“Europe is the target of our missiles. Just as Russia is a target of Western missiles,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said a few days ago. The US government’s announcement to send long-range Tomahawk missiles to Germany has provoked criticism from Moscow, which is talking about a revival of the Cold War.

Berlin, at the same time, insists that its goal is defense and deterrence, given that Russian aggression cannot be ruled out against NATO targets in the future. In this context he welcomes the American decision to park long-range subsonic missiles that can be launched from planes, ships and even submarines, a novum for the German security data.

“These weapons act as a deterrent, nothing more, nothing less,” said Defense Secretary Boris Pistorius, explaining: “They serve one purpose: to make it clear that we will defend ourselves even remotely if we are attacked. It is a purely preventive measure (…) President Putin has shown what he is ready and able to do.”

Times of deterrence

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz is on the same wavelength. When asked in an interview with ARD if he shares the Germans’ fear of a new Cold War, he replied that we live in times of deterrence, “that’s what the signs we have for the immediate future show.”

In the long term, he believes that disarmament agreements should be concluded with Russia. Today, as the chancellor said, Russia is abstaining from all disarmament agreements, and this is exactly what calls for the strengthening of Germany’s defense capabilities. “We must be so strong that no one attacks us.”

However, the German fear of a new Cold War, with an arms race, fragile geopolitical relationships and the constant threat of war, is not new. Exactly ten years ago, in 2014, when Ukraine was again in the spotlight with Russia’s annexation of Crimea, 72% of German respondents said they feared the outbreak of a new Cold War (YouGov). In 2024, and while the Russian invasion of Ukraine has intervened, 67% of Germans fear the outbreak of a generalized war in Europe (ARD-Deutschlandtrend).

A new cold war dystopia

At the same time, the federal government, states, municipalities and even private individuals are investing in renovating shelters or creating new ones, even in homes in the form of specially protected basements.

The secret services are asking for more funding as well as more autonomy in the field of surveillance and data collection for reasons of national security, while the German Ministry of the Interior occasionally reminds that the biggest security threats in Germany are cyber-attacks, espionage and sabotage. A new dystopian political reality that indeed refers to the Cold War era.

And then, anyway, everything had started in Potsdam, near Berlin, in 1945, when US President Harry Truman announced to Joseph Stalin that his country possessed the ultimate superweapon: the atomic bomb. Hiroshima and Nagasaki followed.