. “If we had more time, then almost certainly we would have had a majority in favor of halting the bill,” said Alistair Thompson, a spokesperson for Care Not Killing, a campaign group which opposes assisted dying.  “We will get a much fuller and franker debate in the Lords without people who have genuine concerns being excluded,” Thompson argued. “This particular bill is a very bad one,” concurred Tory peer and opponent Mark Harper. The former cabinet minister claimed some MPs “both on and off the record … recognized that the bill is not in great shape and expect the House of Lords to improve it.” However, proponents want momentum from the Commons decision to continue — and are adamant that despite it not being in Labour’s election manifesto, peers shouldn’t override elected MPs. Members of the Lords will initially decide “whether they are inclined to reject it outright,” explained Hansard Society Director Ruth Fox, or push to amend the bill later on. Peers could theoretically vote the bill down at any stage, though the democratic legitimacy of this would raise eyebrows. BOGGED DOWN   If the bill passes its second reading, it will face pressure in committee stage, where it’s examined line by line, clause by clause.  “It is, after all, a matter of conscience,” said Tory peer and opponent of the bill, Richard Balfe. | Serhat Cagdas/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images Unlike the Commons, all peers can take part in the chamber where any amendment can be debated — without a time limit — and put to a vote, giving opponents the perfect opportunity to draw the process out. “There will need to be very, very significant changes to the legislation or the bill should not proceed,” said Thompson, highlighting the shift from a High Court judge overseeing applications to a multidisciplinary panel of three. Though MPs approved that change in the process, even supporters have raised their eyebrows.  “It’s not altogether rigorous,” admitted crossbench peer Martin Rees. “Replacing the judge by a committee is not necessarily a good thing.”  But backers are divided about what peers should do beyond approving the law.  “It’s quite hard to imagine that we will think of things that the Commons haven’t,” said Labour peer and supporter Dianne Hayter. “They seem to have done a very thorough job.”  One crossbench peer who backs assisted dying, granted anonymity to speak candidly, said Leadbeater’s “seriously flawed” bill didn’t go far enough. They criticized people with long term health conditions not being eligible and the patient having to self-administer the final dose.  PARLIAMENTARY BOTTLENECK  Analysis of these technical and ethical subjects would be tricky, even with all the time in the world.  But while peers aren’t restricted to debating PMBs on Fridays, the government’s legislative agenda is bursting at the seams, with eight weighty bills currently clogging up the Lords. Peers have already proven willing to take their time assessing bills promised in Labour’s manifesto, including abolishing the 92 hereditary peers who sit in the Lords by birthright.  “From the government’s perspective, they’re stringing it out. They’re being difficult,” said Fox. “From the Conservatives’ perspective, they’re doing proper scrutiny.”   Opponents argue that proper scrutiny would demonstrate the law wasn’t fit for purpose. “It would be actually a dereliction of duty if the House of Lords didn’t force the proponents of this bill to actually think some of these things through,” argued Harper. WIND-UP TIME  The bill must pass all stages — including MPs considering amendments made in the Lords — by the end of the parliamentary session to become law. It’s a date nobody knows yet. While government bills can be carried over to the next session, this doesn’t happen for PMBs. “They use the end of the session as a way to force things through and persuade people to reach a consensus,” Fox explained, which is likely impossible on a topic like assisted dying.  She speculated the new session won’t start until next spring, which would be a “very long time” for opponents “to try and string things out.”  While the government is neutral on assisted dying, a majority of Labour MPs backed the bill — alongside most of Starmer’s cabinet. A written ministerial answer last month called the bill a government priority to disquiet from opponents — suggesting they want it to become law. While ministers resisted giving government time in the Commons, the lengthier Lords sessions could mean that offering government time becomes appealing for Starmer. Hayter didn’t believe the legislation should become a government bill, but, if “come December, January, people are playing silly buggers … there’s nothing wrong with the government making time available.”  But opponents were not concerned about public opinion: “We don’t have to go and face some group of electors.” argued Balfe. “They can’t just say, ‘Oh, I’ll never vote for you again,’ because they never voted for us in the first place.”

LONDON — Much like cricket, trade talks with India have been a long game, with plenty of sticky wickets along the way. As India’s cricket team goes head-to-head with England at Old Trafford on Thursday, Prime Minister Keir Starmer and his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi flaunted their newly inked free trade agreement at Chequers, Starmer’s country residence. The parallel did not go unnoticed by the two leaders. “For both of us cricket is not just a game but a passion — and also a great metaphor for our partnership,” Modi told reporters shortly after the deal was signed. “There may be a swing and a miss at times, but we always play with a straight bat. We are committed to building a high-scoring, solid partnership.” The ceremony marked the symbolic end to three years of sometimes fraught head-to-head negotiations between India and Britain’s trade teams. While far from what British negotiators envisaged when they began the talks, the U.K. has managed to chalk up a fair few wins, with some stand-out sectors emerging triumphant. Indian negotiators can also boast of a few victories. From Scotch whisky to business mobility, we’ve set out the biggest wins on either side in our FTA scoreboard. UK WINNERS Scotch whisky producers One of the biggest wins on the U.K. side is reduced tariffs for Scotch whisky. Under the FTA, Indian tariffs on the tipple will be slashed in half, from 150 percent to 75 percent, then dropped even further to 40 percent over the next decade.  India is the world’s biggest whisky market by volume and the tariff reduction has been described as a “game changer” by the industry. Announcing the deal, Starmer said it would give U.K. whisky producers “an advantage over international competitors in reaching the Indian market.” India is the world’s biggest whisky market by volume and the tariff reduction has been described as a “game changer” by the industry. | Neil Hall/EPA “The deal will support long term investment and jobs in our distilleries in Speyside and our bottling plant at Kilmalid and help deliver growth in both Scotland and India over the next decade,” said Jean-Etienne Gourgues, CEO at Chivas Brothers.  Automakers There’s also good news for British automakers — which have had quite a ride over the past few months thanks to U.S. President Donald Trump’s punitive tariff regime. Tariffs of up to 110 percent on British cars will drop to 10 percent after five or ten years depending on the type of car. As a result, the government expects exports of U.K. motor vehicles to increase by 310 percent — or £890 million — in the long run.  Mike Hawes, chief executive of the Society of Motor Manufacturers & Traders (SMMT), which represents the British automotive industry, said the deal represented a “significant achievement, partially liberalising the Indian automotive market for the first time.”   He called for rapid ratification of the deal and renewed efforts to agree “fair and workable solutions” on the administration of the tariff rate quotas. Lawyers Just days after the deal was first struck on May 6, India’s legal regulator approved new rules permitting foreign legal firms and lawyers to practise there on a reciprocal basis. It was seen by the sector as a key win coming in parallel with the deal.  The Bar Council of India first signaled the move in 2023, but received fierce opposition from domestic legal firms. “This is an important development for our two professions,” said Richard Atkinson, president of the U.K.’s Law Society at the time, although some strict conditions still apply.  Services firms  The deal’s financial services chapter is a first for India. New Delhi promises that Britain’s financial and business services firms can’t be treated differently to Indian companies. It guarantees India cannot impose limitations on investment or the number of British financial services firms that can operate in the country. India’s penchant for data localization — meaning services firms like banks and consultancies need to set up servers in India if they’re processing Indian nationals’ info — isn’t addressed in the deal since the country’s parliament is still working through new data privacy and security laws. Yet there are provisions to allow further negotiations with the U.K. if India moves to liberalize the flow of data in the future. INDIAN WINNERS Workers on secondment to the UK One of the most contentious areas of the trade deal — and most sought after on the Indian side — are new provisions on business mobility. The U.K. has promised that an existing visa route for some temporary workers that’s not currently available to India — and capped at 1,800 people — will now be open to Indian employees (although the cap won’t be lifted). Most controversially for some, the U.K. and India have separately agreed to negotiate a Double Contributions Convention, which means that neither Indian nor British workers will be required to pay national insurance contributions in both their home country and the one they are working in. Details of the agreement are still being ironed out but both sides have agreed to strike the deal in side letters. In promotional material published alongside the deal, the U.K. government insists the measures will have no impact on immigration. “All visa routes that have been locked in through the agreement are only available for temporary stays, and none of the routes provide a path to permanent settlement,” it notes. Farmers The U.K. has agreed to remove tariffs on imports of Indian food, with the exception of sugar, milled rice, pork, chicken and eggs, which will continue to be subject to the current duties in place. In its impact assessment, the government notes that food imports will still have to comply with U.K. food and animal welfare standards. The U.K. has agreed to remove tariffs on imports of Indian food, with the exception of sugar, milled rice, pork, chicken and eggs, which will continue to be subject to the current duties in place. | Farooq Khan/EPA Meanwhile, campaigners welcomed the absence of any intellectual property clause in the agreement that would have limited Indian farmers’ ability to save and exchange their seeds.  Patented, genetically modified seeds and restrictions on their use have been identified as a one of several factors contributing to the high level of farmer suicides in the country. “We hope that following this deal, the U.K. government will commit to safeguarding farmers’ rights in all future trade agreements, as farmer seed systems are vital for smallholder farmers in India and in many other countries across the world,” said Hannah Conway, trade and agriculture policy adviser at Transform Trade. Drugmakers Under the deal, Indian generic medicines and medical devices can be exported duty free to the U.K., in a move welcomed by the country’s officials. Last year the U.K. imported medicinal and pharmaceutical products worth around £667.4 million from India. “Given the U.K.’s shift away from reliance on Chinese imports post-Brexit and Covid-19, Indian manufacturers are poised to emerge as a favoured, cost-effective alternative, especially with zero-duty pricing for medical devices,” a commerce ministry official told the Indian news agency PTI. Meanwhile, India will also welcome the absence of any data exclusivity clauses related to pharmaceuticals in the deal’s intellectual property chapter, which could have posed a threat to the country’s generic drugs sector, the world’s largest by volume. Textiles manufacturers The trade deal removes tariffs on Indian textiles exported to the U.K., with imports expected to rise by around 85 percent to £2.9 billion, according to the government’s impact assessment. The U.K. imported Indian clothing worth £877.3 million last year. As a result, the government projects that the U.K. textiles, apparel and leather goods industry is expected to lose £114 million — the biggest projected decline of any industry. “This in turn is projected to lead to resources shifting away from adversely affected sectors to other sectors that exhibit a larger increase in exports,” it said.