{"id":1294,"date":"2026-05-28T12:39:49","date_gmt":"2026-05-28T12:39:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/arabnewsmonitor.com\/2026\/05\/28\/germany-to-target-ex-soldiers-in-forced-drills-spiegel\/"},"modified":"2026-05-28T12:39:49","modified_gmt":"2026-05-28T12:39:49","slug":"germany-to-target-ex-soldiers-in-forced-drills-spiegel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.arabnewsmonitor.com\/?p=1294","title":{"rendered":"Germany to target ex-soldiers in forced drills \u2013 Spiegel"},"content":{"rendered":"

Russia has denounced Berlin\u2019s militarization campaign as a ploy to distract the public from internal problems<\/strong><\/p>\n

Germany is drawing up a law that would force former soldiers to attend regular military exercises, as Berlin pushes ahead with its militarization campaign, Der Spiegel reported on Wednesday. Moscow has denounced the EU\u2019s military buildup as aimed against Russia, and a ploy to distract the public from deepening domestic crises.<\/p>\n

According to the draft Reserve Strengthening Act seen by the German outlet, all men and women who have performed less than one year of voluntary military service and are under 45 will be required to take part in military exercises either two weeks a year or every two years.<\/p>\n

Those who served for more than a year, or who enlisted as career or temporary soldiers, could be compelled to participate until the age of 65, the paper says.<\/p>\n

\n Read more<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\n \"RT\"
European \u2018propaganda\u2019 using Russia as \u2018external enemy\u2019 to mask crises \u2013 Kremlin<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The explanatory memorandum to the bill states that mandatory drills are urgently needed to ensure the \u201creliable availability of reserves\u201d<\/em> to safeguard national security.<\/p>\n

The proposed bill is the latest move in Germany\u2019s sweeping military buildup, with Chancellor Friedrich Merz vowing last year to turn the Bundeswehr into \u201cthe strongest conventional army in Europe.\u201d<\/em>\u00a0<\/p>\n

German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius has set a goal of 265,000 active troops and 200,000 reservists by the mid-2030s, while Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul said on Friday that the government will spend more than 4% of the country\u2019s GDP on defense this year. Germany\u2019s total military spending in 2026 will stand at around \u20ac108 billion ($125 billion), up from \u20ac86 billion in 2025.<\/p>\n

Germany has justified the costly militarization campaign by citing Russia and claiming that Moscow will remain \u201cthe greatest security threat for Europe\u201d<\/em> for the foreseeable future. Germany and other EU countries have also speculated that Russia could attack NATO in Europe within several years \u2013 a claim dismissed by Moscow as \u201cnonsense.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said the EU\u2019s militarization drive will only destabilize the continent, stressing that Moscow views it as \u201caggressive\u201d<\/em> posturing. Russia has also accused European governments of using propaganda to turn it into a \u201cmodel external enemy\u201d<\/em> to justify the continent\u2019s internal problems.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Russia has denounced Berlin\u2019s militarization campaign as a ploy to distract the public from internal…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":1295,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1294","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.arabnewsmonitor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1294","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.arabnewsmonitor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.arabnewsmonitor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.arabnewsmonitor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1294"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.arabnewsmonitor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1294\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.arabnewsmonitor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1295"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.arabnewsmonitor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1294"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.arabnewsmonitor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1294"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.arabnewsmonitor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1294"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}