Guns, Growth, and the German Reinvention of Military Keynesianism

In March 2025, Germany did more than loosen a fiscal rule. It fused two national emergencies — a deteriorating European security order and a deteriorating industrial model — into a single constitutional bargain. The reform de facto exempted German defense expenditure from any domestic budgetary ceiling — as the German Bundesbank itself has acknowledged — and enabled a military expansion of extraordinary proportions. E.U. debt rules of 3 percent of GDP for annual government deficits and 60 percent for public debt technically still apply — though 14 out of the 27 Eu