FT: Germany’s military priorities lag behind emerging drone tech

In Germany’s defence sector, concerns are growing that authorities are spending excessively on traditional weapons while neglecting emerging military technologies like drones.

Florian Seibel, co-founder of German surveillance drone company Quantum Systems, told Financial Times (FT) that Germany is spending €500 billion on the wrong priorities, mostly funding arms companies.

“Spending €500bn out of Germany alone, of which €495bn would go to Rheinmetall and the like, is not what is needed . . . there is enough money, but we are spending it on the wrong things,” he said.

Seibel criticised Berlin for underinvesting in UAVs and autonomous systems. He warned that authorities are pouring hundreds of billions into equipment that will rust in landfills, leaving future generations to repay the debts incurred in its production.

“We’re going to spend hundreds of billions in equipment that will sit in graveyards, and my kids and my grandchildren will still have to work for the debt to pay back to the banks,” he continued.

German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius, speaking at the Munich Security Conference, acknowledged the need for “more and more investment in innovation, more investment in new technologies, more co-operation with start-ups, and more co-operation between start-ups and the Bundeswehr.” 

“If anybody had told us five years ago that drones would play such a relevant and crucial role, nobody would have believed or could have imagined that,” he added.

Bundeswehr Inspector of the Army Christian Freuding noted that soldiers still need “traditional systems like battle tanks, howitzers,” but agreed that the military must also maintain an innovative spirit and think in “unthinkable thoughts.”

FT highlighted that after years of falling short of NATO defence spending targets, Berlin allocated hundreds of billions of euros to rearmament post-2022. Significant portions of this funding have gone toward 35 US F-35 fighter-bombers, Eurofighter Typhoons, Chinook transport helicopters, new ships and submarines, and thousands of tanks and armoured vehicles.

At the Munich conference, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz pledged to strengthen military presence in the Arctic and vowed to make Germany’s army the strongest in Europe in the near future.

By Jeyhun Aghazada