“This war has nothing to do with NATO. It’s not NATO’s war,” Stefan Kornelius, a spokesperson for German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, told reporters in Berlin on Monday. “NATO is a defensive alliance, an alliance for the defense of its territory,” he added.
While true, Germany also has quite strict rules on rating equipment to not be ready. A broken heating or turning indicator on an IFV means it counts as non operational.
For ships there’s a rule of thumb. One is operational and on a mission, one is being refueled and restocked, one is being refit, maintained, or upgraded. So you need three units to always have one available. Germany has six submarines, meaning two are always available for active operations.
For planes you have to do hours of maintenance for every minute in the air.
The Bundeswehr used to lack funds and personnel, now it lacks mostly qualified personnel.
The amount of funds was never the problem. The way it was spend is and was the main problem.