After a long delay, Germany’s parliament has been reported to have approved an advance payment for the acquisition of Israel’s sophisticated Arrow-3 air defence system in a deal worth almost four billion euros. The budget committee in the lower house of the German parliament gave the green light on yesterday for an initial payment of 560 million euros. If the deal goes ahead as planned, a contract will be signed by the end of 2023, and Berlin expects the Arrow-3 system to be delivered in the final quarter of 2025. The initial payment is intended to set up manufacturing and production in Israel. The announcement marks a major turnaround for Germany after years of under-investment in its armed forces and comes amid Russia’s war in Ukraine, which has exposed a shortage in Western nations of ground-based air defence systems to counter missile and drone attacks. Yesterday, Germany had also released a first-of-its-kind comprehensive national security strategy. Although Germany has had policy documents in the past covering security, it has never had a dedicated comprehensive strategy. Arrow 3 is an exo-atmospheric anti-ballistic missile defence system which means it is designed to intercept ballistic missiles outside of the earth’s atmosphere. It has been jointly developed and produced by Israel and the US for long-range threat engagements.

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