Source: Pew Research Center

This past summer, refugee policy was once again at the top of Germany’s political agenda. Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government nearly collapsed in June when interior minister Horst Seehofer threatened to quit if stricter laws were not put into place restricting refugee arrivals. In the end, a compromise was reached that allowed Seehofer to stay in office: transit centers will be set up on the German-Austrian border to immediately return asylum seekers to the countries through which they first entered the EU. True, the compromise depends on as yet non-existent deals with Austria and Italy. But more importantly, it danced around an awkward fact: The number of arrivals is already below the levels Seehofer had previously insisted on. In fact, far fewer refugees are arriving in Europe in general; while the crisis cannot be said to have ended, the setting has changed.

According to Germany’s Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF), ­­­96,644 people applied for asylum for the first time in Germany from January to end of July 2018. At that rate, the figure for 2018 will be well below that for 2017, when there were 198,317 first-time applications. That was already a dramatic fall from 2016, when the corresponding figure was 722,370. Migrant arrivals are down for Europe as a whole too. The International Institute for Migration reports that 79,043 migrants have arrived this year through August 19th, compared with 186,768 in the year 2017.

In sum: Germany is on pace to stay well under the 220,000 limit for refugees that Seehofer has been demanding.

The epicenter of the refugee crisis continues to be outside the borders of Europe, in the countries directly neighboring Syria. According to Pew Research, there were 530,000 Syrian refugees in Germany in 2017 and 110,000 in Sweden; at the same time, there were 3.4 million Syrian refugees in Turkey, one million in Lebanon, 660,000 in Jordan, 250,000 in Iraq, and 130,000 in Egypt. There were also nearly six and a half million Syrians internally displaced within their own country. While incorporating hundreds of thousands of newcomers was a huge challenge for Germany, many of Syria’s neighbors had no real absorption capacity to begin with: neither Turkey nor Lebanon is as rich or stable as Europe’s biggest countries, and Iraq and Egypt are both in more or less perpetual crisis.

A UNHCR update issued in June reported that 85 percent of Syrian refugees in Jordan live below the poverty line, as do over 75 percent of Syrian refugees in Lebanon; and according to a UNICEF report issued in January, 67 percent of Syrian refugees live below the poverty line in Turkey. Even maintaining these meager conditions hasn’t been cheap: The Turkish government says that it has spent $30 billion building up support capacities, and the Lebanese government $20 billion.

Since the beginning of the crisis, European policymakers have called for addressing the “push factors” encouraging emigration—meaning that even as European governments take steps to limit the ability of refugees to enter their countries, they should also be making it easier for refugees to stay in their own (or as close as possible). Yet the funding needs of these destination countries are going largely unmet: Turkey has complained that the EU has not provided the €3 billion it promised as part of a 2016 deal to limit the number of refugees arriving in Greece. And a conference hosted by the EU in April and co-chaired by the UN secured promises for only $4.4 billion in aid, far short of the $6 billion UN High Commissioner for Refugees Amin Awad said would be necessary to avert a second wave of mass migration to Europe.

At this point, Seehofer’s insistence on stricter border measures in Bavaria seems like a solution in search of a problem; but if his gambit makes it more difficult for the EU to provide relief to refugees where they are, he may have provided the problem as well.

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© REUTERS/Ralph Orlowski

“Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose,” goes the French saying: the more things change, the more they stay the same. Anyone looking at the current debate on Germany security and defense policy would come to a similar conclusion. While Germany’s security environment has fundamentally changed over the past years, the main features of German security policy have not. On the decisive questions, the German debate is going in circles.

At first glance, this diagnosis may be irritating. After all, for years Germany’s partners had urged the country to get more involved in security policy, and in early 2014 their efforts paid off. At that year’s Munich Security Conference, the new grand coalition and the federal President sent out a clear signal: Germany’s participation had to “come earlier, be more decisive, and be more substantial” in order to maintain and shape international security. “Assuming more international responsibility” was also supposed to mean a German defense policy that was more effective and more capable of action.

And indeed, the promises of reorientation proved to be more than warm words. In reaction to Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea and the hybrid war Russia launched in eastern Ukraine, Germany showed great commitment. In the wake of Russian aggression, the German republic took on, for the first time in a post-war security crisis, the diplomatic leadership of the West. At the same time, it confirmed its dedication to NATO. The rise of Islamic terror in the Middle East and Africa also brought resolute action. In 2014, the German government was prepared, without great debate, to support the Kurdish Peshmerga with weapons and ammunition for their fight against the Islamic State. In doing so it said goodbye to the decades-old principle of not delivering weapons to warzones.

After the terror attacks in Paris in November 2015 and France’s activation of the EU’s mutual defense clause, the German government took less than a week to secure parliament’s approval to take action. It made available up to 1,200 soldiers, six Tornado jets for reconnaissance, and a German frigate. And within the framework of the UN’s MINUSMA Stabilization Mission in Mali, Berlin expanded the previous German engagement into the north of the country, thereby taking on a bigger security policy risk than in any previous Bundeswehr training and observation mission in Africa.

This gradual increase in engagement did not, however, suddenly catapult the Bundeswehr into the top league of European military powers occupied by France and Britain. For it immediately became clear just how quickly the Bundeswehr, because of serious deficiencies in its equipment, reached the limits of its ability to deploy and operate. Sending reconnaissance planes to Syria showed that the government continued to feel more comfortable photographing enemy positions than launching air strikes. That was a job for the friends and partners. Moreover, the new German security policy was primarily reactive and often the result of an external logic of necessity. As in the past, the government never tired, in every new crisis, of emphasizing that there was “no military solution.”

Never Again “Free Riders?”

Nevertheless, Germany’s allies welcomed Germany’s greater engagement, taking it as a sign of an increased political will to militarily bear a level of responsibility for world peace and international security commensurate to Germany’s position as the biggest and most powerful country in Europe, a burden consistent with the benefits (not least economic) that the Federal Republic has received from the military operations of other countries in the past.

It seemed as if Germany—if only hesitantly and well below its defense policy potential—had begun to develop a new understanding of itself. Slowly but definitively, it was saying goodbye to its role as a “free rider” and “net importer” of security. Germany even came to the unpleasant realization that the Bundeswehr’s equipment problems couldn’t be solved through “pooling and sharing” with partners alone. After years of cuts and stagnation, in 2016 the grand coalition signaled a turnaround in defense spending.

However, by the time the campaign for the 2017 federal elections began, if not earlier, it was evident that the incipient security policy adjustment process was already over. At least that’s what current developments suggest.

Although the numerous crises in Germany’s neighborhood had dominated German security and defense policy for years and even, with the refugee crisis of 2015, made their way into German gyms and schools, the reassertion or even rediscovery of Germany’s security policy aspirations played almost no role in the 2017 campaign. Instead the debate was reduced to a competition over which German party could most forcefully stand up for peace and “against armament.” Apart from that, the country cast its gaze inwards. No matter how often the US president used Twitter to question NATO, the backbone of German security and defense policy; no matter how often Vladimir Putin tried to reinstate the foreign policy rules of the 19th century; no matter how much the liberal international order on which Germany depends teetered and tottered: in the Federal Republic people put up campaign posters saying “Kindergartens, not tanks.”

Rather than discussing how and at what price Europeans could provide their own security in the future if the United States was no longer fully available as the continent’s guarantor, Germans focused on the supposed “Trump edict” that NATO members must spend 2 percent of their GDP on defense. No one wanted an objective analysis of the new threat environment and the new tasks it required of Germany’s armed forces. Little attention was paid to the Bundeswehr’s miserable equipment and catastrophic administrative failures, or to the defense spending commitments that the grand coalition had made to allies at the 2014 NATO Summit in Wales.

Pacifism as a Campaign Strategy

Motivated by ever worsening polls, the Social Democrats were the quickest to identify pacifism as a campaign issue with which they could distinguish themselves from the conservative Union. With this in mind, the SPD candidate for chancellor, Martin Schulz, rejected a “logic of armament demanded by the United States.” And Sigmar Gabriel, at the time the German Foreign Minister, wrote an article in the Rheinische Post with the title “Weapons Don’t Create Security.” Germany had to “remain a power for peace, not become a military arms machine.” It was necessary to “stand against any subjugation to the militarization of foreign policy led by Donald Trump.” The Greens and the Left party, too, rejected the NATO 2 percent goal or indeed any spending increase for the Bundeswehr.

This controversy over the defense budget was no campaign-related flash in the pan. No, it endured and found its way into the third iteration of the grand coalition and its budget negotiations. But instead of using the opportunity to have a sensible, wide-ranging argument about which security policy goals Germany should pursue in light of the new threats, about which commitments it has already made and which resources it needs to make available, German politicians these days prefer to fight against the “arms race in the defense budget” (SPD leader Andrea Nahles). It feels as if they are dragging the German debate 20 years into the past.

Yet now is the time to present to the German public what it means for security and defense policy if—as the chancellor says—“the times in which we could completely rely on others” are “somewhat over”, and “we Europeans have to take our fate in our own hands.” Yet the Bundeswehr cannot even meet the demands currently made of it. Since the Chancellor made her “beer tent speech” at Trudering, where she made those comments about Europe’s need to defend itself, no one has heard anything concrete from her office apart from a reference to progress in the area of Europe’s Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP).

France’s Frustration

It is not just the vexing debate about money that shows that the new German policy regarding security and responsibility is again—or rather still—dominated by old reflexes. In the area of CSDP in particular, the government has recently pushed forward with a number of initiatives. But at the same time, these demonstrate that Germany is focusing less on defense as such and more on EU integration. Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO) is a good example of this: France wanted to raise Europe’s strike power; the goal was greater strategic autonomy. Germany wanted to get as many member-states on board as possible and to create connecting structures and processes. Thus for Germany, to France’s frustration, operational ambitions were secondary. It was only with great hesitation that the German government joined the French-initiated European Intervention Initiative.

That the Germans have an inconsistent relationship to using the military as a political tool became clear again earlier this year. When the Assad Regime once more turned to poison gas as a weapon, the United States, Britain, and France responded with airstrikes. Without even being asked to participate in the bombing, the German government ruled out any involvement in the military operation. Yet at the same time, the chancellor explained “everything possible is being done in order to demonstrate that the use of chemical weapons is unacceptable,” and guaranteed to Germany’s allies her government’s full solidarity.

This all illustrates how much the Federal Republic continues to struggle to find its way in a world that no longer plays by the rules of the 1990s, in which power is replacing international law, and conflicts are once more being resolved more violently. To limit the German contribution to international politics to “diplomacy, humanitarian aid, and development cooperation” (Martin Schulz’s Twitter suggestion of July 13) is not at all a convincing strategy given the world situation.

Watershed Moments

If the world gets the impression that Germany, in security policy terms, would rather go backwards than take the next step forward—for example if a lack of funding forces the cancellation of already agreed joint armament projects with France and Norway, or the reversal of commitments made to EU and NATO partners—Berlin risks losing an immense of amount of trustworthiness and credibility.

Allies and partners have been burned before regarding predictability and reliability. The 2014 “Munich consensus,” the reorientation of security and defense policy, was not the federal government’s first attempt to adapt Germany’s understanding of its role to the new political conditions. Germany already had a watershed moment once before, when it took part in NATO operations during the war in Kosovo and in Afghanistan after the terror attacks of September 11, 2001. Back then the government was already invoking its duty to take on more responsibility. In 2001 Chancellor Gerhard Schröder declared in the Bundestag: “the readiness to use military means to provide security is an important commitment to Germany’s allies and partners. But it’s more than that: the readiness to live up to our increased responsibility for international security also means a more developed self-understanding of German foreign policy.”

But those words were followed by Germany’s unilateral “No” to the Iraq war; the rebirth of a “culture of military restraint” (Guido Westerwelle); and an abstention in the UN Security Council when it came time to vote on whether to live up to the “responsibility to protect” in Libya, paired with a total rejection of any German participation in the following NATO military intervention. However justified any of these individual decisions may have been, the allies got the impression that the primary motivation for the Germans was to win elections and avoid alienating the voting public.

Where is the Strategic Debate?

A sustainable adjustment of the German strategic culture to political reality will be imposible until decisive questions are openly discussed and honestly answered by politicians. Such a strategic debate, one that doesn’t avoid uncomfortable questions, has not so far taken place, at least not beyond a few circles of experts. There is still nothing like a common understanding of what “new responsibility” is supposed to mean in concrete terms for Germany’s security policy ambitions, not among politicians and their parties, nor among the ministers, and certainly not among the wider public.

That is why self-descriptions like “supportive power” (Anlehnungsmacht), “shaping power” (Gestaltungsmacht), or “reflective power” (nachdenkliche Macht) are mainly feel-good terms without substance. They will remain so as long as it remains unclear what Germany would like to use its military power for. Anyone who argues that this question was cleared up by the Defense Ministry’s 2016 White Paper or the July 2018 “Bundeswehr Concept” has clearly forgotten to tell the relevant politicians and the public. A gap still gapes between which security policy actions Germany finds necessary and supports (not infrequently the military engagement of friends and partners) and what we Germans are prepared to do ourselves. We have to talk about this.

This summer again, the Federal Republic has ignored this discussion in favor of phony debates about the reintroduction of mandatory military service or a German nuclear bomb. The former debate was above all about how great it would be if every German made a contribution to society, while no attention was paid to whether mandatory service is necessary or evven sensible in terms of security. And as important as it is to talk about a German nuclear strategy, it would be better for people to talk about what’s on the agenda for this legislative period: Germany’s nuclear participation in NATO. After all, the outdated German Tornados, which Berlin keeps ready to transport American nuclear weapons, will be taken out of service in 2025. Meanwhile the plane foreseen as their successor, the Eurofighter, is not yet nuclear-capable, and the fighter jet Germany is planning to build with France won’t be ready until at least 2040. There’s plenty of material for an honest discussion about Germany’s position on nuclear weapons—if we actually wanted to have it.

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© REUTERS/Michaela Rehle

The Bundeswehr today needs three key things: will, money, and plenty of patience. For far too long, Germany’s armed forces have been impaired by a severe mismatch of threat assessments, military objectives, and deployed resources. Some of the choices made have strayed too far off course to be easily corrected. Now, however, the Bundeswehr has finally been given a military and political roadmap that can guide it over the next 10 to 15 years. The defense ministry’s July 2016 White Paper on German Security Policy and the Future of the Bundeswehr, and the ensuing Bundeswehr Concept paper, lay out a strategy for building a military that can, together with France and the UK, form the central pillars of European defense in NATO and the EU.

The White Paper points to a broad array of challenges that German security and defense policymakers will have to face. They range from transnational terrorism to cyber threats and inter-state conflicts; from the dangers of fragile statehood to the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction; and from threats to supply and trade lines to migration and pandemics. The Bundeswehr, as a central instrument of Germany’s security policy, can play a role on all these fronts. The threats do vary significantly in intensity, and the White Paper suggests focusing on the more present risk of inter-state warfare.

Two central concepts that emerge from the threat analysis warrant more attention. First, Russia is no longer Germany’s or Europe’s strategic partner. Instead, in this context, the country has started to act more as a rival or strategic challenger to European security. A military conflict with Russia—limited in time and physical space, but nonetheless highly intensive—is quite possible, and that highlights the crucial importance of both a strong national defense and international security alliances. Second, as the threats that German security faces have grown more complex, they have also become more unpredictable. Ironically, unpredictability has become one of the few constants in global security in recent years.

These two underlying issues have shaped resolutions and communiqués at every NATO summit since 2014, including the stormy 2018 gathering. They are also reflected in the EU’s Global Strategy, which was adopted in 2016, and the EU’s revised capability planning.

Adapting to Changing Demands

The Bundeswehr Concept argues that the German armed forces must be able to “adapt at any time to changing demands.” To do so, they must “have the skills and qualities necessary to fully perform the most demanding tasks in the required response time and time constraints.” This, in turn, is only possible if the forces are fully equipped and trained: “The basic structure of the Bundeswehr … [demands] that the material equipment required for the respective exercises be immediately availabe… to all military units.”

The paper thus reinforces a basic tenet in security policy: defense planning should never stray so far off course that the military is rendered unable to respond to changes in the security environment. This doctrine appears to have been neglected by defense ministers from both Chancellor Angela Merkel’s own conservative CDU party and the SPD, her junior coalition partner.

But according to the paper, even if the Bundeswehr’s domestic duties—crisis management and subsidiary assistance—have until now been on equal footing with its national and international defense duties, the latter should become a fundamental priority and shape the armed forces in the future.

The consequences of this insight are not to be underestimated: the Bundeswehr Concept paper sets a path forward that marks a clear departure from the flawed approaches that have eroded capability. If this new strategy is to be taken seriously, it means 100 percent equipment readiness, all the time. Indeed, the defense ministry’s March 2018 report on armament states: “[…] the task requires a rapid response capability that does not allow for any gaps in the equipment of our groups and units.”

“Significant Need for Change”

The Bundeswehr’s yawning gaps in equipment and training, its struggles to build mission-ready units, and its inability to recruit and retain enough personnel have all been well-documented by the media and widely debated by politicians. Lieutenant General Erhard Bühler, Director General for Planning in the defense ministry, noted the “significant need for change” in all capacity-related areas.

To correct course, the government has closely linked its national targets to NATO’s defense planning process. Germany continues to be under considerable pressure in the Atlantic alliance. It is one of the few European countries which could boost overall NATO capability through a substantial improvement of its own capabilities. At a 2017 conference, a high-ranking officer of a large NATO member state presented 22 areas where greater efforts by European allies would be desirable. In 20 of these 22 fields, Germany was listed as one of the possible service providers.

Some of Germany’s plans to increase capability are known—like the goal to build up the army by 2032 so that three divisions consisting of a total of eight to ten fully operational armored combat brigades will able to be activated for alliance defense within a maximum of 90 days. At the moment, the Bundeswehr can offer only two divisions with six brigades. In order for Germany to carry out the leadership functions it pledged to NATO in the Very High Readiness Joint Task Force and the NATO Response Force, the existing structures have to be modernized immediately and will continue to be modernized into the first half of the coming decade.

Too Few Planes

There is less need for the navy to overhaul its basic structure; instead, the navy must ensure that the 15 ships and boats planned for combat are ready for missions above and below water, and that aging ships are replaced with new ones. The same cannot be said for the Luftwaffe, however. In line with its future leadership functions in NATO, Germany’s air force is expected to lead a multinational group that flies 350 combat missions a day, of which Germany would assume responsibility for 260.

The number of combat missions that one aircraft can perform on a single day depends on a variety of parameters. However, the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) evaluated combat missions over the past 25 years and found that once an operation extends beyond seven days, it becomes very difficult to maintain a rate of more than 1.5 missions per day per aircraft.

That would mean that the Luftwaffe would have to provide more than 170 aircraft to meet the target. Yet at the moment, the reality looks very different. According to the “Report on the material operational readiness of the Bundeswehr’s main weapon systems” released in February, an average of 39 eurofighters (out of approximately 130) and 26 tornado jets (of approximately 90) were actually available.

Funding Needs

The Bundeswehr, like other armed forces in Europe, needs significant funding, especially if Germany is to become the backbone of European security. First, the Bundeswehr must rebuild its operational readiness. This will require, among other things, more money for spare parts, maintenance, training, and logistics. Secondly, essential weapons systems must be modernized, i.e. replaced with new systems, across all branches. And thirdly, the Bundeswehr needs more personnel.

In 2016, Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen estimated that the Bundeswehr would require 130 billion euros in investment through the year 2030 to reach its goals. But in 2017, the German defense ministry only invested around €5.25 billion, as measured according to the standard international definition of defense investment (the cost of procurement plus research, development, and testing). It is obvious that the Bundeswehr can’t live up to its own claim to action at this slow pace.

And a closer look at the numbers reveals a clear trend: Germany does not spend enough money on defense when it comes to the tasks and skills required. At the start of the financial crisis in 2008, Germany was spending around 1.14 percent of GDP on defense; ten years later, in 2017, it spent 37 billion euros, or 1.13 percent of GDP. Adjusted for inflation, defense spending in 2017 was ten percent higher than in 2008. Yet when we consider that defense inflation is generally much higher than for the economy as a whole, the effect is likely to be negative, according to calculations from Military Balance +, an IISS online database.

Deutsche Bank Research has calculated that Germany would have to spend around €80.5 billion on defense in 2024 if the German government wanted to implement NATO’s two percent target, which it pledged to reach at the 2014 Wales Summit. This would require an annual defense budget increase of about 12 percent. The government has only been able to produce that kind of spending in selected years, as the latest budgetary plan for 2018 and 2019 have indicated.

Above all, it is imperative that all the substantial efforts the government and defense ministry are undertaking in rebuilding the Bundeswehr are based solely upon the assessment of the threat and Germany’s own will to act. It should not be about blindly fulfilling demands from US President Donald Trump for “more money,” nor should it be about upgrading equipment without a purpose. The Bundeswehr is well on its way to restoring full operational readiness. It is a long and expensive path, but it is necessary.

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© REUTERS/Sabine Siebold

It’s a curious thing that after 28 years of foreign missions in the Bundeswehr, it’s still difficult to establish a clear account of its successes and failures. For one, the Bundeswehr’s foreign missions have varied widely in nature, from deploying medics to Cambodia (1992) to operations in Afghanistan, where the troops (or parts of the forces) are fighting and have consequently also had to kill. Assessing military operations is also a difficult task because the government hasn’t published any official criteria for how the public should do so.

But it’s important to take a closer look at these missions on at least three levels: political, societal, and military. And on these fronts, the record of German overseas missions is mixed. For years politicians were under illusions about which political goals Bundeswehr deployment could accomplish, and strategic communication to both the troops and to German society was inadequate. Meanwhile large sections of society rejected most of the missions. However, this rejection of foreign missions shouldn’t be seen as an expression of a pacifism that is deeply ingrained in Germany, but rather as a sign of a larger political failure to communicate the meaningfulness of “out of area” deployments to the general public. In military terms, on the other hand, the Bundeswehr has “matured” through various missions abroad and is today in a position to act on equal footing with its large NATO partners across the entire range of defense tasks.

The Political Perspective

The political objectives underpinning Germany’s missions abroad often have often emerged from liberal illusions long in vogue in the Western world. In Bosnia, Kosovo, and Afghanistan, for example, the Western aim was to stabilize and democratize states because of the mistaken belief that only democracy, a free market economy, and rule of law could prevent a repetition of the barbaric events that had necessitated military intervention in the first place.

But it hasn’t been possible to install stable democracies in Bosnia-Herzegovina or Kosovo, and certainly not in Afghanistan. While there are no longer battles between the former civil war combatants in either Bosnia or Kosovo, both countries have struggled to build stable state entities, and tensions between the different ethnic groups remain high—less so in Kosovo, which is ethnically an almost homogenous state. In Afghanistan, even after 17 years of NATO and US military presence, fighting between the Taliban and the central government has escalated once again. The central government is comprised of corrupt politicians more concerned with stuffing their own pockets than taking care of the country’s economic development. If the aim of foreign missions in these countries was democracy-building, it has not been achieved.
In Germany, meanwhile, the governing center-right CDU and center-left SPD have always ensured that the parliamentary mandate required to greenlight Bundeswehr missions has passed with votes from both parties, and with a large parliamentary majority. In this way, lawmakers have signaled to society, but more importantly to German soldiers, that the missions have broad support and are clearly democratically legitimate.

Parliamentary consent hasn’t been much of a problem for German security and defense policy so far. All partners and allies know that the country is rarely involved in military operations on day one. As such, demands from security experts to change the parliamentary reservation, as the mandate is called, isn’t a big political issue. Over the last twenty years, the Bundestag has given neither the Bundeswehr nor its partners and allies any reason to doubt the reliability of the government’s commitments. From this perspective, Germany has “matured” with the Bundeswehr missions abroad. And although some mandates have and will struggle for political support, there has never been any majority opposition to their adoption.

This does not, however, mean there is no need to reform the parliamentary reservation in the future. The more the Bundeswehr gets involved in multinational units, the more difficult it will be to wait for a decision from the Bundestag, especially when the other nations already have deployment orders in their pocket. Berlin acknowledged this problem in the most recent legislative period, but there’s still uncertainty about the future involvement of German troops in multinational units because the possibility exists that the Bundestag could fail to approve the mission.

The Societal Balance

The assumption that strong parliamentary support for a Bundeswehr deployment will automatically translate into broad societal support has proven to be false. A majority of the German population still opposes the Bundeswehr’s foreign missions. In fact, surveys have revealed that the further away a deployment is located, the more strongly it is rejected by broad sections of society. And the more intensively the Bundeswehr is involved in combat operations, the more difficult it is for political actors to communicate these missions to the general public.

This is not solely because German society is deeply pacifist, or that Germany is a “post-heroic society” (Herfried Münkler), but rather because large parts of the German population don’t feel threatened or affected by conflicts in far-away countries. But when there are crises nearby, like when half a million Bosnian refugees fled their country between 1992 to 1994, German society has been willing to support the deployment of the Bundeswehr to these conflict regions.

In order to gain social support, German politicians have often used black-and-white arguments. The Bundeswehr was to take the field against opponents who represented absolute evil—Hitler-like characters (for example, the “Balkan-Hitler” Slobodan Milosevic) who operate with Nazi-like methods (“The Ramp of Pristina”). But this line of reasoning is flawed because it eliminates from the outset the possibility of peace by negotiation: You cannot negotiate with absolute evil; you can only destroy it. Moreover, in these crisis areas reality often doesn’t correspond to neat black-and-white narratives, and this will soon become clear to German society. Seldom does good fight against evil. In most cases, the difficult choice is between bad and worse.

Another communication mistake was to justify (nearly) all of the Bundeswehr’s foreign missions on purely humanitarian grounds. This gave rise to the general impression that German soldiers—to be slightly hyperbolic—are basically bridge-builders with assault rifles slung over their shoulders primarily as decoration. But as the situation in Afghanistan escalated and German troops became increasingly involved in combat operations where German soldiers also died (for example, in the “Good Friday Fight” in 2010 in the Kunduz Province), this naive impression quickly turned to outrage among the German population.
Politicians were only partially able to adapt their rhetoric to reality. Instead of clear language appropriate to the conditions on the ground, the then-defense minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg spoke of “war-like conditions.” Although this may have been appropriate under international law, it didn’t conform to the general perception in German society, and certainly not to that of the soldiers in combat.

The Military View

In contrast to the political and social records, in military terms, Germany’s foreign missions have been a success. Germany’s armed forces have matured through the diverse operations and developed into a highly valued partner to allies. Certainly, the path there was stony and difficult. But on the whole, the Bundeswehr is now able to operate across the entire spectrum of capabilities due to the experience it has gained on the ground.

This progress comes in spite of twenty years of poor management that resulted in insufficient equipment for troops, arms procurement procedures that resembled a system of organized irresponsibility, and overly bureaucratic procedures in the defense ministry as well as among the forces that made it nearly impossible to respond quickly and effectively to the needs of soldiers in the field. All of these past structural failures generated the impression that the Bundeswehr was not on equal footing with its partners and allies in action.

Nevertheless, in the past thirty years, the Bundeswehr has been asked to serve as a partner in almost every operation. The foreign missions have not only helped to modernize the Bundeswehr, but have also made it more professional. The experiences gained in the areas of deployment flowed directly into the training of the soldiers (for example with weapons training), which has in turn further prepared the troops for possible future assignments. Despite a lack of equipment, they have served in a highly professional manner. The record on the military level is therefore much more positive than on the political and societal levels.
The Germany military’s growing-up process was characterized by the aforementioned flaws in development as well as wrong decisions. Despite all of the shortcomings that still exist today (especially in terms of equipment), it’s clear in retrospect that the Bundeswehr has coped with its tasks and—despite some adverse circumstances—mastered them. That is above all thanks to the soldiers on duty who have completed their missions despite those difficult conditions.

However, a lack of societal support for missions and a broader lack of political aims—or real criteria for measuring the relative success or failure of foreign missions—remain a challenge. Here it is the responsibility of the political sphere to ensure better security policy communication going forward. It’s not an easy task, but avoiding it will prove even harder.

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© REUTERS/Gonzalo Fuentes

When the German president, foreign minister, and defense minister gave speeches at the 2014 Munich Security conference—speeches now recognized as watershed moments in Germany security policy—hope began to blossom in France. Would German defense and security policy finally become “normal?” Many viewed the now widely cited speeches as the beginning of a process in which the Germans would have overcome their “culture of restraint” and establish themselves as a full-fledged defense and security ally. For some, it was also implicitly clear that a normalization of Berlin’s strategic defense culture would automatically mean more convergence with the French position. Of course, the French recognized that Germany would still need a bit more time, but they felt that France would soon get the partner it had desired for so long, who shared its ambitions and energetically supported them.

Four years later, it is clear that this is not the case. This realization has not triggered any great debates—if anything, it has brought resignation. France is looking around for an alternative to Germany, but replacements are hard to find. Of course, this is not the official version of events. Statements from the Franco-German Council of Ministers and other bilaterals continue to praise the outstanding, close cooperation between the two countries. But despite France’s understanding for the historical reasons behind Germany’s aversion to militarization, the prevailing feelings are frustration and impatience, as recently demonstrated by the disagreements regarding PESCO and the European Intervention Initiative. In both cases, Germany had little interest in ensuring that Europe could quickly and effectively intervene militarily.

In short: France feels abandoned by Germany in security and defense policy. And that despite immense challenges in the south. While Paris had made the fight against terrorism and instability (above all in Africa) a top priority even before the terrorist attacks in November 2015, the same wasn’t true for Berlin. True, Germany is also present in Mali in the context of UN and EU missions. However, behind the scenes in Paris, the French often complain that they must bear the brunt of stabilizing the Sahel region, which is one of the biggest challenges Europe faces. The situation was similar in 2011, when Germany abstained in the UN Security Council on the decisive resolution for intervention in Libya.

Pacifism or Naïveté?

The accusation that Germany is not engaging enough is a recurrent theme. German caution when it comes to military missions abroad is not seen as an expression of pacifism, but of naïveté and often as a lack of solidarity. At the same time, not everyone in France takes seriously the security and defense activities that Germany is engaged in. Critics complaint that the German preference for civilian crisis management is simply a tactic that lets them avoid the “hard” military tasks. And Germany’s involvement in collective alliance defense, primarily as a framework nation in the Enhanced Forward Presence of NATO, is sometimes seen an evasive maneuver in the face of—at least as some see it—a non-existent Russian threat: thanks to its role in Lithuania, critics say Berlin can show commitment without German soldiers needing to risk their lives in the actually dangerous operations in the south.

However, French discontent is not always about whether soldiers in the Bundeswehr are involved in combat missions. The impression that Germany is not a reliable defense partner in Germany has its roots in, for example, the (not entirely unjustified) concern that shared capabilities might not be available in an emergency because the Germans have no parliamentary mandate for deployment. After all, France still remembers the highly critical stance Germany took towards nuclear weapons during Guido Westerwelle’s tenure as foreign minister (2009-2013). In a country whose security identity is based in no small measure on its status as a nuclear power, Germany’s position under Westerwelle was a source of embitterment. While the German attitude on nuclear weapons certainly has evolved since then, news of this change has not yet arrived everywhere in France.

Lacking a Strategic Culture

The fact that French strategic culture cannot simply be transferred to Germany is a fact acknowledged on both sides of the Rhine. The French frustration does not necessarily stem from the fact that Germany is different. Rather, it is ultimately the lack of a strong strategic culture in Germany and the low attention paid to defense issues in the German debate that bothers the French. Occasionally, Paris gets the feeling that Berlin has not recognized the seriousness of the current situation. Germany cannot hide behind its history indefinitely, but must instead learn to think strategically and geopolitically.

Even the institutional and constitutional framework of German defense policy is sometimes considered problematic, the parliamentary reservation being the biggest nuisance. It is true that Germany and France could hardly be more different in terms of how military operations are approved.

For example, the French President is empowered by the Constitution to order air strikes. He and must simply inform the Assemblée Nationale after the fact. In comparison, the German procedure appears both unwieldy and laborious. French experts followed with the great interest the work of the Rühe Commission, a 2015 Commission on the German parliament’s rights in troop deployment to foreign missions led by former defense minister Volker Rühe. Accordingly, they were greatly disappointed when its not-especially-ambitious recommendations failed to be implemented.

Incomprehension and Discontent

The French approach of concentrating power in the executive, however, also leads to misunderstandings—less so in diplomatic circles than in the wider public. For example, many people were convinced that, when Emmanuel Macron took office, all he had to do to persuade Merkel of the need for a more ambitious defense policy was show some French élan. But these hopes were dashed by Germany’s cautious reaction to Macron’s European Intervention Initiative, if not earlier. It is not clear to everyone in France that the German chancellor’s influence on defense policy, however powerful a leader he or she may be, cannot be compared to that of a French President. This also reveals that the French don’t always understand the strong role of the Bundestag.

Last but not least, the French often underestimate the importance of public opinion in German security and defense policy. Public opinion is important in part because Germany gives the parliament more control of defense policy, but also because defense policy —including foreign missions—generally doesn’t give rise to much controversy in France.

The cultural difference is particularly clear on a question that is a traditional stumbling block in the Franco-German relationship, one that will be increasingly important in light of new joint projects: armaments exports. Berlin’s strict interpretation of rules and regulations is a thorn in Paris’ side, and the German government’s announcement that it wants to be even more stringent in approving arms exports caused incomprehension and genuine discontent in Paris. As the two countries have loudly announced a number of joint projects (drones, tanks, combat aircrafts), there is great concern that the economically necessary export of jointly developed and built armaments could ultimately run into a Berlin blockade.

No Solution for France’s Problems

Franco-German cooperation on armaments exports is a good example of the symbolic dimension of the bilateral relationship. Relations between the two countries have immense political significance, especially for Paris under President Macron. From a purely defense-policy perspective, however, Berlin was never the most desired partner. The United Kingdom appeared much more interesting: it is also a nuclear power and, thanks to a strategic culture similar to France’s, much less intervention-averse than Germany. Consequently, defense cooperation between Paris and London has always been more ambitious than between Paris and Berlin, as illustrated particularly well by the 2010 Lancaster House treaties for bilateral cooperation.

As a result of Brexit and the election of Macron, Germany has now moved into the foreground again—but not everyone in defense circles is happy about that. For example, some people would have preferred to see the successor to the Dassault Rafale fighter aircrafts emerge from Franco-British cooperation, rather than from cooperation with Germany. The announced armaments projects are therefore also a symbol that EU politicians can win some battles against parts of the defense establishment.

All of this, however, cannot hide the fact that the greatest French problem remains unaddressed: at a time when its own forces are massively overburdened, Paris is greatly reliant on its partners. Yet Germany still is not ready to play the role France wants it to.

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© REUTERS/Oleg Popov

Should, could, would Germany lead European defense? Should, could, and would are words that President Trump has explored to the full of late. In the aftermath of the Brussels NATO Summit and President Trump’s acerbic assertiveness, they are also words that Germans must consider. There can be no credible European defense without a strong German role. However, if Berlin is to play a leadership role, possibly via a European Defense Union, contemporary Germany is going to have to face tough political choices.

Much of the German debate of late has been focused on the NATO Defense Investment Pledge, where the allies committed to spending two percent of GDP on defense by 2024, of which 20 percent each year should be spent on new equipment. Chancellor Angela Merkel signed up to the pledge, albeit with the caveat that Germany would aim to meet the target. But due to domestic pressures, it has been backtracking ever since. It is not hard to see why. If Germany spent two percent GDP on defense, Berlin would be spending some €60 billion each year, more than either Britain or France. Now, many of Germany’s friends have little problem with that, this one included. Germany is today a model democracy and Britain would be encouraged to see Berlin meet the Defense Investment Pledge. But Germans?

German Macht

NATO must and will remain the cornerstone of Europe’s defense. The EU offers the organization and means to deliver a new defense that combines enhanced European efficiency and effectiveness with embedded legitimacy for German leadership. For all President Trump’s theatrics, he reveals an essential truth about transatlantic burden-sharing: American forces are being stretched ever more thinly the world over. Therefore, American support for the continued defense of Europe will demand a much greater effort from Europeans, with Germany, Britain, and France to the fore.

During the Cold War, the Bundeswehr provided the largest land force for the defense of Europe, so the current debate over Germany’s role is not new. In the early 1950s, the first attempt at a European defense union, the European Defense Community, foundered because neither Britain nor France were willing to subsume their centuries-old martial identities in a European Army. As Brexit is demonstrating, and quite possibly President Emmanuel Macron will as well, Europe’s two major military powers continue to remain resistant to “federalist” European defense ambitions. A European Army would require a European government.

Therefore, the re-forging of European defense that is desperately needed is far more likely to be cast around a collective than a common European model, hence President Macron’s European Intervention Initiative.

Germany’s Growing Role

Germany is already heading up the defense of Europe, taking the lead role in the development of the Framework Nation Concept with the new Joint Support and Enabling Command based in Ulm. Such initiatives are vital if the future land and air components of NATO collective defense and deterrence are to be underwritten by military capability and capacity. Germany is also underpinning many of the EU’s 34 Permanent Structured Co-operation (PESCO) projects with its impressive defense, technological, and industrial base (DTIB).

And Germany is pushing hard to re-establish hardened and resilient infrastructures across the new cyber defense spectrum. Efforts to make German and wider European society more resilient to cyber-attacks are a vital component of 21st century European defense. However, it is the move towards ensuring that civilian ports, roads, and railways are compatible with rapid military mobility in the event of an emergency that is perhaps the most pressing need, and where Germany could, should, and would need to lead most effectively over the short to medium term. Certainly, the Bundeswehr has established a strong reputation as a well-qualified, technically-trained, and democratically-accountable and responsible force, but there remains much to do.

Critically, German political rhetoric needs to be better aligned with Bundeswehr reality. The force and its tasks do not match. The German Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen recently announced a new strategy to improve personnel, material, and budget but Germany is a (very) long way off from realizing such a vision. To be fair, Britain is faring little better, as is clear from the unimpressive and recently-announced Defense Modernization Program, and the likely delays/reductions to the new Type 31E frigate (‘E’ stands for “empty”?). It is also questionable whether, but for some clever accounting, the UK actually meets NATO’s two percent benchmark. Still, Britain’s travails only increase the need for a shared, collective effort with Germany.

The roadblock for Berlin is the lack of a comprehensive political strategy in which enhanced German military power could be properly embedded. Such a strategy would fail if it tried to present Russia as the justifying factor, even though in many ways it clearly is. Instead, it needs to emerge from a political debate on the requirement to participate in high-end stabilization missions, such as preventing the use of chemical weapons by regimes like Syria’s, or fighting Jihadi terrorists.

As for Brexit and its effects on common defense, the German government confirmed recently that, “Independent of the effects of Brexit, Great Britain remains a strong partner and ally in NATO and also bilaterally.” But what does that mean in practice? The Royal Navy’s new carrier strike group and “Astute” class nuclear attack submarines will, alongside French capabilities, form the core of future European maritime/amphibious coalitions. The German navy must be capable of helping to provide force protection and be adequately equipped for the task. Berlin also needs to move quickly to ensure continued and equal UK access to the Galileo satellite navigation project. It is vital that both countries agree on sharing intelligence efforts as part of a new EU-UK security treaty as well. By doing so, Berlin would help tie Britain into the defense of Europe and give real meaning to the vital British-German “Joint Vision.” This would, in turn, strengthen cooperation for instance in the area of land systems such as the Mechanized Infantry Vehicle Program.

How Can Germany Lead?

Above all, for Germany to lead European defense, actions and words should meet—so how best to proceed? For the sake of European stability, the allies should accept that Germany should not spend more on defense than either Britain or France and thus commit to 1.5 percent GDP spent annually on defense. For the sake of European defense, Germany should commit to a one-off special budget to enable the Bundeswehr to achieve a much higher state of operational readiness to match NATO (and EU) requirements for key equipment and see enhanced German investment for military-compatible infrastructure across Europe to enable improved mobility. It is also nonsense that France and Germany could compete with Britain on a future 6G fighter, not least because of Britain’s current technological advantage. Britain’s operational experience makes it an absurdity for the European Union to shut the UK out of future defense arrangements, as if it were Turkey. In any case, few in Germany believe that the planned German-French Future Combat Air System, or FCAS, will succeed because of the tortuous nature of French defense-industrial politics.

The best way for Germany to lead the future defense of Europe is to bring all other Europeans together, Britain included. However, real leadership means facing hard realities. Vegetius once wrote “Si vis pacem para bellum,” or if you want peace, prepare for war. Germany aspires to be Europe’s strategic peacekeeper across the non-force/force spectrum. To play such a role, Germany would need to paraphrase Vegetius: “Quod, si vis pacem, para bellum,” or if you want peace, at least begin to think about war, and do it with friends and allies. Should, could, would Germany lead European defense? It’s Germany’s call.

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Artwork © Dominik Herrmann

It is a sign of the febrile state of British politics that the twin resignations in July of the foreign secretary and the Brexit secretary (within hours of each other) barely caused more than a week-long ripple in the news cycle. In the places of Boris Johnson and David Davis came two new faces, one hardly known outside the United Kingdom, and one hardly known within it—namely Jeremy Hunt as foreign secretary and Dominic Raab as the new Brexit secretary. Both men, at least superficially, come directly from Conservative party central casting: Oxford University, southern England, posh, male, white.

Macho Approach

Raab, who is 44 and far from a household name in the UK, carries a big reputation in Conservative circles as the standard bearer of the Thatcherite right. In the flesh, he has something of the good looks of the Mad Men’s Don Draper. His constituency page boasts a photo of him in army camouflage, taking part in an exercise with local army cadets. Raab also has a taste for karate and boxing.

This self-consciously macho approach also soaks into how Raab talks about himself. For his first big BBC interview on the job, he served up a diet of phrases such as “I’m focused—relentlessly and unflinchingly—on getting a deal [with the EU on Brexit]. I’ll be striving every sinew…” This sort of muscular talk plays well to the Conservative party membership, but Raab may need to adopt a slightly more three-dimensional public persona if he wants one day to become prime minister.

Andrew Gimson, biographer of Boris Johnson and contributing editor at the influential ConservativeHome.com website, concurs. “Raab is a formidable figure—never backward in advertising his powerful intellect,” he wrote, adding: “He knows his brief, but there is something a bit inhuman about his drive and persistence. His present job [Brexit secretary] will make or mar him. It’s easy to imagine him as a senior cabinet minister, but again quite difficult to see him as leader. If May cannot keep him on side, she will be in desperate trouble, and this, one supposes, gives him a certain amount of leverage.”

After Oxford and a brief legal career, Raab joined the Foreign Office, which saw him serve a spell in The Hague, and, most notably, in Ramallah with the World Bank, advising the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank.

Vim And Vigor

Raab first really reached the headlines in 2012 with a book (co-written with four other young Tory MPs) entitled Britannia Unchained. It made the case for lower taxes, less red tape, and reduced employment rights. Raab ominously told The Guardian at the time, “The talented and hard-working have nothing to fear,” but added, “People who are coasting—it should be easier to let them go, to give the unemployed a chance. It’s a delicate balancing act, but it should be decided in favor of the latter.” While such “unpalatable” beliefs probably did him no harm among party members, Raab’s critics quickly dubbed the book “Britannia Unhinged.”

Considering Raab’s macho image, it is perhaps ironic that just two weeks after his promotion, the UK’s female Prime Minister Theresa May announced she would be taking personal control of Brexit negotiations, relegating Raab to responsibility for domestic preparations. Only two days later, Raab appeared stumbling, even at times slightly terrified, when he stepped before the Brussels press corps with EU chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier for the first time. His pre-planned pay-off line “Michel, we’ve got work to do!” fell resoundingly flat. In fairness, Raab had recovered his sangfroid by the time of their second meeting a month later—even if it came at the expense of rehashing again his “I bring vim and vigour” cliches.

A Tricky Post

Jeremy Hunt, the new foreign secretary, is a much better-known proposition, due to his six-year tenure as health secretary—always a tricky post for a Conservative politician, as the NHS was a post-war Labour creation, and his party is still widely distrusted on it.

Indeed, Hunt was the longest-serving health secretary in British political history—which gives some indication of his flexibility and survival instinct. Others have been less charitable, with Lewis Baston, UK politics-watcher at the Electoral Reform Society, likening Hunt’s adaptability to being a shape-shifter, although he adds that is “not necessarily a bad thing in a cabinet-level politician.”

“For example, he was quite a good ‘Remainer’ in the Cameron era, but now claims he’d vote ‘Leave’ if history was re-run. It also means he fits into the departmental ethos where he goes—and will probably do a competent, polite, and professional job at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.”

Hunt also has what Baston describes as a “low emotional temperature,” and so “some of the qualities that make him a good cabinet minister would make him a poor leader, I think.” “[Nevertheless,] he is one of not many politicians on any side to have much of a clue about east Asia,” he added. “Despite his slip the other day, he is knowledgeable and reasonable on China and Japan.”

That “slip” was his debut meeting with Chinese leaders in Beijing, where Hunt accidentally described his Chinese wife as Japanese, before swiftly correcting himself. (Speaking of slips of the tongue, one reason Hunt is well-known with UK voters is because his surname is rhyming slang for the abusive term for female genitalia, something that has tripped up even BBC presenters live on air.)

At Oxford with Cameron and Johnson

The son of a navy admiral, Hunt was educated at one of the UK’s most exclusive (that is, expensive) private schools, Charterhouse, before studying PPE (Politics, Philosophy and Economics) at Oxford, where he was a contemporary of both David Cameron—the prime minister who called the Brexit referundum—and Boris Johnson.

His first government position, under the Conservative-Liberal Democrats coalition, was in the role of Minister for the Olympics, widely considered a success; he then became culture secretary before moving on to the far more difficult job of health secretary.

There, he managed to annoy senior doctors by referring to a “Monday to Friday” culture (prompting the social media hashtag #ImatworkJeremy from consultants working weekends). Junior doctors turned against him when he imposed a new work contract extending basic hours to 10pm on weekdays and Saturdays, prompting the first strike by junior doctors in more than 40 years.

A senior consultant at a London teaching hospital who saw Hunt up close praised him for ultimately managing to obtain substantial money for the NHS before leaving for the Foreign Office. He said he was impressed with “the quality of Hunt’s ‘stagecraft,’ but in all my time working in health, there was never such an unpopular leader.”

Compulsive Desire

Gimson agrees, pointing out that Hunt has “the compulsive desire of a certain kind of Englishman always to remain on good terms with people, which makes him, from the point of view of the official classes in Brussels and Berlin as well as London, a safer type of foreign secretary than his predecessor.”

“He must harbor dreams of the leadership and might come through as a compromise ‘Stop Boris’ candidate,” said Gimson. “But Hunt is so unforthcoming that I think the Tories would be wary of fighting a general election under him—which probably rules him out.”

That slight evasiveness of Hunt was evident in his first major speech as foreign secretary, in mid-August, where he laid down the law with a stark warning that a “messy divorce” would be a “geostrategic error for Europe, at an extremely vulnerable time”—indeed, it would represent a “fissure in relations between European allies that would take a generation to heal.” However, characteristically, he delivered this thunderous threat to a friendly audience in Washington, not Brussels.

Peter Martin, president of Hunt’s South West Surrey Conservative Association, naturally disagrees, highlighting Hunt’s “knowledge of languages, superb organizational skills, his ability to get on with everyone and his amazing affability. None of us are surprised that he is now the secretary of state for foreign affairs. Indeed, few would be surprised if he one day took the top job!”

Hunt may be helped by the fact that he speaks fluent Japanese (from a spell after university teaching English in the country), and by his aforementioned Chinese wife. Raab also has a foreign wife, from Brazil. Unremarkable as these facts may be in 2018, that still makes both men something of a rarity among upper echelons of the Conservative party.

Prime Ministerial Ambitions

Whilst the off-the-record line in Brussels since the reshuffle is that “a change in personnel, not a change in policy” is all that is expected from London, personal chemistry can go a long way in politics. Both men have a brief handed down to them from Number 10 Downing Street that they have to stick to, but both Hunt’s politeness and personability and Raab’s inexperience may make life easier—if only for the EU side.

And both men’s likely aspirations to secure the top job—the prime ministership—will be shaped by the aftermath of Boris Johnson’s own resignation. While it opened up the Foreign Office post for Hunt, its immediate affect was a large boost in Johnson’s popularity among the party’s hugely euroskeptic membership.

It is these grassroots Tories, numbering only around 120,000, who will pick the next Conservative party leader, and with it, the next prime minister, at least until a general election is called.

The post Close-Up: Jeremy Hunt and Dominic Raab appeared first on Berlin Policy Journal - Blog.

Artwork © Dominik Herrmann

“Sisters, sisters/There were never such devoted sisters…”

When US songwriter Irving Berlin penned his ironic ode to the joys of sisterhood for the 1954 movie “White Christmas,” Germany’s most famous political sisters were already nine years old.

The Christian Democratic Union (CDU) was founded just a month after Nazi Germany’s capitulation in May 1945, with Bavaria’s Christian Social Union (CSU) following four months later. The war-shattered country would be under direct Allied occupation for years to come, but the CDU/CSU were confident they could become the future Germany’s dominant political force.

Pitching themselves as non-denominational, center-right catch-all parties, heirs to defunct old center parties and an alternative to the working class Social Democrats (SPD), the CDU and CSU formed a parliamentary alliance in 1948, with the foundation of the (West) German federal republic just months away. The Munich-based CSU agreed to focus on the largely agrarian southern state of Bavaria while the CDU took the rest of the West Germany.

This deal, renewed at the start of every new parliamentary session, joins a CDU parliamentary party head with a CSU politician deputy. It gives the Bavarians considerable political clout far beyond their state borders where the CSU has governed continuously for half a century, mostly alone.

“Two different faces, but in tight places/We think and we act as one”

Their pact is based on common political interests and the promise “never to stand in competition in any federal state.” It has allowed the CDU/CSU meet their ambition to dominate West German politics. From the first chancellor Konrad Adenauer to Angela Merkel today, the CDU/CSU has provided the chancellor for all but 20 years of the last seven decades.

Despite shared principles and goals, both parties “adhere to the basic principle that each (parliamentary party) is a group of parliamentarians of their respective, independent parties.”

This allows the CSU, should it wish, to vote against the CDU “in a question of particular importance.” But, to minimize potential for political chaos or blackmail, fundamental decisions only come onto the agenda “through consent of both groups.” The CSU is famous for having a bark far worse than its bite, but decades of practice at barking can make it an uncomfortable and unpredictable sister.

“Those who’ve seen us/Know that not a thing could come between us”

By and large the CDU/CSU agreement has held, but not without testing episodes. The biggest drama came 42 years ago in Kreuth, a picturesque resort town in the foothills of the Bavarian Alps and for years the location of the CSU’s winter retreat.

After the 1976 federal election, the legendary CSU leader Franz-Josef Strauss attacked his CDU ally Helmut Kohl as “political pygmy.” Strauss was furious because the CDU/CSU won the election but still failed to unseat the SPD alliance with the liberal Free Democrats (FPD).

Talking himself into a state, Strauss suggested the CDU was more political ballast than a boost and mulled pushing beyond Bavaria’s borders as a fourth national political force.
His threat to end the CDU/CSU alliance met with considerable resistance inside his own party and prompted a counter-threat from the CDU to launch a party in Bavaria. Eventually Strauss blinked, and the sisterhood survived.

“Never had to have a chaperone, no sir/I’m there to keep my eye on her”

The latest challenge to the sisterhood began to build after the 2015/2016 refugee crisis brought over a million people into the country, accentuating the CDU/CSU political and cultural differences. The Bavarians, on the front lines of the crisis, demanded a more robust line from Berlin. But CDU leader Angela Merkel followed a more liberal, open-border policy while she pressed for an EU burden-sharing agreement for migrants. After a tense standoff, the Bavarians fell into line for last year’s federal election. But not before CSU leader Horst Seehofer accused her of operating an “unlawful regime” on migration and gave her a humiliating dressing down at his party conference.

After disastrous election results last year, the migration row flared up again this summer. With his CSU facing a state election disaster in October, Seehofer and his party ramped up tough talk on migration to impress law-and-order voters. Seehofer, who is also federal interior minister in Berlin, threatened to unilaterally close off the German (i.e. Bavarian) border to Austria to refugees already registered elsewhere in the EU—and even to resign—unless Merkel achieved a European agreement to throttle immigration.

It was a high-risk move because making good on his threat would have blown up the CDU/CSU alliance. In the end, Chancellor Merkel returned from an all-night Brussels summit with political concessions.

“All kinds of weather, we stick together/The same in the rain or sun”

Whether that is enough to appease CSU voters—and avoid another family squabble—will only become clear when the Bavarian state election results come in on October 14.

Now aged 73, with no other eligible suitors, the aging sisters of German politics have always been more devoted to power than each other. But they hide it well, presenting themselves as living proof that sibling rivalry may not be easy, but need not be fatal.

The post Words Don’t Come Easy: “Schwesterpartei” appeared first on Berlin Policy Journal - Blog.

© REUTERS/Antonio Parrinello

The arrival of over a million of refugees and migrants over the past few years has spooked Europe and emboldened the continent’s populist right. Yet many more are forced to seek shelter in poorer countries. Which states host the most refugees today, especially refugees from Syria and Afghanistan? Eighty-five percent of the world’s refugees have gone to low- and middle-income countries. And it’s important to recognize that a lot of them are geographically concentrated. So about 60 percent of the world’s refugees are in just ten host countries in, broadly conceived, the developing world. The overwhelming majority of Syrian refugees are hosted by Turkey, Lebanon, and Jordan. Only one European country features in the top ten of refugee-hosting countries, and that is Germany.

How does a refugee’s lot in the developing world compare to one living in Europe? It’s challenging to calculate the ratio of spending on a refugee in the developing world compared to Europe, but a crude estimate is that roughly one euro is spent on every refugee in a developing country for every 100 euros spent on a refugee in Europe.

The EU still hasn’t developed a coherent asylum policy. One recent idea is to set up disembarkation centers—refugee camps based in third countries like Libya. How would you describe the EU’s approach so far? Europe is struggling to find common ground for a European asylum system. We saw enormous divisions at the EU summit in June, where two proposals were put on the table: one was that the European Commission would explore the idea of disembarkation centers, and the other was the idea that member states could consider introducing closed reception centers, where the status of refugees would be determined. The disembarkation centers idea has subsequently been fleshed out a little. It is meant to allow ships crossing the Mediterranean to know where they can dock to avoid the pushbacks we have recently seen in the case of the Aquarius and other boats. A number of European governments are willing to take this idea forward. At the moment, the focus seems to be on opening disembarkation centers in designated areas in Europe, but alongside that, there could also be designated disembarkation areas in some of the North African states.
The important thing is to continue saving lives and to uphold a viable rescue-at-sea system. The longer-term challenge is to set up disembarkation points that are geographically close to the Mediterranean, but are also manifestly not final destinations. There needs to be a way of assessing asylum claims, but in a way that maintains public trust. It has to be clear that people who disembark cannot just disappear somewhere into the cities of Europe.

Will disembarkation centers stop smugglers and keep refugees from making treacherous journeys? What else is needed for a sustainable European policy? A sustainable migration framework needs to be based on a whole series of elements. Migration is obviously complex and diverse, but if we think broadly in terms of policies for economic migration on the one hand and policies for refugees on the other hand, there are different things that we need to do.
On the refugee side, we need to provide adequate protection and opportunities for empowerment to the majority of the world’s refugees who are in low- and middle-income countries. That’s not just about humanitarian assistance; it’s about development aid in the ten countries that host 60 percent of the world’s refugees. Further downstream, if we get that right, it will reduce the number of people in need of asylum in Europe.
Nevertheless, we still have to address the asylum challenge in Europe. There are a number of ways in which we can do that. We have to ensure that refugee status determination produces identical outcomes no matter where it takes place—whether in safe haven countries in Africa or in any particular European country. The outcomes must be identical and predictable to ensure that would-be asylum seekers understand whether they have a valid asylum claim or not. We need to make sure that embassies and consulates in a refugee’s region of origin can assess those claims before people even get to transit countries like Libya.
As for those who do reach Europe—we must have a way of equitably sharing responsibility across Europe. The Dublin system is manifestly not working, and we need to separate the country responsible for assessing the claim from the country responsible for settlement. It makes sense that frontline states like Italy and Greece should assess asylum claims, but it doesn’t make sense that they should have to provide sanctuary to all those accepted as refugees. We need to distribute refugees more equitably amongst the EU member states, and to do that, we need to take into account preferences. That’s where an idea like “preference matching” could come into play. That means looking at refugees’ ideal outcomes, looking at the preferences of the receiving countries, and trying to match them.

What about economic migrants? I’d rather call them aspirational migrants, actually. They are people seeking a better life, to an overwhelming extent young and male, and disproportionately highly educated. They tend to see the route to Europe as their most important source of meaning and purpose. We have to find ways of restoring meaning and purpose nearer to those peoples’ countries of origin, so that they don’t embark on such dangerous journeys. Smuggling is a response to demand. It doesn’t necessarily create demand, and so the only guaranteed way to dismantling smuggling networks is to reduce the sources of demand by addressing refugee movements and aspirational migration movements.

European politicians often talk about addressing “the causes of migration.” What about programs to increase economic development in Africa, do they work? It’s a myth that increasing development reduces the demand for migration. Actually, one of the most robust empirical relationships described in migration studies is the so-called “migration hump,” which shows that in the short-term at least, an increase in GDP per capita leads to an increased demand to emigrate. But this relationship needs to be disaggregated more than social scientists have done so far. The question is, which type of development has which kind of influence on migration? There’s reason to believe that if we look at particular types—developments that change narratives, networks, perceptions or aspirations—that those may have an effect on certain types of migration, like aspirational migration or secondary movement of refugees.

In your book Refuge, co-written with Paul Collier, you introduce the concepts of the “headless heart and the heartless head.” Are states like Italy that restrict NGOs from rescuing migrants in the Mediterranean an example of the latter? We use the distinction in a very broad sense when recounting the recent history of European asylum policy. At the start of the Syrian refugee crisis between 2011 and 2014, we ended up with an effectively heartless and headless approach: Europe was sitting on its hands and doing nothing as millions of desperate Syrians moved into Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey, and Iraq. What Europe should have done during that period is to provide sustainable development to the countries that allowed refugees to remain. Instead, it got to the point where those countries in 2014 began to close their borders. Humanitarian aid budgets for Turkey, Lebanon, and Jordan were all cut, and Syrians in many cases had no choice but to try and move on to Europe.
But then we ended up with a flip towards, if you like, the headless heart when some European leaders overcompensated. German Chancellor Angela Merkel, without, to my view, consulting anyone in Europe or in Germany, suspended the application of the Dublin system at the German border and announced, “Wir schaffen das”—“We will cope.” What on the surface was a deeply humane act proved not to be sustainable. So between the end of August 2015 and putting together the EU-Turkey agreement on refugees between January and March 2016, there was complete U-turn in Germany’s refugee policy.
What is now needed is a balance between heart and head. We have to be compassionate towards refugees, but we also need to recognize what our moral obligations are and what they are not. We need to come up with ways to ensure that all refugees around the world have access to a safe haven, have access to autonomy, have access to a route out of limbo. And we need to do all that in a manner that is compatible and consistent with democracy.

The interview was conducted by Noah Gordon.

The post “We Need a Balance Between Heart and Head” appeared first on Berlin Policy Journal - Blog.

© REUTERS/Umit Bektas

After US president Donald Trump doubled tariffs on Turkish steel and aluminum, the already-struggling Turkish lira has plunged to an all-time low against the euro and the dollar, losing around 40 percent of its value since January 2018. The freefall is in part linked to the diplomatic dispute between Turkey and the United States over Andrew Brunson, a pastor who was arrested in Turkey in 2016 and indicted on charges of espionage and links to a terror organization without any evidence presented.

Arguably, the Turkish government has been holding him as a political hostage. That has made Brunson a martyr to some American evangelical groups and thrust his name onto US President Donald Trump’s agenda. Instead of solving this issue diplomatically, both governments headed directly toward escalation. As their row continues to simmer, Europe, and Germany in particular, are in a unique position to ease Turkey’s crisis and restore strained ties—and it is in Berlin’s best interest to help Turkey regain stability.

A major impact of the diplomatic crisis is that it has confirmed international investors’ fears that an all-powerful Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is sacrificing economic considerations for his own domestic political agenda and grip on power. The president has astonished the financial world once again by publicly browbeating the Turkish central bank into lowering interest rates. In fact, he compared high interest rates to treason in a country where tens of thousands have been imprisoned on accusations of the same offense. As a result, investors now seem to be losing any remaining confidence in the country’s success story. Inflation, meanwhile, has ballooned, from under 10 percent in 2016 to double digits every month since January 2017.

The lira’s plunge has also put Turkish banks under severe stress. If Turkish banks and companies fail to clear their short-term foreign debt, not only will the Turkish central bank face significant difficulties, but European (mainly Spanish, French and Italian banks) and American creditors will too.

Turkey’s True Partners

Erdoğan has tried to frame the crisis as one purely triggered by the dispute over Andrew Brunson. He accused Washington of “stabbing its strategic ally Turkey in the back” and threatened to search out alternative allies, for example Russia. Yet although Moscow has already expressed support, Russia cannot replace Europe and the US as Turkey’s key economic and strategic security partner.

Only 1.2 percent of Turkish exports go to Russia, compared to more than 50 percent to EU member states and the US. Also, only 5.6 percent of Turkish imports come from Russia—mostly oil and gas—compared to more than 40 percent coming from the EU and the US. And crucially, more than 50 percent of foreign direct investment to Turkey comes from Europe and the US, while only 6.1 percent comes from Russia.
Nevertheless, caution is needed: political alienation and shifting from one strategic ally to another happens gradually. Although it is a political dilemma to help out an increasingly autocratic government, neither a devastated Turkish economy nor an alienated Turkey as Russia’s ally is in the interest of Germany, Europe, and NATO.

A European response to the economic crisis in Turkey should be initiated by Berlin, as Germany is Turkey’s largest trading partner and has a strong societal relationship to the Turkish people. German Chancellor Angela Merkel has already publicly said that an economically stable Turkey is in her country’s interest. Now, the German government has to follow up on these signals with concrete action.

Troubled Waters

True, stabilizing the Turkish economy will be extremely difficult. On the one hand, any such process lacks an institutional foundation, as Erdoğan will not ask for International Monetary Fund (IMF) support. He has spent a decade praising his own AKP for turning Turkey into an IMF lender just a few years after being a debtor in the aftermath of the 2001 economic crisis. On the other hand, after the European debt crisis, another bailout of banks and companies will domestically not be enforceable in Germany or other European countries.

Then there are the deep political tensions and sharp words that have soured ties between Germany and Turkey. A number of German citizens have been detained in Turkey, and Ankara is still smarting over Germany’s decision to ban AKP politicians from campaigning for votes among Turkish citizens in Germany ahead of the April 2017 constitutional referendum. Erdoğan’s government has also accused Berlin of harboring Turks they believe took part in a failed military coup in July 2016. Erdoğan’s upcoming state visit to Germany has also been marred by controversy.

It is not surprising, then, that Andrea Nahles, leader of Germany’s Social Democrats (SPD)—in government with Chancellor Merkel’s CDU/CSU—came under fire in August for suggesting in an interview with German media that Berlin might have to jump in and help Turkey, regardless of the strained relationship with the Turkish president. And in a survey conducted by the Berlin-based polling institute Civey for the conservative daily Die Welt, more than 70 percent of Germans said they were against any financial support for Turkey.

Staving Off A Bailout

Under these circumstances, Germany and its European partners have to do everything to make a bailout unnecessary. This requires a quick reaction, as the crisis in Turkey is still in early stages without major institutional bankruptcies, yet.

To ensure that German economic assistance will not be perceived as support for President Erdoğan, but as support for the Turkish people, a joint commission with experts from both countries should be established. Including Turkish economists without an AKP background would increase acceptance within the society. The name of the commission should refer to a historic symbol of the German-Turkish friendship, for instance the famous German train station “Haydarpaşa” in Istanbul.

The “Haydarpaşa commission” should jointly identify short-term measures to support Turkey’s economy. It could closely analyze and monitor the debt situation and share information between both countries’ institutions to be able to quickly issue recommendations if a financial meltdown threatens. The commission should draw up some short-term measures to boost imports to Germany and/or the customs union; such a measure would help stabilize the revenues of Turkish companies.

Haydarpaşa should also build on European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) activities, using it as a vehicle for financial investments and high-level policy reform support. To address the need for structural reforms, the commission should also put some focus on research and development corporations, e.g. with a science cooperation, new German companies R&D centers in Turkey, and a cooperation between the Berlin and Istanbul startup clusters. Including Turkish researchers in exile and focusing on the freedom of academic research and teaching could be a way for Berlin to make clear that the Turkish government has to accept freedoms and democratic rights in return for its help.

The joint commission should kick off with the visit of Peter Altmaier, German Minister for Economic Affairs and Energy, to Turkey with a large delegation of approximately 80 businessmen in October. This powerful signal of German support to the Turkish economy should be linked to a strong commitment from Turkey to democratic standards, the rule of law, and freedom.
Deep engagement and commitment from Germany and European partners could be a chance to smooth difficult relations with Turkey. It would build new common ground and send the almost forgotten message to the Turkish civil society that Europe is Turkey’s closest ally, not enemy.

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