As the Ukraine War rages, NATO nations are boosting their defense spending while integrating newcomers Finland and Sweden into their ranks. But Germany — with the largest economy and population of any European member — has failed to invest in its military, leaving any future fighting to others.

There were high hopes in February when Germany’s new prime minister, Olaf Scholz, responded to the Russian invasion by promising a $106 billion sondervermögen, special funding to build up the armed forces known as the Bundeswehr. He called this zeitenwende, a changing of the times.

“The words, however, haven’t been followed by action,” Foreign Policy wrote seven months later. “Since announcing revolutionary changes in German defense, Berlin has been dragging its feet nonstop.” The headline read, “It’s Time for Olaf Scholz to Walk His Talk,” but his nation has no taste for marching.

In September, Mr. Scholz again promised Bundeswehr leaders that help was on the way. “As the most populous nation with the greatest economic power and a country in the center of the continent,” he said, “our army must become the cornerstone of conventional defense in Europe, the best-equipped force.”

Again, there was applause but kein durchziehen: No follow through. “Germany will fail to meet a NATO guideline of spending 2% of GDP on its military next year and again from 2026 onwards,” Reuters reported on Sunday, “potentially angering Germany’s allies who have long complained the government in Berlin isn’t pulling its weight militarily.”

Despite what Americans may expect after generations of Hollywood films, Germany wouldn’t meet a Russian invasion with anything like the Prussian War machines of 1871, 1914, or 1939. Last Thursday, the Times of London ran a piece headlined, “Germany’s Armed Forces Have ‘Two Days’ of Ammunition,” 28 days short of the NATO minimum.

In the last century, America and her allies — for good reason — pounded the militarism out of Germany at great cost. They imposed the Treaty of Versailles after World War I, limiting Berlin’s armed forces, only to later regret enforcing its harsh terms and turn their attention to combatting the Great Depression.

This left the door open for Adolf Hitler to rearm for conquest. Following his defeat in World War II, Germany was humbled once more and split in two. After all that trauma, shame, and denazification, it’s understandable that Germans embrace pacifism.

However, they’re doing so while expecting others to sacrifice their lives in the event of a Russian attack on a NATO country. “We’re prepared to die, are you?” the Latvian defense minister, Artis Pabriks, asked his colleagues in October.

Speaking to the Germans, he said, “A lot will depend on the military power of your country — and I’m sorry, your military power is currently not there.” The Chief of the German Army, Lieutenant General Alfons Mais, agreed with that assessment on LinkedIn.

“We have all seen it coming but were not able to get through with our arguments to draw the consequences after the annexation of Crimea. This does not feel good. I’m fed up with it.” He added that “the army that I’m allowed to lead is more or less blank. The options we can offer policymakers to support the Alliance are extremely limited.”

As DW News reported last week, “Stories about tanks and helicopters that needed repairing, rifles that don’t shoot properly, and soldiers having to train in the cold without thermal underwear have filled the media for years.” It’s as if Germans are observing the Versailles treaty’s constraints while ignoring the one they signed committing to NATO’s common defense.

On the eve of Hitler’s defeat in 1945, the American Joint Chiefs of Staff issued Directive 1067 “defining immediate and long-range goals.” The “principal Allied objective” was preventing Germany “from ever again becoming a threat to the peace of the world.”

It’s a strange turn of history that Germany may again be that threat, not because they again have a powerful military bent on conquest, but because they have one so weak that they’ll be a liability in any future war — the largest European member of the NATO choosing to be its weakest link.