Germany’s rearmament problem isn’t money. It’s time.

Germany’s defence spending surge collides with an industrial base that cannot yet deliver at scale.

Dear Reader,

It is an astonishing list. Thirty major new arms purchases, signed off on a single day just before Christmas, for the breath-taking sum of €50 billion.

Torpedoes for the newest class of submarines; modernisation and expansion of the US-made Patriot missile system; Arrow missiles to build on the high-tech Israeli air-defence system that went i…