Germany buys US Tomahawks for deep-strike gap

Germany will buy American Tomahawk cruise missiles. Chancellor Friedrich Merz announced the deal at the NATO summit in Ankara, calling it a step toward closing a gap in Europe's ability to strike deep behind enemy lines (Euronews, DW). The purchase may fix a real military problem. It also deepens Europe's reliance on Washington for the very capability that advocates of European strategic autonomy say the continent must build itself.

A year of silence, then a conditional green light

Germany first asked to buy the missiles in July 2025. Washington sat on the request for months, even as it approved less significant arms sales to Berlin (Defense News). When the US cancelled its own planned deployment of long-range missiles to Germany earlier this year, the silence started to look punitive (The War Zone). Germany explored alternatives: Turkish missiles, Ukrainian drone partnerships.

The Ankara announcement breaks the impasse. Defence ministers signed a letter of intent, with Washington committing to formal export approval by August. But a political green light is not a completed sale. The deal still has to pass through the US Foreign Military Sales process, the government-to-government arms export system (DSCA). How many missiles, when they arrive, where they are based and who maintains them: none of that is public.

What the eastern flank gains, on paper

Tomahawk is a long-range precision cruise missile. Typhon, the US Army's Mid-Range Capability system, is the ground-based launcher that fires it (ZEIT). Stationed in Germany, the combination could threaten Russian command posts, logistics hubs and staging areas around Kaliningrad, Belarus and western Russia (Global Banking & Finance / Reuters). Non-nuclear deterrence depends not just on troops at the border but on the ability to hit targets deep behind an advancing force. The EU Institute for Security Studies warned in May that the cancelled US deployment left a gap Europe could not quickly fill on its own (EUISS).

Polish media framed the deal as partial repair (RMF24). Lithuanian coverage linked it to Baltic security through Germany's growing military presence near Lithuania (LRT). But neither Warsaw nor Vilnius has publicly confirmed that German Tomahawks feature in first-hour Baltic defence plans. The missiles are relevant to a Baltic war scenario. Whether they are assigned, ready and approved in advance for use in a crisis remains unknown.

Paris sees a dependency problem

France does not dispute the gap. French press reported the purchase as a response to Russian Iskander missiles in Kaliningrad and the absence of a European alternative (Le Monde, Le Figaro). The objection is about what comes after. Core Tomahawk technology — guidance, software, protected components — stays under US control (Meta-Defense). A German-flagged weapon still depends on American supply chains for parts, maintenance and upgrades.

With the Franco-German joint fighter project (SCAF/FCAS, the next-generation combat aircraft programme) already fragile, another high-value German contract routed to Washington stings. Merz argues the Tomahawks are a bridge while Europe develops its own alternatives (DW). The concern, voiced by Friends of Europe among others, is that bridge capabilities become permanent, draining both the pressure and the budget for a genuinely European long-range strike programme.

What the announcement is still missing

This is a bilateral US-German sale. NATO provides the strategic context, not the approval. And until Germany publishes quantities, a delivery timeline, confirmed basing, trained crews and clear rules on who authorises launch in a fast-moving crisis, Merz has announced a future capability, not a weapon Russia must already plan around. Those specifics are owed before the formal sale closes in August.