As Germany’s new chancellor increases military spending, he has presided over the activation of a German tank brigade based in Lithuania and raised alarms about the threat from Russia.
As he takes office, Germany’s new chancellor, Friedrich Merz, faces a delicate test: dealing with a Russia willing to flex its muscle on its eastern flank, and with an American president intent on making NATO allies bear more of the burden for their own defense.
Squeezed by the two sides, Mr. Merz has been trying to juggle how to move Germany toward more of a leadership role in NATO — without antagonizing a more militaristic Russia.
Last week, Mr. Merz traveled to Lithuania to preside over the activation of a German tank brigade that could serve as a bulwark against any Russian invasion through neighboring Belarus, which is seen as a potential staging ground for military action by Moscow.
Hundreds of Lithuanians turned Vilnius’s famous cathedral square into something akin to a militaristic county fair last week to celebrate the activation of the new brigade, a historic change for a country that the Nazis brutally occupied eight decades ago. The unit, the first fully armored German brigade permanently based outside the country since the end of World War II, also signaled Germany’s changing posture.
“Throughout the years of the Cold War, Germany could rely on our allies standing by our side at any emergency — today, we are here, the ones who have a duty,” Mr. Merz told the roughly 700 German soldiers standing in formation in the square.
