The potential purchase of the Typhon system bears parallels to the European missile crisis during the Cold War
Germany has asked to purchase Typhon medium-range missile launchers from the US amid tensions with Russia over Ukraine, Defense Minister Boris Pistorius has said. Typhon deployments would have been banned under the now-defunct 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF).
Pistorius confirmed on Monday that Berlin had sent Washington a formal request to buy the Typhon system, which can fire Tomahawk cruise missiles and SM-6 multi-role missiles. The Typhon has an operational range of around 2,000km and could reach targets far beyond Moscow if fired from German territory.
The system would fill a capability gap until European countries produce their own long-range missiles, which could take between seven to ten years, Pistorius said.
However, he acknowledged uncertainty over whether the US remains committed to deploying long-range missiles to Germany from 2026, under a plan first announced in 2024 by the administration of former President Joe Biden. “I am very confident that last year’s agreement is still valid, but we are still waiting for a final decision,” the minister said.
The announcement of the long-range missile deployment drew a sharp rebuke from Moscow, which warned that it would consider itself “free” from a unilateral moratorium on the deployment of similar missiles.
Potential deployment of Typhon launchers and other long-range assets bears certain parallels to the highly contentious decision by NATO to deploy Pershing II nuclear-capable missiles with a range of more than 2,000km in West Germany in the 1980s. The move sparked massive protests across Europe and a new spiral of tensions between the Soviet Union and the US, ultimately leading to a détente and the signing of the INF Treaty.
Typhon launcher deployments would have been banned under the INF Treaty, in which the Soviet Union and the US agreed to eliminate all ground-based missiles with ranges between 500 and 5,500km.
The pact collapsed in 2019 when Washington withdrew, citing Russian violations. Russia has denied the claims, accusing the US of developing the banned missiles. President Vladimir Putin has warned that the collapse of the INF will significantly erode the global security framework.
