But if the war in Ukraine was a wake-up call, it has also exposed how weak a link the Germans still are in the NATO structure. On the morning of the Russian invasion, Gen. Alfons Mais, Germany’s chief of defense, posted a brutally honest assessment of where German capabilities were.

“In my 41st year of service in peace, I would not have thought I would have had to experience another war,” General Mais wrote. “And the Bundeswehr, the army that I am allowed to lead, is more or less broke. The options we can offer policymakers to support the alliance are extremely limited.”

At the end of the Cold War, when West Germany was still a NATO frontline state on the border to the Soviet empire, it had more than 500,000 soldiers and spent 2.7 percent of its gross domestic product on defense. Today, the reunified Germany has 184,000 soldiers and spends just 1.5 percent of G.D.P. on defense.

“The German military was starved of money for years because we had a strategic partnership with Russia and we didn’t believe we had to defend our territory anymore,” said Ms. Major. “Our soldiers were deployed to help others, whether in Afghanistan or Mali. We were fighting wars of choice. But this is about us and if we are returning to a paradigm of wars of necessity, you need the whole military to be operational.”