With Russia and Ukraine still locked in combat after nearly two years and a major Israeli-Palestinian conflict underway, the European Union and NATO are feeling their way into a chaotic new world security order – and Europe’s largest economy is shaking up decades-old ideas on what its military is actually for.

When the Ukrainian war first beckoned, Germany was initially wary of offering Kyiv direct military supplies. But shortly after Russia invaded, Chancellor Olaf Scholz recast Germany’s moral obligations to help resist Russian aggression in dramatic terms.

In his so-called Zeitenzwende or “turning point” address to the Bundestag, he decribed “Putin’s war” in Ukraine as one that risked a return to the dark days of Europe before the 1940s, alluding to Germany’s history as he pressed parliamentarians to support the shipment of weapons and supplies to a non-EU, non-NATO ally.