In view of the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine and the massacres of Hamas in Israel, Defense Minister Boris Pistorius is also calling for a mental turning point. He wants to prepare the Germans for a new security policy role in an increasingly unstable world. Recently, he warned that the country must become "fit for war." This was by no means to everyone's liking in Germany, which was once peace-oriented. And it confronts the republic with very practical questions: How quickly can an apparatus be reformed that has to catch up for decades, not only in terms of armaments? What could a common European security policy look like – should the Germans, as Emmanuel Macron has long demanded, strive for more strategic autonomy and make themselves more independent of the US?
And what does the current debate on the budget mean for the minister's planned reforms – could they simply fail in the end due to a lack of resources? Pistorius will discuss these and other questions at the Foreign Policy Forum in Berlin with SPIEGEL editor Britta Sandberg today from 13:45 p.m. to 14:15 p.m. in a livestream. An interview in cooperation with the Körber Foundation.