A plan to cover Germany’s shortfall in medium-range strike capability has fallen apart. Until Germany could field its own long-range systems, Washington had agreed to station US Tomahawk cruise missiles on German soil. With ranges up to around 2,500 km, Tomahawks would have given deterrent reach far beyond Germany’s current Taurus missiles, which reach roughly 500 km.
The deployment had been agreed in 2024 by then-Chancellor Olaf Scholz and President Joe Biden and was meant as a temporary measure while Europe developed its own capabilities. That arrangement has now been cancelled by US President Donald Trump, who has also announced the withdrawal of at least 5,000 US troops from Germany. The reversal leaves a clear gap in Germany’s national defence: the US had planned not only Tomahawks but also SM-6 air-defence interceptors and hypersonic weapons that extend long-range precision-strike options.
Those systems would have enabled the kind of deep, long-range precision strikes Germany cannot yet conduct. Moscow’s own medium-range capabilities are a major part of the problem: Russia deploys Iskander missiles, which can be fitted with nuclear warheads, in Kaliningrad and fields medium-range Oreshnik missiles in Belarus, both able to threaten parts of Europe.
Defence Minister Boris Pistorius is urgently seeking ways to close the capability gap. Germany’s new military strategy prioritises rapid development of ‘deep precision strike’ capacity to hit high-value targets deep inside enemy territory — command centres, airfields, logistics hubs and weapons factories. But the European cooperative project known as the European Long-Range Strike Approach (ELSA) is not expected to deliver fielded systems until the mid-2030s, which many security experts say is too late to restore credible deterrence now.
Some commentators call for a fast-tracked national programme to produce German ground-launched cruise missiles. Industry and procurement options are being explored: defence firm Rheinmetall is a potential domestic partner, while Germany has formally requested to buy US Tomahawks and the Typhoon missile launch system from Lockheed Martin. Both requests remain unanswered, and US stockpiles may be constrained after large expenditures of missiles in recent conflicts in the Middle East.
As a more immediate and potentially cheaper alternative, Germany is also pursuing long-range unmanned systems. Pistorius has discussed developing state-of-the-art drones with Ukraine, aiming for platforms with ranges up to about 1,500 km. While drones are generally less capable than cruise missiles in some roles, they offer a faster and less expensive route to extended strike reach.
That prospect is notable given Germany’s earlier reluctance to send Taurus cruise missiles to Ukraine. Now Berlin and Kyiv are talking about joint development of longer-range unmanned strike systems, reflecting how the shifting security environment is forcing new partnerships and procurement choices.
This article is a translation from German.