The defence chief of Germany 's Bundeswehr , General Carsten Breuer, and the United Kingdom's chief of the defence staff, Air Chief Marshal Sir Richard Knighton, have jointly stated the case for rearming, amid the threat posed by Russia . The top military officials penned a joint letter, published in The Guardian and German newspaper  Welt , in which they said there was a "moral" case to be made for rearming. Breuer and Knighton said that they were speaking "not merely as the military leaders