No Cyber Resilience, No Economic Resilience

Although German Chancellor Olaf Scholz spoke of a so-called Zeitenwende—a “turning point in time”—shortly thereafter, it was not new for Ukraine to be attacked from Russia in the digital space. In 2015, the Ukrainian power grid had already been temporarily paralyzed, and in 2017 the malware NotPetya, originating in Russia, spread massively. Accordingly, Ukraine had already been active in the field of cybersecurity in the years before the current war. With support from other countries, first and foremost the United States, it armed itself against cyberattacks and, for example, equipped its rail network against malware. Ukraine invested intensively in its cyber resilience and thus was able to successfully react to the Russian attacks. Germany, on the contrary, has not experienced such a threat situation before 2022—and has accordingly been much less active in cybersecurity matters, resulting in weaker cyber resilience.

The Zeitenwende is typically discussed as a matter of reorganizing natural gas supplies and qualifying the Bundeswehr in order to meet the requirements defined by the new security situation. Replacing Russian energy imports turned out to be possible but costly. Due to the energy price shock, production in energy-intensive industries has shrunk by about 20 percent within one year—and many capacities like ammonia or aluminum production will remain closed indefinitely. The military dimension of the Zeitenwende is even more critical. The pledge to fulfill the 2 percent NATO target might be fulfilled for the next two or three years if the 100 billion special fund is used quickly enough to plug the most critical holes. But using these resources, about 35 billion euros have to be mobilized in the federal budget—annually!