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Germany is reviving its bid to purchase American Tomahawk cruise missiles and Typhoon ground launchers from the United States, the Financial Times reported Sunday.
The report came after the Pentagon scrapped plans to deploy a long-range fires battalion to Germany and withdrew 5,000 troops, moves that have left a significant gap in Europe's deterrence posture against Russia and exposed Berlin's limited alternatives.
Defense Minister Boris Pistorius is planning a trip to Washington to revive a purchase request first submitted in July 2025 to which the U.S. has yet to respond, the FT reported, citing people familiar with Berlin's strategy.
However, the visit is contingent on Pistorius securing a meeting with his U.S. counterpart Pete Hegseth, not guaranteed given the deterioration in relations between Trump and Chancellor Friedrich Merz following Merz's sharp public criticism of the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran.
A German defense ministry spokesperson recently confirmed that the purchase of commercially available systems was "still planned" and that a preliminary inquiry had been made with the U.S. government, though he declined to say whether Washington had responded, calling it "an ongoing process."
He said the commercial "pillar" of Berlin's plans addressed "precisely the same capability that was intended to be stationed and which, in all likelihood, still will be. After all, we are not talking about a final cancellation."
Politico previously reported that Berlin planned to acquire three Typhon ground-launch systems, truck-borne Lockheed Martin containers capable of firing a range of long-range weapons, including Tomahawks, and 400 Tomahawk Block VB missiles.
The FT reported that Berlin may be prepared to pay extra to secure the purchase, though one person cautioned that it was a "temptation to throw money at the problem."
Carlo Masala, professor of international politics at the Bundeswehr University Munich, was blunt: "It won't fly."
He said Washington had given "no answer so far" to Germany's request and was now even less likely to approve it, given that it had "emptied its stocks against Iran." Merz acknowledged the same problem in a Sunday evening interview, saying of the Tomahawks: "The Americans do not have enough for themselves right now."
In February, the Pentagon signed a seven-year deal with Raytheon to increase Tomahawk production as stockpiles were depleted by the Iran war.
Japan and the Netherlands are already facing delays in the delivery of their own outstanding Tomahawk orders.
The canceled U.S. long-range fires battalion deployment had been agreed upon under former U.S. President Joe Biden and framed as a response to Russia's decision to station nuclear-capable Iskander missiles in Kaliningrad, putting Berlin within range.
There are currently no European ground-launched long-range systems immediately available to fill that role.
The U.K. has submarine-launched Tomahawks with a range of 1,600 kilometers, and France has deployed a domestically built cruise missile with a 1,000-kilometer range on its submarines, but neither provides a deployable ground-based capability of the kind Germany needs.
"The key thing is to have the strike capabilities in Europe," one government insider told the FT, underscoring the urgency behind Berlin's approach. But the options outside the U.S. are limited.
The European Long-Range Strike Approach, Elsa, is a joint development program involving Germany, France, Poland, the U.K., Italy and Sweden, but none of its outputs are available in the short term.
Berlin is also examining how it could leverage Ukraine's own long-range capabilities.
Merz, a longtime Atlanticist who, since taking office, has pledged over €750 billion for Germany's armed forces; vowed to meet new NATO spending targets well ahead of schedule; and made Germany the largest provider of military aid to Ukraine.
He has seen his relationship with Trump deteriorate sharply over the Iran war, directly compounding Berlin's security planning difficulties.
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