Four weeks after the surprising announcement by Chancellor Olaf Scholz that he would raise an additional 100 billion euros for equipment for the Bundeswehr, the debate about desirable procurements for air and missile defense has arrived.
Previously, new combat aircraft, more ammunition and armed drones were under discussion.
Johannes Leithauser
Political correspondent in Berlin.
Follow I follow
Christian Meier
Political correspondent for the Middle East and Northeast Africa.
Follow I follow
The most recent demands are that Germany should procure an Israeli anti-missile defense system in order to be protected against fire from Russian missiles which, according to Western knowledge, have been stationed in the Kaliningrad enclave for several years.
The SPD MP Andreas Schwarz told the newspaper "Bild am Sonntag" that Germany needed a "missile protection shield" quickly.
The Israeli system Arrow 3 is "a good solution".
The chairwoman of the defense committee, Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann (FDP), also stated that she wanted to find out more about the air defense systems there on a trip to Israel.
Permanent topic of air defense
The Bundeswehr's inadequate air defense capabilities have been an ongoing topic in the debate about properly equipping the German armed forces for many years.
The concerns apply to three different weapon classes and systems.
They range from light air defense, which can be used against drones or incoming aircraft, to medium, tactical air defense, which would be used against aircraft, cruise missiles and medium-range missiles, to strategic air defense, which is aimed at ballistic intercontinental nuclear missiles .
For light anti-aircraft defense, the Bundeswehr is still equipped with a few dozen Ozelot-type light tanks, which can fire Stinger-type anti-aircraft missiles with a range of up to six kilometers.
In medium missile defense, German capabilities rely entirely on the Patriot defense system, which has been considered in need of modernization for many years.
The Bundeswehr currently has around a dozen squadrons of these defensive missiles.
For more than a decade, the Bundeswehr has been considering the procurement of a new tactical defense system jointly developed by American, German and Italian companies to modernize its medium air defense.
It should have better detection capabilities and be better combinable with other individual elements, such as other defensive weapons.
However, the decision on quantities and procurement times was repeatedly delayed because the system cost billions.
In the third defense component, strategic air defence, the Bundeswehr does not have any capabilities of its own, but is marginally involved in NATO efforts to provide a strategic anti-missile shield, which in turn is largely based on American efforts.
Their original plans to set up a defense shield together with individual Eastern European countries were updated in 2009 under the then American President Barack Obama and converted into a joint NATO plan.
So far, however, the Americans have provided other key components of the system, such as radar systems in Romania, launch bases in Poland and the command center in Ramstein, Germany.
Other NATO countries are called upon to bring in their own contributions to this ballistic defense system.
What the "Iron Dome" can do
For the German procurement of air defense systems, an analysis of the type of threat would therefore first be necessary.
The Israeli Iron Dome system would only be useful if defense against short-range missiles and artillery shells were the focus of German considerations.
Developed by two Israeli defense contractors, the system entered service in Israel in March 2011.
A few weeks later, it intercepted rockets fired from the Gaza Strip for the first time.
Iron Dome uses radar to detect the launch of enemy missiles and calculates the course of the flight.
The mobile batteries can react to several attacks at the same time.
According to the Israeli army, the effectiveness of the "iron dome" in preventing rocket hits on populated areas has always been at least 90 percent;
the system thus protects better than other comparable defense systems.
In the most recent armed conflict between Israel and Hamas in May last year, however, several rockets hit cities such as Tel Aviv.
This showed Iron Dome's weak points: if too many missiles are fired at the same time, the system can be overloaded.
Another problem can be that there are simply not enough interceptor batteries available.
In his speech to members of the Knesset about a week ago, President Volodymyr Zelenskyj praised the missile defense system as "the best in the world". Tal Inbar from the American think tank Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance then told the Israeli newspaper Haaretz that the idea, Iron Dome would effectively protect Ukraine against Russian missile attacks, is "wishful thinking".
Unlike Israel, Ukraine has a large landmass and "the bigger a country, the more radar and intercept facilities you need."
In addition, the larger ballistic and hypersonic missiles in Russia's arsenal could not be destroyed by Iron Dome.
In Israel, the land-based and soon sea-based Iron Dome system is just one element of a multi-tiered missile defense system.
The "Arrow" system, which has been renewed several times, is intended to counteract (Iranian) strategic missile attacks.
In early February, Prime Minister Naftali Bennett announced that Israel would also put an innovative laser missile defense system into operation within a year.
One goal is cost reduction.
Shooting down a single, cheap Qassam missile from Gaza costs tens of thousands of dollars, Bennett said.