Part I / II
Abstract: Modern armed forces face a paradox: the longer peace endures, the less prepared they become for war. This essay develops the concept of military entropy to explain the institutional decay that afflicts militaries in times of prolonged and unchallenged stability. Using the German Bundeswehr as a contemporary case study and the Prussian defeat of 1806 as a historical parallel, it traces how bureaucratic rigidity, political complacency, and loss of “war habit” erode combat effectiveness despite ample resources. Drawing from military thinkers, organisational theory, and recent policy debates, the analysis warns that incremental reform may no longer suffice. Instead, it explores the radical alternative of building a parallel force, a lean, adaptive structure capable of eventually replacing the old one. The essay concludes that only a mindset of constructive pessimism, which anticipates failure before it occurs, can prevent future catastrophes and restore credible deterrence in democratic societies.
Problem statement: How can a democratic military address institutional inertia and rebuild effective warfighting ability before a crisis or defeat compels reform?
So what?: If the lessons Jena and Auerstedt taught the Prussians in the 19th century still apply, reform must precede disaster. Political leaders, defence planners, and military professionals should explore unconventional paths to renewal, including the deliberate creation of a lean, adaptive parallel force. This requires intellectual courage, honest self-assessment, and the moral clarity to prioritise effectiveness over tradition.
A Warfighting Capability
Germany currently finds itself in a dilemma that endangers its future sovereignty. Despite unprecedented financial commitments and a series of ambitious political pledges to restore full warfighting capability (Kriegstüchtigkeit), assume a leading role in European defence, and serve as a reliable ally while deterring adversaries, the Bundeswehr’s actual readiness remains insufficient to credibly defend the nation. Naturally, this assumption can be challenged and is only temporary, especially since access to official and unclassified information is diminishing as the Ministry of Defence is increasingly restrictive with its reports on readiness levels.[2] Serving as a baseline for this essay, however, a state of military inadequacy in terms of fighting power (Kampfkraft) relative to the scale of the challenge, as defined by Germany’s National Security Policy in 2023, must be assumed.[3]
This pessimistic assessment is substantiated by the ad hoc establishment of two special defence funds to ensure the strengthening of Germany’s armed forces in 2022 and 2025, formally acknowledging the magnitude of the problem at the constitutional level.[4] Under Germany’s own constitution (Article 87a of the Grundgesetz) and amid hybrid tensions with a resurgent Russia, the military is failing to meet its mandate.[5] This shortfall has been publicly acknowledged by Germany’s Minister of Defence, Boris Pistorius, who conceded in 2023 that Germany did “not have armed forces that are capable of defence—that is, capable of defending against an offensive, brutally waged war of aggression.”[6] He further warned that the country “must prepare for that [war of aggression directed against it] again, because this scenario is once more very real.”[7] His grim conclusion was seconded in 2024 by the Chief of Defence (Generalinspekteur), Carsten Breuer, who cautioned that Russia could be militarily ready to attack NATO “in five to eight years.”[8]
Germany did “not have armed forces that are capable of defence—that is, capable of defending against an offensive, brutally waged war of aggression.”
Yet, in the summer of 2025, over three years into the reconstitution process, the chairman of the German Armed Forces Association (Bundeswehrverband) and one of the country’s most outspoken experts on military affairs, André Wüstner, expressed grave doubts about Germany’s warfighting capability, stating: “We are still waiting for the plan that will make the Bundeswehr capable of defence by 2029 […].”[9]
“How Could It Have Come to This?“
A decline in combat effectiveness during peacetime is not unique to Germany’s armed forces. Beyond deliberate demilitarisation or demobilisation, an unintended erosion of capability, here called military entropy, describes the slow decay of cohesion, adaptability and purpose that afflicts large military institutions during extended phases of low stress.[10] The longer a force remains inactive, the greater the risk of losing the qualities that define it.
After summarising the status quo (potential) ante bellum in Part I, Part II asks a provocative question: given the existential nature of the matter, immense expectations but limited time and resources, might building a new force alongside an ageing one restore defence and deterrence faster than trying to reform the legacy force?
Using the Bundeswehr as a case study, the analysis examines this “parallel force build-up” scenario as a thought experiment, not a policy prescription. The objective is to consider, in an analytical and essayistic manner, whether a fresh start could outperform internal reform in the face of accelerating military requirements. In doing so, the discussion draws on historical precedents, from the Prussian Army’s collapse and reform after 1806 to the Reichswehr’s reforms of the 1920s, as well as insights from disruptive theory and forward-thinking scholars. The argument is not directed against political and military leadership. Still, it arises from concern that without unconventional thinking, soldiers might one day be sent into battle under an illusion of readiness that proves fatally false. As Gaspard and Smith made the case for “Dissenting War Studies” by pointing out the steady decline of modern military theory “from managerial dominance to intellectual erosion,” it is therefore with solid reasoning and good intent that the German military historian Sönke Neitzel, in a recent article, invoked the Prussian reformers when he demanded to risk “more Scharnhorst” (a Prussian military reformer) in adapting his nation’s military to future realities.[11]
More Scharnhorst…
Therefore, this essay will not catalogue failures or assign blame to gain attention, but acknowledge that leading politicians in Europe and Russia are preparing for possible war while questioning whether they are truly at peace with each other.[12] This author’s guiding principle throughout the paper remains the soldier’s oath of service “to bravely defend the rights and freedom of the German people,” if necessary, with his own life, as well as loyalty to the Federal Republic of Germany and its armed forces, regardless of their manifestation.[13] Above all, it is written with the utmost respect for the soldiers currently serving under these challenging conditions.
Describing Military Entropy
Analysts of large organisations have long observed that the longer a phase of inaction lasts, the steeper the eventual relearning curve becomes once real demands return. A fire brigade cannot maintain full adaptability to its mission if no fires ever break out, just as a surgeon cannot rely solely on past textbooks to save lives. Modern organisational theory reinforces this observation: large bureaucratic systems inevitably become more rigid, procedural, and top-heavy over time, trading adaptability, essence, and, in a figurative sense, their soul, for administrative routine and institutional growth.[14] As Max Weber warned, the very advantages of bureaucratic order can harden into an “iron cage” of rigid routines and soulless technocracy.[15] In retrospect, this dynamic found a nightmarish expression in the industrialised slaughter of the First World War, where hierarchical systems proved capable of sustaining mass violence but incapable of strategic adaptation.
Yet even if the effects of entropy can be mitigated, successful adaptation to one environment may simultaneously induce underperformance in others. The dichotomy between specialisation and generalisation extends fully into the military realm, where revolutions in warfare rarely endure and evolutions may mutate uncontrollably. Adding empirical weight, military medical professionals have described the sharp rise in fatalities at the beginning of every conflict as the “Walker Dip,” the period during which medical personnel must relearn and readapt before they can reduce losses and restore efficiency.[16] In this regard, Carl von Clausewitz’s famous metaphor of war as a “chameleon” remains strikingly apt: an organism that must constantly change its colour to survive, yet risks losing its essence in the process.[17] As can be witnessed on the battlefields of Ukraine, the rapid evolution of small drone warfare has created conditions of medical emergency that contradict the Western orthodoxy of tactical combat casualty care that resulted from the Global Wars on Terror. Since the omnipresence of drones severely mitigates the critical element of casualty evacuation, cases have been reported of Ukrainian soldiers dying not from their wounds, but from maladapted treatment routines.[18]
Clausewitz also warned of the loss of “Kriegsgewohnheit,” the habitual experience of war, cautioning that as this familiarity fades, so too does a force’s ability to prevail in battle.[19] Even with abundant resources, militaries struggle to preserve the hard-won competencies that adaptation to combat forges. The Prussian theorist introduced the concept of “friction” to describe the countless uncertainties, errors, and obstacles that plague real warfare, those unpredictable elements that, as he wrote, no one can imagine who “has never personally experienced war.”[20] In peacetime, armies will lose the hard edge that continuous exposure to such friction provides.
Even with abundant resources, militaries struggle to preserve the hard-won competencies that adaptation to combat forges.
Though famously siding with the analytical view of conflict as the “continuation of policy by other means,” Clausewitz also insisted that war was far more than a rational instrument of statecraft. It was, as he wrote, “a pulsation of [organised] violence,” creating a realm where true understanding can only be gained through experience, at the cost of unleashing “primordial” hatred and causing limitless suffering.[21]
No amount of training, funding, or planning can fully offset the friction, complacency, and skill erosion that prolonged inaction within closed systems brings. Armed forces may appear structurally intact yet internally hollowed out, losing agility, initiative, and cohesion, a condition recognised by theorists from Clausewitz to more modern practitioners such as Aleksandr Svechin, Colin Powell, and Valerii Zaluzhnyi.[22] Outwardly, a military may seem disciplined and well-structured, but inwardly it decays, like a sword rusting within its sheath. Without a forge and hammer, metaphors for external energy, it becomes brittle and destined to shatter when struck hard enough.
Beyond friction and maladaptation, Clausewitz’s insights into uncertainty remain relevant even in the age of Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (C4ISR). Modern technologies have not dispelled the fog of war, calculated every variable, or removed the element of chance.[23] Nor have doctrine or artificial intelligence replicated what Clausewitz called military genius, the commander’s creative judgment that reconciles uncertainty and chaos, a theme echoed in modern Western doctrine emphasising self-reliant mission command, as Amos C. Fox explains.[24]
Understanding the Concept of Military Entropy
Contemporary theory on doctrine and innovation helps explain how entropy takes root. Barry Posen argues that doctrine itself functions as an institutional tool for managing uncertainty: it codifies preferred ways of fighting and offers predictability to political leaders. Yet this very predictability breeds a false and “fictive certainty,” as Posen called it.[25] Many decision makers have tried to economically calculate ends and means to apply just enough force to get the job done. Most of them failed in the process, as Robert McNamara found out after the American operations in Vietnam had ended.[26] In peacetime, doctrine ossifies into a rigid script detached from reality; in wartime, it risks proving dangerously maladapted. Symptoms of entropy in Posen’s framework include proliferating regulations, hierarchical rigidity, and the comfort of continuity that conceals growing divergence between doctrine and the actual demands of combat.[27]
Contemporary theory on doctrine and innovation helps explain how entropy takes root.
Stephen Rosen offers a counterpoint. For him, peacetime need not mean decay; it can, under the right conditions, become the most fertile period for innovation. True change, however, depends on elites consciously reforming institutions and promoting long-term pathways to reward those who embody new “theories of victory.”[28] In contrast, wartime often fosters tactical improvisation rather than strategic renewal: militaries adapt continuously but in fragmented, hectic and short-sighted ways. The result is brilliance without coherence, improvisation without integration, and the entrenchment of temporary fixes as brittle long-term practices, resulting in entropy of a different kind.[29]
Synthesising these perspectives, Emilie Berthelsen situates military change within what she calls “hybrid times,” where the old binaries of war and peace no longer apply.[30] She argues that innovation unfolds within a continuous spectrum of competition. Entropy accumulates in multiple forms, through institutional stasis in peacetime (Posen), through reactive short-termism in wartime (Rosen), and through conceptual drift and strategic disorientation in the blurred spaces in between. The results are incoherent doctrines, “halfway revolutions” in military affairs, and mismatches between technology, organisation, and strategy.[31]
Entropy accumulates in multiple forms, through institutional stasis in peacetime (Posen), through reactive short-termism in wartime (Rosen), and through conceptual drift and strategic disorientation in the blurred spaces in between.
This author adds the factor of timing military adaptation to military need as a particularly vicious multiplier of friction. A force that misses the window to enter the development and procurement cycle risks fielding capabilities precisely when they are already outdated, or after their decisive moment has passed. In 2025, the hectic and uncoordinated Western reactions to Drone sightings throughout Europe prove Berthelsen’s point, as aerial defence systems that were not developed in full anticipation of this specific type of threat are now rushed into uncoordinated service.[32] As one German general noted, a massive investment in a single weapon system might further strain an already overburdened and understaffed joint force at other weak points.[33] Lopsided adaptation, driven by urgency rather than integration, does not restore combat power. In extreme cases, such unconsolidated force design can invert intended effects, reducing overall fighting power while creating a new capability-vulnerabilities paradox.
Readiness and Complacency
Substantiating the theory laid out above, military history shows that military effectiveness often fluctuates in waves, leading to increased probabilities of victory and defeat, rather than following a straight-line progression. Periods of dominance and confidence can be followed by stunning setbacks, which in turn spur reform and renewal. This can, in the context of this paper, also be interpreted as the continuous struggle with military entropy. As recent research on historical war cycles in the context of the Ukraine conflict has argued, such oscillations are not random but reflect recurring systemic patterns in which overconfidence and institutional inertia precede disruptive shocks that force adaptation and regeneration.[34] The key issue, therefore, is the permanent struggle for adapting to the “unforeseen conditions and contexts of the future,” quoting Williamson Murray.[35]
The Western experience after 1945 is illustrative. According to Murray, the United States emerged from the Second World War as an apparently unbeatable military power, yet within five years, that notion was shattered on the battlefields of Korea.[36] An American Army bloated by victory and occupation duties struggled against a far less advanced opponent in 1950, revealing that doctrine and readiness had not kept pace with future wartime requirements.[37] A similar pattern unfolded in Vietnam, where America’s inability to adapt to a protracted insurgency and unclear strategic aims led to a traumatic strategic defeat in 1975.[38] Exploring these examples further, Frank Hoffmann creates a model on how and when military institutions learn and adapt under stress, applying organisational learning theory, derived from social sciences, to armies adapting to military challenges.[39]
These findings also translate to non-Western military structures. The mighty military of the USSR, despite receiving near-unlimited attention as a major tool of Soviet power, struggled, too, to maintain agility and military effectiveness when seriously challenged, as seen in the futile campaign in Afghanistan. How far this degradation of keystone capability and adaptive capacity had progressed by the end of the Cold War became uncomfortably evident in 1987, when a young German civilian piloted a small monoplane through one of the world’s most heavily defended airspaces and landed unharmed close to Moscow’s Red Square. The incident symbolised not merely a failure of Soviet air defence, but a deeper institutional paralysis: A system that had become so consumed by its own procedures and bureaucracy that it could no longer react in real time.[40]
In the case of the U.S., however, bitter military experiences loosened the institutional straitjacket enough to allow for actual reforms. The key to unlocking successful adaptation was pragmatically admitting and accepting failure instead of institutional denial and strategic hindsight.[41] New doctrines (i.e., AirLand Battle), strategic modernisation of technology, and a recalibration of long-term adaptations proved to be well-timed for when political need again called for military intervention. Stephen Hughes assessed the American campaign to liberate Kuwait and annihilate the mass of the Iraqi ground forces as a combination of well-executed manoeuvre doctrine and brute-force annihilation. Referring to Schlieffen and Moltke, he concluded that Operation Desert Storm was “a plan that conformed to the nature of the war rather than attempt to conform the war to a specific model or style of warfare,“ thus encapsulating the essence of adaptability versus entropy in military affairs.[42]
The key to unlocking successful adaptation was pragmatically admitting and accepting failure instead of institutional denial and strategic hindsight.
From deterring and eventually degrading the Soviet Union during the Cold War to operational victories in the 1991 Gulf War and the Balkans in the late 1990s, this paper interprets U.S. America’s military might during the unipolar moment as more successfully counteracting military entropy through acknowledging past strategic defeats instead of choosing the safer but steady demise, an institutionalised state of cognitive dissonance might offer.[43]
However, the relative peace of the unipolar moment instilled new risks of military decline into the armed forces and conservatives. As stated by Stephen Metz in the 2000s, and elaborately lamented about in 1997 by the “Project for the New American Century (PNAC)” in their strategic paper “Rebuilding America’s Defences,” relative peace under a “full-spectrum dominance” can undermine deterrence if political complacency and strategic disorientation set in.[44] The authors of the PNAC concluded that while “America can afford to relax and live the good life” like “a boxer between championship bouts,” it would inevitably be challenged by emerging powers in the future.[45]
In accordance, Colin Powell warned in the late 1990s against a military growing too comfortable, damning the saying: “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” the core issue. For Powell, this attitude was the epitome of dangerous self-satisfaction and a refusal to stay sharp and ready.[46] Indeed, in the 2000s, the U.S. and its NATO allies engaged in counterterrorism and counterinsurgency campaigns (Afghanistan, Iraq, etc.) with mixed operational results, just as Metz outlined long before 9/11.[47] These expeditionary wars achieved few strategic gains, and nation-building largely failed. Former NATO Secretary General Stoltenberg called the Afghanistan withdrawal “NATO’s biggest defeat.”[48]
If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!
However, the forever wars did keep parts of Western militaries combat-seasoned at the tactical and operational level, just as the PNAC had demanded in 1997.[49] Certain units rotated regularly through combat, special forces honed their skills, and a generation of leaders gained experience in asymmetrical conflict, pushing back the spiderwebs of entropy for a while. Yet this came at a cost: other segments of the force were neglected and, in some cases, even before 2001, effectively “cannibalised” to sustain expeditionary deployments, stripped of personnel, materiel, and resources to maintain a continuous presence.[50] The strategic hyper-focus on expeditionary warfare also led to an extreme form of adaptation within Western armed forces, essentially allowing the asymmetrical exception of counterinsurgency warfare in hot climate zones to shape the perception of warfighting in the 21st century. A maladjustment that became painfully clear when Russia reintroduced the realities of Large-Scale Combat Operations (LSCO) on the battlefields of Ukraine.
The German Armed Forces as an Example of Military Entropy
In step with the broader trajectory of Western militaries, Germany’s Bundeswehr stands as a striking example of how a force can lose its founding purpose during prolonged peace at its borders. After the Cold War, Germany followed the Western trend of force reduction and transformation, drastically shrinking its armed forces and shifting almost entirely toward small out-of-area missions.[51] The White Papers on German Security Policy (2006–2016) chronicle the Bundeswehr’s repeated, yet largely unsuccessful, attempts to balance these expeditionary roles with the constitutional mandate and the soldier’s oath to defend the homeland.[52]
Rather than maintaining the basic requirements of national defence, however improbable their employment seemed, Germany consumed the so-called peace dividend of the 1990s and 2000s. Cutting budgets and capabilities under the assumption that economic interdependence and international law under American hegemony had relegated LSCO to the past. As long as that vision held any promise, other sectors of the national budget flourished while the armed forces quietly faded into international mediocrity in terms of size and readiness.[53]
In response, generations of soldiers were trained primarily for stabilisation missions abroad, developing skill sets ill-suited for LSCO in Europe.[54] Years of deployments in Afghanistan, Mali, and elsewhere, combined with chronic underinvestment in traditional combat capabilities, hollowed out core competencies.[55] Procurement slowed under layers of bureaucratic oversight, and in the absence of external necessity, administrative processes multiplied. Today, over 20 per cent of all soldiers are officers, while the pool of enlisted personnel that could be mobilised in wartime has been steadily ageing since conscription was suspended in 2011.[56]
Generations of soldiers were trained primarily for stabilisation missions abroad, developing skill sets ill-suited for LSCO in Europe.
Simultaneously, vital capabilities such as air defence, armoured warfare, artillery, and large-scale logistics atrophied or were simply disbanded without replacement.[57] With fewer and fewer soldiers to manage, Germany dismantled or sold off much of its territorial defence infrastructure in favour of a leaner volunteer force tailored to “international conflict management.”[58] The concept of an Einsatzarmee (expeditionary force) became a convenient political rationale to avoid reinvesting in national defence and subjecting its ageing populace to the military demands of, for instance, preparedness for wartime mobilisation.[59]
To many, this was, in hindsight, wishful thinking. Some leaders sensed the danger long before Russia’s annexation of Crimea made it undeniable. In 2008, Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier warned that “the old maps and reference points are no longer valid or don’t mean much anymore, while the new ones are still much too imprecise. Many concepts which emerged in the nineties were rash or even wrong: the prophecy of the end of history or the idea of the irrefutable unipolar moment.”[60] Yet at the time, Germany’s political and military focus remained consumed by the war in Afghanistan and the global financial crisis.
Today, the cumulative result of these trajectories and policy choices is a political and military bureaucracy struggling to redefine an authentic warfighting culture.[61] It is simultaneously abstaining from its brutal military past in Eastern Europe before 1945 and embracing the brutal military realities in Eastern Europe eighty years later. This challenge is not merely administrative or political but deeply rooted in Germany’s complex relationship between its armed forces and society, shaped by decades of political caution and historical constraint.[62] It is also influenced by the broader Western Zeitgeist and its contemporary dilemmas, ranging from societal neglect to competing fiscal priorities.[63]
The cumulative result of these trajectories and policy choices is a political and military bureaucracy struggling to redefine an authentic warfighting culture.
However, in response to Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine, Berlin authorised unprecedented defence expenditures, and Chancellor Olaf Scholz in 2022 pledged to convert the Bundeswehr into the “largest” conventional force in Europe.[64] Unfortunately, the underlying Zeitenwende (“turning point in history”), broadly applauded by almost all lawmakers in early 2022, did not deliver the anticipated rapid transformation from expeditionary to territorial forces.[65] The government’s decision to retain the widely criticised Christine Lambrecht as Minister of Defence for another year before accepting her eventual resignation in early 2023 signalled loudly the realities of both military and political inertia in times of crisis.[66]
Further, Berlin gradually committed itself to a sprawling and institutionalised system of transferring cornerstones of military capability, such as its most sophisticated air-defence and artillery systems, to the battlefields of Ukraine.[68] Informed observers soon cautioned that the window for meaningful reform was narrow and closing fast, especially given NATO’s 2023 assessment that Russia’s accelerated military reconstitution could enable it to strike the Alliance as early as 2028, a timeline the German government later translated to 2029.[69] General Carsten Breuer, Germany’s highest-ranking military officer, warned in early 2024 that “Russia could be ready militarily to attack NATO countries in five to eight years’ time if it chose to do so.”[70]
In 2025, the freshly elected Chancellor Friedrich Merz followed up on the unfulfilled promises of his predecessor, this time announcing the Bundeswehr to become Europe’s “strongest” fighting force while simultaneously continuing to redirect substantial amounts of military and financial support to Ukraine.[71] Initially, political and military leaders projected confidence, emphasising reorganisation, recruitment, and the long-awaited awakening of the “sleeping giant.”[72] However, many experts were openly warning against mistaking rhetoric for capability, as ordering systems to be built was not the same as purchasing them. International analysts spoke of a German “Potemkin,” reverting to the old pattern of privileging the signalling of readiness over the actual development of credibly deterrent combat power.[73] Among the most outspoken critics was Sönke Neitzel, who warned in 2024 that German soldiers in a Ukraine-style conflict would be able only “to prove that they know how to die with dignity.”[74] Lacking drones, air defence, and modern equipment, he argued, they would have “no means to prevail on a twenty-first-century battlefield.”[75]
At the 2025 NATO Summit in The Hague, Germany announced its intention to allocate up to five per cent of its annual GDP to defence and critical infrastructure by 2035 to meet future NATO requirements.[76] However, allies and adversaries alike would still recall how Berlin, among others, consistently underperformed on its previous two-per-cent commitment between 2014 and 2022, causing U.S. President Obama to introduce the phrase of the “free-riding” Europeans in 2016.[77] Berlin’s ambitious pledges had to therefore be understood not only as an attempt at credible rearmament but as an effort to restore the eroded confidence of its allies while betting on the deterrent effects toward its rivals.
At the 2025 NATO Summit in The Hague, Germany announced its intention to allocate up to five per cent of its annual GDP to defence and critical infrastructure by 2035 to meet future NATO requirements.
In terms of personnel, Germany in 2025 promised to contribute several additional brigades to NATO’s future force model, expanding its active-duty personnel from roughly 182,000 to an estimated 260,000.[78] However, soon after, the former Chief of the Army (Inspekteur) Alfons Mais claimed that an additional 100,000 soldiers would be required by the land forces alone to meet NATO readiness goals by 2035, more than six years after the Alliance’s projected flashpoint for potential Russian aggression.[79] He has since been relieved of his command, senior experts hinting at him being “fired” for being too outspoken and “blunt” in criticising political decision-makers.[80]
Compared to surging Russian defence production, a 2024 report by the Kiel Institute for the World Economy found that, rather than a renaissance in German military affairs, efforts at revitalisation encountered systemic friction, particularly in procurement, budgeting, and political coordination, leaving the overall pace of rearmament far below strategic requirements.[81] Continuing an old German tradition of criticising the Bundeswehr for its many shortcomings, journalist Chris Becker quipped that Germany’s flagship naval expansion for NATO defence in the Baltics had produced not warships but “the return of the apocalyptic horsemen of the German military: absurd bureaucratism, amorphous strategy, constituency-driven politics, and chronically empty coffers.”[82] Again, Sönke Neitzel, this time in tandem with the Bundestag’s armed forces commissioner, warned: “If our armed forces are not transformed from a mere administrative agency into a warfighting army, the worst could happen in an emergency [meaning war].”[83]
However, the underlying issues and visible manifestations of what is here subsumed under the term military entropy suggest that the efforts of reforming the Bundeswehr may have already reached a point of no return within the available timeframe. Broadly speaking, this assessment appears to be shared and, at times, even candidly articulated by senior political and military leaders themselves. External analysts such as Severin Pleyer have underscored this negative climax, as manifested within the ongoing debate over the reintroduction of some form of meaningful military conscription to address persistent personnel shortages in both active-duty and, more importantly, reserve forces.[84] He shared deep scepticism amongst other like-minded political and military officials regarding the practical feasibility of reinstating conscription, reflecting the entrenched nature of the problem.[85]
External analysts such as Severin Pleyer have underscored this negative climax, as manifested within the ongoing debate over the reintroduction of some form of meaningful military conscription to address persistent personnel shortages in both active-duty and, more importantly, reserve forces.
This gravity was echoed by Minister of Defence Boris Pistorius himself, who publicly conceded in 2024 that, in the “event of a defence emergency […] we would not even be able to mobilise within the next three years because we would not know whom to conscript,” adding that this constituted “an untenable situation.”[86] An army that cannot mobilise for war effectively not only fails its purpose, it invites the consequences of that failure.
Prussia 1806: From Ruin to Renaissance
History offers a powerful case study in military entropy and rebirth: Prussia’s catastrophic defeat in 1806. The Prussian Army, once forged into Europe’s finest under Frederick the Great, had enjoyed decades of prestige and relative peace by the early nineteenth century. Yet that same peace bred stagnation and complacency. As Ethan Soefje has shown, reform-minded officers such as Gerhard von Scharnhorst, Heinrich Dietrich von Bülow, and Leopold von Boyen recognised that the French Revolution had fundamentally transformed warfare through mass conscription, flexible formations, and operational mobility.[87] However, their warnings failed to gain decisive traction at court. On the contrary, conservative elites in Prussia, intoxicated by memories of Frederician victories, viewed such calls for change as unnecessary or even subversive.[88]
By the time Napoleon’s revitalised armies—organised into combined-arms divisions and led by meritocratic officers—marched across Central Europe, Prussia’s forces remained organizationally rigid and intellectually stagnant. Its military elite had debated light infantry tactics, divisional organisation, and staff reform, yet implementation was hesitant and incomplete.[89] The officer corps’ upper ranks were dominated by tradition-bound aristocrats fearful of losing influence. Education and merit promotion gave way to birthrights and titles. Key reforms, such as the general staff and divisional system, were introduced too late to make a difference.[90] In essence, the Prussian Army’s partial modernisation created a paradoxical condition of open-eyed entropy: a force fully aware of its obsolescence but institutionally unable to regenerate itself—a case of historically bad timing with Napoleon already on the march.
The reckoning came at Jena and Auerstedt in October 1806, when Napoleon’s forces annihilated the Prussian field army in a single campaign.[91] Unprepared for the speed, autonomy, and mass of the French corps system, the Prussian army disintegrated within hours. Carl von Clausewitz, who experienced the defeat firsthand and became a prisoner of the French, later diagnosed in On War the deeper systemic rot: an army resting on the laurels of past glory, unable to keep pace with the transformation of warfare around it. Studying the campaigns leading up to 1806, Clausewitz observed that every nation develops an individual “style” of warfare, shaped by its military culture and the personality of its commanders.[92] This style, in turn, exerts decisive influence on how war is conducted and how opponents must adapt to prevail. In modern terms, Peter Drucker’s dictum that “culture eats strategy for breakfast” would concur, while this paper’s thesis of military entropy helps explain the sudden Prussian collapse.[93]
The reckoning came at Jena and Auerstedt in October 1806, when Napoleon’s forces annihilated the Prussian field army in a single campaign.
It was precisely Prussia’s failure to anticipate the subtle changes in the French style of warfare that accelerated its downfall, making it a victim of its own closed system of methods: military entropy at its purest. Clausewitz’s outrage cuts through the restrained prose of the nineteenth century. Ruthlessly reviewing the fatal defeat at Jena and Auerstedt, he wrote: “When in 1806 the Prussian generals, [..], plunged into the open jaws of disaster by using Frederick the Great’s oblique order of battle, it was not just a case of a style that had outlived its usefulness but the most extreme poverty of the imagination to which routine has ever led.”[94] He continued, stating that the “result was that the Prussian army under Hohenlohe was ruined more completely than any army has ever been ruined on the battlefield.”[95]
He condemned the “spiritless routine” (Methodismus) that had overtaken Prussian military art, a process-obsessed approach valuing drill and regulation over creative, politically informed strategy.[96] In Clausewitz’s analysis, Prussia’s leadership had become so self-satisfied and entrenched in outdated methods that it marched the army straight into ruin. It had not only failed its people, but it had lost its very cause in the process.
The shock of 1806 created the conditions for radical reform. In Prussia’s case, the existential threat posed first by Napoleon and later by Russian dominance forced the state to confront reality, though even then, many nobles and generals initially resisted change. A substantial portion of the old elite sought to cling to their sinecures and outdated codes of honour.[98] Murray wrote that “adaptation at the strategic and political levels, however, took nearly twenty years, as well as innumerable humiliations and military defeats at the hands of the armies of the French Revolution and Napoleon, before the opponents of France finally altered their systems to handle the political and social dictates of a life-and-death struggle.”[99]
As Napoleon’s domination persisted and Prussia’s survival hung in the balance, reformers finally found their moment. A cohort of visionary officers—led by Gerhard von Scharnhorst and including August von Gneisenau, Hermann von Boyen, and Clausewitz himself—set out to rebuild the Prussian military from the ground up. These men were not only seasoned by war but had also internalised its lessons. In their reforms, nothing was sacred. They abolished aristocratic privilege within the officer corps, opened advancement to talent, and introduced universal conscription to harness the nation’s full manpower. They established a permanent General Staff to professionalise planning and revolutionised education, training, and leadership by elevating merit and modern tactics over blind obedience to tradition. In sum, they transformed the defeated Prussian army into a citizen-based, meritocratic force inspired by patriotism and led with professionalism.[100]
As Napoleon’s domination persisted and Prussia’s survival hung in the balance, reformers finally found their moment.
These reforms, born from defeat, eventually paid off. Within less than a decade, Prussia’s reborn army played a decisive role in the Wars of Liberation (1813–1815) that brought down Napoleon. The transformation was captured in Gneisenau’s enduring dictum: “Strategy is the doctrine of using time and space. We may regain lost territory, but lost time – never.”[101] This sense of urgency and intelligent use of resources became the new Prussian ethos.
Prussia’s dramatic recovery from the entropy of 1806 demonstrates that an external shock—however catastrophic—can serve as a catalyst for renewal, provided a nation is willing to confront its failures and embrace painful reform. Yet waiting for collapse before change becomes unavoidable is a terrible price to pay. At Jena and Auerstedt alone, the Prussian army suffered over thirty thousand casualties, including thousands taken prisoner.[102]
Anticipating Defeat to Spur Change
The Prussian experience underscores a timeless lesson: awareness of decay is not enough to prevent it. Institutional inertia resists transformation until disaster forces change. Organisational inertia tends to resist transformation until failure renders resistance untenable, a pattern that recurs across military history. As Bill Murray has noted in his discussion of overlooked military visionaries, figures ranging from Billy Mitchell to Basil Liddell Hart were often so far ahead of their time that the institutions they served not only rejected their reasoning but actively resisted it, frequently at the cost of their careers.[103] The dilemma persists between preserving established forms or embracing disruption when anticipating future warfare, and between specialisation and generalisation when adapting to its demands.
To avert fatal maladaptation and to improve the odds of military success, this analysis argues for a mindset of constructive pessimism, a sober military realism in place of the self-sedating comfort of unfounded optimism. The worst-case scenario should be assumed to create the best-case reality. Instead of presuming that a peacetime force will perform well in war, one must assume the opposite. By intellectually anticipating defeat and confronting uncomfortable truths, decision-makers can mobilise the necessary will and sense of urgency before the crisis arrives.
To avert fatal maladaptation and to improve the odds of military success, this analysis argues for a mindset of constructive pessimism, a sober military realism in place of the self-sedating comfort of unfounded optimism.
In this sense, the first part of this paper lays the analytical foundation for the second, which constitutes a thought experiment inspired by Immanuel Kant’s maxim “sapere aude!” (“dare to know”).[104] It envisions that a future LSCO has already been lost and seeks to extract its lessons in advance, creating a pre-mortem analysis.[105] The goal is to capture the urgency and clarity that usually emerge only after a disaster, to harness them beforehand, thereby increasing the chances of success and preserving countless lives in the process.
The leading question of Part II of this two-part essay, therefore, must be: “How did we fail?”
[1] ChatGPT (OpenAI). “A Depiction of Military Entropy.” AI-generated image created September 7, 2025, in dialogue with Alexander Schäbler.
[2] German Bundestag, Parliamentary Research Service. Brief Information WD 2-3000-047/19: Classification of Reports on the Operational Readiness of the Bundeswehr. Berlin: German Bundestag, April 2, 2019. https://www.bundestag.de/resource/blob/645880/WD-2-047-19-pdf.pdf.
[3] German Federal Government. National Security Strategy of the Federal Republic of Germany. Berlin: German Federal Government, 2023. https://www.nationalesicherheitsstrategie.de/.
[4] Federal Ministry of Finance. “Financing Package: Chapter 2a – Special Fund.” Monthly Report, April 2025. Berlin: Federal Ministry of Finance, 2025. https://www.bundesfinanzministerium.de/Monatsberichte/Ausgabe/2025/04/Kapitel/kapitel-2a-finanzierungspaket.html.
[5] Federal Ministry of Justice (Germany). Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany (official English translation). Berlin: Federal Ministry of Justice, last amended 2023. https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/englisch_gg/englisch_gg.html.
[6] “Pistorius: Bundeswehr Is Not Capable of National Defense.” German Armed Forces Association (Deutscher BundeswehrVerband), January 30, 2023. https://www.dbwv.de/aktuelle-themen/blickpunkt/beitrag/pistorius-bundeswehr-ist-nicht-verteidigungsfaehig.
[7] Ibid.
[8] Reuters. “Russia May Be Ready to Attack NATO in 5–8 Years, German Official Says.” Reuters, April 18, 2024. https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russia-may-be-ready-attack-nato-5-8-years-german-official-says-2024-04-18/.
[9] André Wüstner, interview with BR24, July 5, 2025. https://www.br.de/nachrichten/bayern/wuestner-erhoeht-druck-auf-pistorius-warten-auf-einen-plan,Us9wyi4.
[10] “Entropy.” Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entropy.
[11] Jules J. S. Gaspard and M. L. R. Smith. “Strategy and the Last Manager: The Case for Dissenting War Studies.” Military Strategy Magazine 10, no. 3 (Fall 2025): 12–22. https://doi.org/10.64148/msm.v10i3.2; Söhnke Neitzel. “Bundeswehr entfesseln – Zeit für eine radikale Reform.” Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, September 29, 2025. https://www.faz.net/aktuell/politik/inland/bundeswehr-entfesseln-zeit-fuer-eine-radikale-reform-accg-110707547.html.
[12] German Bundestag. Germany Not at War, but Also Not at Peace. Berlin: German Bundestag, October 2025. https://www.bundestag.de/dokumente/textarchiv/2025/kw42-pa-pkgr-1102394; Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. “Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s Interview with Kommersant, Moscow, October 15, 2025.” October 15, 2025. https://www.mid.ru/en/foreign_policy/news/2053699/.
[13] Federal Ministry of Justice (Germany). Soldiers Act (Soldatengesetz), §§7, 9 (“Duties of the Soldier”), last amended 2023. https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/sg/__9.html.
[14] Herbert A. Simon. Administrative Behavior: A Study of Decision-Making Processes in Administrative Organizations. 4th ed. New York: Free Press, 1997 [1947]; Michael T. Hannan and John Freeman. “Structural Inertia and Organizational Change.” American Sociological Review 49, no. 2 (1984): 149–64. https://doi.org/10.2307/2095567; Paul M. Hirsch and Daniel R. Levin. “Inertia in Routines: A Hidden Source of Organizational Variation.” Research in the Sociology of Organizations 44 (2015): 135–57. https://doi.org/10.1108/S0733-558X20150000044008.
[15] Daniel Brühlmeier. “The ‘Iron Cage’: Two Observations on Max Weber’s Famous Metaphor.” Berliner Journal für Soziologie 34 (2024): 129–44. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11609-024-00518-3.
[16] A. J. Walker. “The ‘Walker Dip.’” Journal of the Royal Naval Medical Service 104 (2018): 173–76. https://doi.org/10.1136/jrnms-104-173.
[17] Carl von Clausewitz. On War. Translated by Michael Howard and Peter Paret. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1976. Book I, chaps. 1–3, p. 89.
[18] Maeve Cullinan. “‘Cult’ of Tourniquets Causing Thousands of Unnecessary Amputations and Deaths in Ukraine, Say Surgeons.” The Telegraph, August 4, 2025. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/terror-and-security/cult-of-tourniquets-causing-unnecessary-amputations-deaths/.
[19] Carl von Clausewitz. On War [Vom Kriege]. Edited by Werner Hahlweg. PDF ed. Clausewitz-Gesellschaft. pp. 47–48. https://clausewitz-gesellschaft.de/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/VomKriege-a4.pdf.
[20] Clausewitz, On War, Howard and Paret translation, Book I, chap. 7, p. 119.
[21] Ibid., Book I, chaps. 1–3, pp. 87–89, 101, 108.
[22] Oren Harari. Quotations from Chairman Powell: A Leadership Primer. Online reproduction at https://govleaders.org/powell.php; Aleksandr Andreevich Svechin. Strategy. Translated and edited by Kent D. Lee. Minneapolis, MN: East View Press, 1992; Valerii Zaluzhnyi. Modern Positional Warfare and How to Win in It. Full version. AthenaLab, November 2023. https://athenalab.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/ZALUZHNYI_FULL_VERSION-2.pdf.
[23] Alexander Schäbler. “1 + 1 ≠ 2: Digital Friction, Uncertainty, and the Limits of Technological Determinism.” The Defence Horizon Journal (blog), May 22, 2025. https://tdhj.org/blog/post/digital-friction-technology-determinism/.
[24] Amos C. Fox. The Principles for the Future of Warfare & Stand-Off Warfare. Arlington, VA: Association of the United States Army, 2024. https://www.ausa.org/sites/default/files/publications/LPE-24-4-The-Principles-for-the-Future-of-Warfare-and-Stand-Off-Warfare.pdf.
[25] Barry R. Posen. “Foreword: Military Doctrine and the Management of Uncertainty.” Journal of Strategic Studies 39, no. 2 (2016): 160. https://doi.org/10.1080/01402390.2015.1115042.
[26] Robert S. McNamara with Brian VanDeMark. In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam. New York: Times Books, 1995.
[27] Posen, “Foreword,” 160.
[28] Stephen Peter Rosen. “New Ways of War: Understanding Military Innovation.” International Security 13, no. 1 (Summer 1988): 134–68. http://www.jstor.org/stable/2538898.
[29] Ibid.
[30] Emilie Berthelsen. “Hybrid Times: War and Peace in Military Innovation Studies.” Journal of Strategic Studies. Published online June 23, 2025. https://doi.org/10.1080/01402390.2025.2512238.
[31] Ibid.
[32] Jamie Shea. “Here Come the Drones: How Can Europe ‘Keep Calm and Carry On’?” Friends of Europe Insight, October 12, 2025. https://www.friendsofeurope.org/insights/critical-thinking-here-come-the-drones-how-can-europe-keep-calm-and-carry-on/; Sabine Siebold. “Germany to Order Over 600 Short-Range Air Defence Systems, Reports Handelsblatt.” Reuters, October 10, 2025. https://www.reuters.com/world/germany-order-over-600-short-range-air-defence-systems-reports-handelsblatt-2025-10-10/.
[33] Frank Pieper. LinkedIn post, “That would be 100 systems more than we had Gepards for 12 divisions, by the way: Air defense only makes sense 24/7.” LinkedIn, May 2025. https://www.linkedin.com/posts/frank-pieper-69322b382_das-w%C3%A4ren-100-systeme-mehr-als-wir-geparden-activity-7382336627114737664-DJXe. Direct quote, translated with AI: “That would be 100 more systems than we ever had Gepards for 12 divisions. By the way: air defence only makes sense 24/7. So you have to work with rotating crews. With the Gepard it was three. So nine per vehicle. With 600 systems, that’s 5,400. And that’s without logistics, radar, target designation, command support, maintenance, etc. In the end, you end up with around 10,000 air-defence soldiers. Where on earth are they supposed to come from? And NO: please don’t answer with conscription. Air defence is tied into integrated air defence, accompanying combat troops in all forms of battle — 15–18 months to become combat-ready. I so dearly wish for a bit of professionalism.”
[34] Job Flores-Fernandez and Francisco Martínez-López. “Ukraine War and Historical War Cycles.” Journal of Futures Studies 28, no. 1 (September 2023): 2–4. https://doi.org/10.6531/JFS.202309_28(1).0001.
[35] Williamson Murray. Military Adaptation in War. Alexandria, VA: Institute for Defense Analyses, 2009, 8–3.
[36] Ibid., 2–37.
[37] Ibid., 2–37–38.
[38] Ibid., 2–38–39.
[39] Frank G. Hoffman. Mars Adapting: Military Change During War. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2021; John T. Kuehn and Frank G. Hoffman. “Review Essay—Adaptation and the School of War: Mars Adapting: Military Change during War.” Naval War College Review 74, no. 4 (2021): Article 12. https://digital-commons.usnwc.edu/nwc-review/vol74/iss4/12.
[40] Stephen Dowling. “The Audacious Pilot Who Landed in Red Square.” BBC Future, May 26, 2017. https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20170526-the-audacious-pilot-who-landed-in-red-square.
[41] Williamson Murray. “Innovation: Past and Future.” In Military Innovation in the Interwar Period, edited by Williamson Murray and Allan R. Millett. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996.
[42] Stephen E. Hughes. Desert Storm: Attrition or Maneuver? U.S. Department of Defense, 1995. https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA300814.pdf.
[43] Ibid., 8–18–19.
[44] Steven Metz. American Strategy: Issues and Alternatives for the Quadrennial Defense Review. Carlisle, PA: U.S. Army War College Press, 2000. https://press.armywarcollege.edu/monographs/128; Project for the New American Century. Rebuilding America’s Defenses: Strategy, Forces, and Resources for a New Century. Washington, DC: Project for the New American Century, September 2000. https://ia802904.us.archive.org/27/items/RebuildingAmericasDefenses/RebuildingAmericasDefenses.pdf.
[45] Project for the New American Century. Rebuilding America’s Defenses: Strategy, Forces, and Resources for a New Century. Washington, DC: Project for the New American Century, September 2000. https://ia802904.us.archive.org/27/items/RebuildingAmericasDefenses/RebuildingAmericasDefenses.pdf.
[46] Oren Harari. Quotations from Chairman Powell: A Leadership Primer. Online reproduction at https://govleaders.org/powell.php.
[47] Metz, American Strategy.
[48] Christina Lamb. “Jens Stoltenberg Feared NATO Would Collapse Under His Leadership.” The Sunday Times, November 8, 2025. https://www.thetimes.com/world/russia-ukraine-war/article/jens-stoltenberg-nato-secretary-general-g3qvwvd7l.
[49] Javon Price. Warfighting and Military Readiness After the Post-9/11 Wars. America First Policy Institute, 2021, 4–6. https://americafirstpolicy.com/assets/uploads/files/warfighting-and-military-readiness-after-the-post-9-11-wars.pdf.
[50] Neal P. Curtin. “Military Aircraft: Cannibalizations Adversely Affect Personnel and Maintenance.” Testimony before the Subcommittee on National Security, Veterans Affairs, and International Relations, House Committee on Government Reform, U.S. General Accounting Office, May 22, 2001. GAO-01-693T. https://www.gao.gov/assets/gao-01-693t.pdf.
[51] Patrick Keller. The Strategic Realignment of the Bundeswehr: Ten Theses on the Defence Policy Guidelines. Analysen & Argumente no. 92. Berlin: Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung, June 2011. https://www.kas.de/c/document_library/get_file?uuid=1f11deda-885c-5ed6-ed62-d9699bf58cf2&groupId=252038.
[52] Federal Government of Germany. White Paper on German Security Policy and the Future of the Bundeswehr 2006. Berlin: Federal Ministry of Defence, 2006; Federal Government of Germany. White Paper on German Security Policy and the Future of the Bundeswehr 2016. Berlin: Federal Ministry of Defence, 2016; Federal Ministry of Defence (Germany). Concept of the Bundeswehr (KdB 2018). Berlin: Federal Ministry of Defence, 2018.
[53] Statista. “The German Military Is Woefully Unprepared for Action.” Accessed October 19, 2025. https://www.statista.com/chart/13077/the-german-military-is-woefully-unprepared-for-action/.
[54] Alexander Schäbler. “Digging Into the Future: Or How I Learned to Love My Shovel.” The Defence Horizon Journal (TDHJ), December 12, 2024, accessed [date you accessed it]. https://tdhj.org/blog/post/digging-manoeuvre/.
[55] Florian Dorn, Clemens Fuest, Niklas Potrafke, and Marcel Schlepper. “Are We Still Conditionally Defense-Ready? The Development of Germany’s Defence Capabilities Since the End of the Cold War.” ifo Schnelldienst Sonderausgabe, 75th year, April 2022. https://www.ifo.de/DocDL/sd-2022-sonderausgabe-april-dorn-etal-deutsche-verteidigungsfaehigkeit.pdf.
[56] German Bundestag, Parliamentary Research Service. Short Information WD 2-3000-028/21: Overview of Authorized Posts and Strength of the Bundeswehr. Berlin: German Bundestag, March 29, 2021. https://www.bundestag.de/resource/blob/841962/6436a8021d80bba036979a2099d90f9d/WD-2-028-21-pdf.pdf.
[57] Federal Ministry of Defence (BMVg). The Reorientation of the Bundeswehr: Safeguarding National Interests – Assuming International Responsibility – Shaping Security Together. Data brochure. Berlin: BMVg, n.d. https://www.bmvg.de/resource/blob/16132/6bfd2645ceb81b1b757d240e9367a969/g-03-thereorientationofthebundeswehr-data.pdf.
[58] Federal Government of Germany. White Paper on German Security Policy and the Future of the Bundeswehr 2006. Berlin: Federal Ministry of Defence, 2006; Federal Government of Germany. White Paper on German Security Policy and the Future of the Bundeswehr 2016. Berlin: Federal Ministry of Defence, 2016; Federal Ministry of Defence (Germany). Concept of the Bundeswehr (KdB 2018). Berlin: Federal Ministry of Defence, 2018.
[59] Association of Reservists of the German Armed Forces (VdRBw). “Decommissioned: The End of the District Military Replacement Offices.” Magazine The Reserve, November 26, 2012. https://www.reservistenverband.de/magazin-die-reserve/ausgemustert-das-ende-der-kreiswehrersatzaemter/.
[60] Frank-Walter Steinmeier. “Peace Policy in the Age of Globalization: Speech at the Foreign Affairs Association, Munich, 9 July 2008.” Federal Foreign Office (Germany), July 9, 2008. https://www.auswaertiges-amt.de/en/newsroom/news/080709-bm-dgap-232818.
[61] Peter Tauber and Sönke Neitzel. “From Yesterday into Today Toward Tomorrow: Inner Leadership as an Intellectual Achievement?” Panel discussion, moderated by Amelie Stelzner-Doğan and Wolfgang Koch. Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung, accessed October 19, 2025. https://www.kas.de/documents/252038/16166715/Vom+Gestern+ins+Heute+nach+Morgen+-+Die+innere+Führung+als+eine+geistesgeschichtliche+Errungenschaft.pdf.
[62] Ibid.
[63] Horst Köhler. “Speech by Federal President Horst Köhler at the Bundeswehr Commanders’ Conference in Bonn,” October 10, 2005. Accessed October 19, 2025. https://www.bundespraesident.de/SharedDocs/Reden/DE/Horst-Koehler/Reden/2005/10/20051010_Rede.html.
[64] Der Spiegel. “Olaf Scholz: Germany Will Soon Have the Largest Conventional NATO Army in Europe” [“Deutschland hat bald größte konventionelle NATO-Armee in Europa”], June 2022. https://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/olaf-scholz-deutschland-hat-bald-groesste-konventionelle-nato-armee-in-europa-a-ab463e8f-2603-4ecd-b2be-8930d7d5fcd1.
[65] Aylin Matlé. Assessing the Zeitenwende: What It Means for Germany’s Security and Defense Strategy. Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College, February 27, 2025. https://ssi.armywarcollege.edu/SSI-Media/Recent-Publications/Article/4080125/assessing-the-zeitenwende/; Sabine Siebold. “‘50% Battle-Ready’: Germany Misses Military Targets Despite Scholz’s Overhaul.” Reuters, February 13, 2025. https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/50-battle-ready-germany-misses-military-targets-despite-scholzs-overhaul-2025-02-13/.
[66] Matthias Gebauer and Konstantin von Hammerstein. “The Bad News Bundeswehr: An Examination of the Truly Dire State of Germany’s Military.” Der Spiegel International, January 17, 2023. https://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/the-bad-news-bundeswehr-an-examination-of-the-truly-dire-state-of-germany-s-military-a-df92eaaf-e3f9-464d-99a3-ef0c27dcc797.
[67] Federal Ministry of Defence (Germany). “Lambrecht für weiteres Engagement im Sahel.” https://www.bmvg.de/de/aktuelles/lambrecht-fuer-weiteres-engagement-im-sahel-5391900.
[68] Federal Government of the Federal Republic of Germany. “Waffenlieferungen in die Ukraine.” Accessed October 19, 2025. https://www.bundesregierung.de/breg-de/service/archiv-bundesregierung/waffenlieferungen-ukraine-2054514.
[69] Gebauer and von Hammerstein, “The Bad News Bundeswehr”; ARD-Tagesschau/WDR Investigativ. “Russia Could Be Capable of Attacking NATO in Five to Eight Years.” Tagesschau, April 18, 2024. https://www.tagesschau.de/investigativ/wdr/russland-nato-militaer-100.html.
[70] Reuters. “Russia May Be Ready to Attack NATO in 5–8 Years, German Official Says.” Reuters, April 18, 2024. https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russia-may-be-ready-attack-nato-5-8-years-german-official-says-2024-04-18/.
[71] German Bundestag. “Government Statement by Chancellor Friedrich Merz” [“Regierungserklärung von Bundeskanzler Friedrich Merz”], May 2025. https://www.bundestag.de/dokumente/textarchiv/2025/kw20-de-regierungserklaerung-merz-1064956.
[72] Sophia Besch and Sarah Brockmeier. “Waking a Sleeping Giant: What’s Next for German Security Policy?” War on the Rocks, March 9, 2022. https://warontherocks.com/2022/03/waking-a-sleeping-giant-whats-next-for-german-security-policy/.
[73] Torben Schütz, Joseph Verbovszki, and Heiko Borchert. “Beware of Potemkin: Germany’s Defense Rethink Risks Reinforcing Old Habits.” War on the Rocks, April 22, 2022. https://warontherocks.com/2022/04/beware-of-potemkin-germanys-defense-rethink-risks-reinforcing-old-habits/.
[74] Sönke Neitzel. “War-Ready? On the Zeitenwende in Politics, Society, and the Bundeswehr” [“Kriegstüchtig? Zur Zeitenwende in Politik, Gesellschaft und Bundeswehr”]. Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte 47–48 (2024): 10. bpb PDF. https://www.bpb.de/system/files/dokument_pdf/APuZ_2024-47-48_online_1.pdf.
[75] Ibid.
[76] NATO. “Statement by the North Atlantic Council on the NATO Readiness Initiative.” Accessed October 4, 2025. https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/official_texts_236705.htm.
[77] NATO. Wales Summit Declaration (issued by the Heads of State and Government participating in the meeting of the North Atlantic Council, September 5, 2014). https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/official_texts_112964.htm; NATO. Defence Expenditure of NATO Countries (2024). PDF. Brussels: NATO, June 2024, accessed [date]. https://www.nato.int/nato_static_fl2014/assets/pdf/2024/6/pdf/240617-def-exp-2024-en.pdf; Laura Hood. “Obama’s Disdain for Europe’s Free Riders Makes This an Awkward Transatlantic Trip.” The Conversation, April 21, 2016. https://theconversation.com/obamas-disdain-for-europes-free-riders-makes-this-an-awkward-transatlantic-trip-57994.
[78] Sabine Siebold. “NATO Asks Berlin for Seven More Brigades Under New Targets, Sources Say.” Reuters, May 28, 2025. https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/nato-ask-berlin-seven-more-brigades-under-new-targets-sources-say-2025-05-28/.
[79] Matthias Gebauer. “Bundeswehr: So viele Soldaten braucht das Heer für die neuen NATO-Ziele.” Der Spiegel, September 12, 2025. https://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/so-viele-soldaten-braucht-das-heer-fuer-die-neuen-nato-ziele-a-2a8f046b-a726-4f04-9710-7ef3cf070c26.
[80] Oliver Moody. “German Army Chief Fired After Blunt Criticism of Military.” The Times (London), July 2, 2025. https://www.thetimes.com/world/europe/article/head-german-army-fired-alfons-mais-68nhhs99m.
[81] Guntram B. Wolff, Alexandr Burilkov, Katelyn Bushnell, and Ivan Kharitonov. Fit for War in Decades: Europe’s and Germany’s Slow Rearmament vis-à-vis Russia. Kiel Report no. 1. Kiel Institute for the World Economy, September 2024. https://www.kielinstitut.de/fileadmin/Dateiverwaltung/IfW-Publications/fis-import/235e4c1f-f771-4183-915d-6c38d62d5d6b-Kiel_Report_no1.pdf.
[82] Chris Becker. “Trump Sends Nuclear Submarines, Ukraine Builds Sea Drones, While the German Navy Sinks.” Nius.de (analysis), August 5, 2025. https://www.nius.de/analyse/news/trump-atom-u-boote-ukraine-see-drohnen-deutsche-marine-baden/1e16130b-5af1-43f1-96d5-ec1a39c18f6a.
[83] Sönke Neitzel and Marcel Otte. “Pistorius bleibt beim Ankündigen” [“Pistorius Keeps Announcing”]. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 2025. https://www.faz.net/aktuell/politik/inland/otte-und-neitzel-pistorius-bleibt-beim-ankuendigen-110652634.html.
[84] Laura Koop. “Wehrpflicht in Deutschland: Die Hürden für eine Rückkehr – Schnell ist das nicht möglich.” ZDFheute, March 16, 2025. https://www.zdfheute.de/politik/deutschland/wehrpflicht-deutschland-wiedereinfuehrung-bundeswehr-aufruestung-100.html.
[85] Ibid.
[86] Boris Pistorius. “Boris Pistorius: ‘Wir könnten im Verteidigungsfall nicht einmal mobilisieren.’” YouTube video, July 2025. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_rZjbUv8kM.
[87] Ethan Soefje. “Prussian Reformist Sentiment before 1806.” Age of Revolutions, March 17, 2025. https://ageofrevolutions.com/2025/03/17/prussian-reformist-sentiment-before-1806/.
[88] Carl von Clausewitz. Notes on Prussia in Her Grand Catastrophe of 1806. Translated by Col. Conrad H. Lanza. Fort Leavenworth, KS: The General Service Schools Press, 1922, 541–42.
[89] Soefje, “Prussian Reformist Sentiment before 1806.”
[90] Ibid.
[91] Shannon Selin. “Battle of Jena.” Shannon Selin: Napoleonic Wars, October 2019. https://shannonselin.com/2019/10/battle-of-jena/.
[92] Clausewitz, On War [Vom Kriege], 151–54.
[93] David W. Duffy. “What Does ‘Culture Eats Strategy for Breakfast’ Mean?” The Corporate Governance Institute, accessed [date]. https://www.thecorporategovernanceinstitute.com/insights/lexicon/what-does-culture-eats-strategy-for-breakfast-mean/.
[94] Clausewitz, On War [Vom Kriege], 154–55.
[95] Ibid.
[96] Carl von Clausewitz. Notes on Prussia in Her Grand Catastrophe of 1806. Translated by Col. Conrad H. Lanza. Fort Leavenworth, KS: The General Service Schools Press, 1922, 541–42. https://www.clausewitzstudies.org/readings/1806/Clausewitz-ExcerptsFromNotesOnPrussia1806.pdf.
[97] Charles Meynier. Napoleon in Berlin. Oil painting, October 27, 1806. Image file, Wikimedia Commons. https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datei:Charles_Meynier_-_Napoleon_in_Berlin.png.
[98] Hans Delbrück. The Life of Field Marshal Count Neidhardt von Gneisenau. Letters and Writings [Das Leben des Feldmarschalls Grafen Neithardt von Gneisenau. Briefe und Schriften], third book, first chapter. Berlin: Mittler, 1880–87.
[99] Williamson Murray. “The Historical Framework of Adaptation.” In IDA Paper P-4452. Alexandria, VA: Institute for Defense Analyses, 2010, 2–14 ff.
[100] Peter Paret. Yorck and the Era of the Prussian Reform 1807–1815. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1966.
[101] August Neidhardt von Gneisenau. “Strategy Is the Science of the Use of Time and Space … We may regain territory; lost time, never,” quoted in LWL documentation, “Gneisenau in the Campaign in France” [“Gneisenau im Feldzug in Frankreich”].
[102] David G. Chandler. The Campaigns of Napoleon. New York: Macmillan, 1973, 471–73; Digby Smith. The Napoleonic Wars Data Book. London: Greenhill Books, 1998, 190–92.
[103] Bill Murray. “The Innovator’s Burden: Why the Military Must Find, Protect, and Unleash Its True Visionaries,” Small Wars Journal, December 26, 2025, https://smallwarsjournal.com/2025/12/26/military-innovationresistance/.
[104] Immanuel Kant. “Answering the Question: What Is Enlightenment?” [“Beantwortung der Frage: Was ist Aufklärung?”] Berlinische Monatsschrift (1784). https://www.deutschestextarchiv.de/book/view/kant_aufklaerung_1784?p=17.
[105] Gary Klein, “Performing a Project Premortem,” IEEE Engineering Management Review 36 (June 2008): 103–104, https://doi.org/10.1109/EMR.2008.4534313.
