How Russia's threat forced Germany to radically rethink its military

How Russia's threat forced Germany to radically rethink its military General Carsten Breuer is a man in a hurry. As head of Germany's armed forces he's the most powerful, and arguably the most important, soldier in Europe. He's been tasked with the rapid expansion of Germany's armed might, turning its army into the continent's most powerful fighting force.

For he believes Russia's ongoing attempts to bolster its military through increased recruitment and investment in weaponry will leave it strong enough to launch an attack on a Nato territory by 2029. "I've never experienced a situation which is as dangerous, as urgent, as it is today," he told me at a military base in Munster, near the Dutch border.

Breuer is overseeing an ambitious expansion of the German armed forces "So what we are seeing, what we are facing, is a threat from Russia. We can clearly see that Russia is building up its military to a strength which is nearly double the size of what they had before the war against Ukraine…

In 2029 it will be possible for Russia to conduct a major war against Nato. And as a soldier I have to say 'okay, we have to be prepared for this'." Breuer joined the army of what was then West Germany in 1984, when he was 19. He is softly spoken and thoughtful.

There is no soldierly swagger about him, no hint of performative military machismo, but he is nonetheless clearly driven to transform the German military and place it at the heart of the new power map of the continent. Breuer joined the German military at the height of the Cold War Under his command, the German armed forces are rapidly expanding in strength and numbers.

Germany is projected to spend €162bn (£140.2bn) on its military in 2029, up from €95bn in 2025. Opinion polls suggest the boost has strong support from the German public. Not long ago, a re-armament programme on this scale would have alarmed Germany's neighbours, stirring the ghosts of Europe's dark past.

In the 20th Century, Germany used its powerful armies to wage some of the most destructive wars in human history, laying waste to much of the continent and killing millions. Having suppressed its military for years in an attempt to atone for the horrors it perpetrated, can Germany fulfil its newfound ambition to become Europe's preeminent military power?

And assuming it does, how will it act in the role of the continent's strongman? To see a graphic illustration of the way Germany's place in Europe has been transformed, go to Lithuania, where Germany now has a permanent military presence for the first time since the Nazi occupation.

There are close to 1,200 German troops stationed in Lithuania. That will rise to nearly 5,000 by the end of next year. The BBC watched as the Panzerbrigade 45 (the 45th Armoured Brigade) conducted a -fire exercise a few miles from the border with Russia's ally Belarus.

They were war-gaming an invasion from the east. The snow-covered, lightly wooded terrain here forms part of the Great European Plain. From the North and Baltic Seas in the West to the walls of the Kremlin in the east, the land is flat. There are few naturally occurring barriers - no mountain ranges, no impassable river valleys.

It is highly vulnerable to invasion. In September 1812, Napoleon's army swept through it all the way to the Russian capital. Hitler's forces, with lightning speed, also made it to the gates of Moscow in September 1941, only to be pushed back by Soviet forces all the way to Berlin: armies, back and forward, back and forward across this exposed open terrain.

If geography is destiny, the Great Plain has shaped the history of warfare here for centuries. "I guess we are here to fulfil what our neighbours expect from us," Lieutenant Colonel Sebastian Hagen, the commander of Panzerbrigade 45, told me. "Our Chancellor [Friedrich Merz] announced that we are building up the most powerful conventional army in Europe.

And I guess this fits with the role of Germany due to our economic strengths and also to o…