US President Donald Trump can feel vindicated: Germany's new foreign minister, Johann Wadephul, said this week that the government had accepted the president's demand to invest 5% of GDP in defense. Speaking at a meeting of NATO foreign ministers in Antalya, Turkey, on Thursday, Wadephul also said Germany would support NATO's proposal to provide 3.5% for classic military purposes and an additional 1.5% for defense-related infrastructure.

It will likely only become clear how much all the members of the security alliance plan to invest at a NATO summit scheduled for the end of June in The Hague, Netherlands.

Wadephul's comments came a day after German Chancellor Friedrich Merz announced that he wanted to transform the Bundeswehr into the "strongest conventional army in Europe."

If Germany goes ahead and increases its defense expenditure to 5% of GDP, it will be making a historic turnaround in security policy. Since the end of the Cold War, it has primarily relied on international cooperation, diplomacy and a culture of strategic military restraint. But former Chancellor Olaf Scholz's Zeitenwende speech on February 27, 2022, three days after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, marked a turning point.

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