Germany is set to host American long-range missiles on its soil, Chancellor Friedrich Merz confirmed, in a move that reshapes the security architecture of Europe.

The deployment traces back to a commitment made during the Biden administration in 2024, when Washington pledged to station Tomahawk cruise missiles in Germany as part of a broader effort to deter Russian aggression following the invasion of Ukraine.

A complicated deployment

The path to actually getting these missiles on German soil has been anything but smooth. Earlier this year, Merz himself acknowledged that the US lacked sufficient Tomahawk stockpiles to fulfill the deployment, citing ongoing military commitments related to Ukraine and Iran that had stretched American inventories thin.

“The Americans don’t have enough for themselves right now,” Merz said at the time, noting there was “virtually no possibility” for near-term delivery.

Recent US moves had also complicated the picture. Washington reduced troop levels in Germany and cancelled the deployment of an intermediate-range missile unit, decisions that raised eyebrows in Berlin and fed into a broader narrative about American reliability as a security partner.

Merz has been careful to separate the missile decision from other friction points with Washington. He explicitly rejected any connection between the deployment timeline and his public criticism of US strategy in Iran, framing the missile issue as a purely security-driven calculation.