German Chancellor Friedrich Merz newly announced Thursday that his government has struck a deal with the United States to buy American-made Tomahawk cruise missiles and station them in Germany.
"On the sidelines of the NATO summit in Ankara we also agreed with the American government that Tomahawk missiles would be purchased by us and stationed in Germany," Merz said. "With this we are closing an important strategic gap in our defense. And at the same time we will work on developing our own European systems and deploying them in Europe."
He announced this while informing parliament that the results of this week's NATO summit in Turkey "exceeded all of my expectations" - which he said bolstered the alliance as a "united, strong and self-confident" one.
Russia loomed large in the background of his speech, given he offered a final goal of moving toward "a future where our country is not susceptible to blackmail, but rather can confidently meet every threat posed to our free way of life using its own strength."
Germany makes its own cruise missiles, the Taurus, but their range of just over 300 miles is three to five times shorter than the Tomahawk.
With this deal, Berlin is seen as greatly bolstering its long-range strike abilities, at a moment this has also been a big focus in Ukraine, in terms of inflicting damage deep inside Russian territory.
When it comes to actual deep-strike deterrence, Washington has long had the biggest monopoly on long-range capabilities in comparison to European militaries and EU domestic production.
The operational range of a Tomahawk missile varies between about 800 to 1,700 miles, depending on the specific block variant and flight profile.
While the missile is relatively slow compared to more recent developments in missile technology, it is effective as it's able to fly so low, almost at tree line level, thus better evading radar.
"Operational missiles are launched by a solid-fueled booster rocket and carried to their target by a turbofan jet engine," one source reviews.
"The Tomahawk flies near the surface at 550 mph and uses satellite-assisted navigation and TERCOM (Terrain Contour Matching) radar to guide it to a target up to approximately 1,500 miles distant," the source notes. "It can carry either a conventional or a nuclear warhead."