Bundeswehr Publishes First Military Strategy: "Responsibility for Europe" Sets 460,000-Personnel Target by 2035

The personnel architecture takes active strength from approximately 185,000 to 260,000 and reserve strength from approximately 60,000 to 200,000 — the largest sustained German force-structure expansion since reunification. Phase 1 runs to 2029 with the operational priority of maximising current combat capacity against the published 2029 Russian-assault horizon for the Baltic states; Phase 2 runs to 2035 with the priority of substantial capability increase; Phase 3 runs to 2039 with the priority of technological superiority. Russia is identified as the greatest and most immediate threat to Germany.

Six national capability goals frame the procurement architecture: deep precision strike, air and missile defence, information superiority, multi-domain networking, national command and cross-domain control, and Germany as operational base. The Strategy is the institutional translation of the Zeitenwende from spending envelope into requirements-defining instrument; the Plan for the Armed Forces (renamed Capability Profile) becomes the central procurement and force-structure document; the EMA26 debureaucratisation agenda (153 measures, 580 implementation steps) is the procedural enabler.

For Europe's defence-industrial base, the six capability goals define demand signals for the next thirteen years. Full equipment of all formations plus major equipment reserves signals production-volume commitments exceeding European industrial capacity sized since 1990. The Strategy converts the "Conversion Gap" — the institutional mechanism translating defence spending into capability — into a formal requirements instrument; whether the Bundeswehr's matrix-restructured BAAINBw can absorb the resulting throughput is the operational test that registers at Ankara. A trajectory first surfaced in Signal No. 44.