„We don't need you, we'll call the Americans.“ This, according to the head of the German arms giant Rheinmetall, is how former Chancellor Angela Merkel once wrote off the domestic defence sector. Today those same words sound like a mistake that cost the whole of Europe dearly.

The statement was made by Armin Papperger, Rheinmetall's chief, at a security summit. According to him, Merkel deliberately built Germany's dependence on Washington. Before the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Germany had almost no domestic need for weapons, and companies like Rheinmetall were marginalised by export restrictions. The strategy was simple - why produce arms when you have an American ally?

The war demolished that logic overnight. After the turning point („Zeitenwende“) announced by Chancellor Scholz, Germany set up a special defence fund of 100 billion euros and raised military spending to 2 percent of GDP. Rheinmetall increased its annual output of artillery ammunition from 70,000 to one million shells - more than the conventional production of the USA. The company's share price rose by over 1,000 percent since 2022.

There is something both frightening and instructive in that figure. A thousand-percent surge for a defence company is not a sign that the world is becoming safer - quite the opposite. Every euro put into ammunition is a euro that did not go to a hospital, a school or a pension. Europe rocked itself for decades in the illusion that war was something that happens to someone else; now it is arming feverishly, and the shell factories run day and night. For us in the Balkans, who know all too well where full weapons depots lead, this is not good news - it's an old story with a new budget.