Ley, Isabelle

English

<intR>²Dok

The End of Germany’s StrategicRestraintIsabelle Ley 2022-04-02T16:19:15In a special session of the German Bundestag on February 27, 2022, on theoccasion of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the federal government announcednothing less than a realignment of the Federal Republic of Germany’s long-standingsecurity and defense policy principles. In agreement with parts of the oppositionand in contradiction to the provisions of the coalition agreement signed only a fewmonths before, the government decided to supply weapons to the current crisisarea in Ukraine. Further, it decided to prepare the Bundeswehr for new defensechallenges in the future by setting up a special fund of 100 billion euros, as wellas deciding to exceed NATO’s two percent target by permanently increasing thedefense budget for the first time. As a result, these moves replaced the „culture ofstrategic restraint“ that had for decades characterized German decision-making inforeign, security and defense policy with a more active, independent and robustforeign policy role.The use of military force: Part of the solution or partof the problem?More or less simultaneously with the Bundestag session, two demonstrationstook place in its immediate vicinity. On the western side of the Brandenburg Gate,more than 100,000 participants gathered on the Straße des 17. Juni to protestthe Russian invasion of Ukraine. The protesters were responding to an initiativearranged by various civil society organizations, including ver.di, the DGB, theArbeitsgemeinschaft bäuerliche Landwirtschaft, attac, various environmentalprotection organizations, as well as the protestant church. In addition to the situationin Ukraine, the call for this demonstration addressed the extinction of endangeredspecies and climate change, the COVID-19 pandemic and social inequality. Thelack of association of these topics with the war caused resentment among some ofthe participants. In the Süddeutsche Zeitung, journalist Gustav Seibt drew parallelsbetween this demonstration and the large protests of the peace movement inGermany in 1983 against the decision to position Pershing II rockets on Germansoil, as well as the demonstrations which took place across many European citiesagainst the Iraq war in February 2003. Indeed, the appeal for this demonstrationand the statements by speakers and on banners can be related to concepts of thepeace movement. These pacifist sentiments are also represented in parts of thecurrent German government and the German international law community. Up to the“Zeitenwende”, noticeable parts of German society were of the view that weaponscannot play a helpful role in crisis situations under any given circumstances.- 1 -At the same time, on the eastern side of the Brandenburg Gate betweenAlexanderplatz and the Russian Embassy, a much smaller group of about 10,000participants gathered for a demonstration called for by the Ukrainian NGO Vitsche.The participants, in this case mostly Ukrainian, voiced their outrage at the Russianinvasion and demanded arms deliveries and the enforcement of an internationalno-fly zone. No connection was made to climate policy or other goals. The use ofmilitary force was treated as part of the solution, not the problem. Anecdotally, aUkrainian friend had forwarded me the call for this demonstration (tellingly with thehashtag #helpukrainewin instead of the widespread #standwithukraine) with thefollowing remark: „According to the organizers, the German one is skeptical aboutdemanding NATO actions, etc (…). It is rather a pacifistic movement that I was andam allergic to, because this is partially what brought us here.“Germany’s strategic deficitThe inconsistency and lack of cohesion across the protests reveal the immense taskthe German government is asking of parts of society: A large part of the Germanpublic, as well as considerable parts of the SPD, the GREENS and the LEFT parties,were convinced – at least until the end of February – that military means rarelyrepresent a meaningful solution to a conflict, and that military restraint is preferableinvariably. With the decisions of February 27, 2022, the government is turning itsback on these convictions. The chancellor’s decision encompasses the admissionthat the policy of strategic military restraint – at least in relation to Russia – hasfailed. External policy analysts had been insisting since Russia’s invasion of Crimeain 2014 that Germany must take a more active role in security and defense policy.These voices are now joined by the German government.The analysis of Germany’s strategic restraint has dual significance: on the onehand, military engagement has been very restrained since Germany’s first foreignmilitary deployments in the late 1990s and has always only been carried out underintense pressure from allied partners, with minor German contributions. On the otherhand, and on a meta-level, „strategic restraint“ also refers to a reluctance to identifyinterests, approaches and resulting policies, thereby refraining from formulating,publicly discussing and regularly adjusting a security strategy. So far, we have notonly witnessed military restraint but also strategic restraint in the sense of a deficitin strategy-formulation, as well as a deficit in public debate on Germany’s foreign,security and defense policy in conflict situations.The lack of a security policy debateFrance, the United Kingdom and the United States all have security strategiesthat are regularly updated and widely discussed in the public sphere. Thesestrategy papers identify security risks, explore options for action, set prioritiesand outline approaches for necessary political steps. The EU has the EU GlobalStrategy, revised in 2016, which is now being replaced by the new „StrategicCompass.“ Further, NATO is currently in the process of revising its security strategyto adequately respond to changing threat scenarios. Also, the US, British and- 2 -French governments publish and defend security strategies on a regular basis.So, while the most important partners and security organizations which Germanyparticipates in have a security strategy, Germany itself only has the 2016 WhitePaper on Security Policy and the Future of the Bundeswehr by the Federal Ministryof Defense. This is a document which only a specialized audience is familiar withand which is primarily focused on the development of military capabilities. In termsof its status, ambitions and public reach, it is not comparable to the strategy papersmentioned above. Exemplary for this disconnect are the previous attempts made bythe German government to bring the public into the discussion about the armamentof German combat drones, as they only managed to reach an already interestedexpert audience.“Networked approach” vs. institutional isolationThe reasons for the lack of public debate on issues of security and defense strategyare manifold, complex and have been extensively analyzed. In law, however,these findings have not received attention because they do not seem to be of legalrelevance. Upon closer inspection, however, the status quo can also be explained bylegal institutions: yes, the causes for the German strategic deficit are also rooted in ahistorically conditioned broad skepticism toward military means and the concomitantdemilitarization of society. But political scientists such as Klaus Naumann or SönkeNeitzel have shown that, next to these historical explanations, there is also a deficitof inter-institutional communication in external and security political affairs. Thereis a lack of communicative linkages to bring the state of military, administrative andpolitical knowledge within the separate governmental departments into conversationwith one another. While a „networked approach“ between foreign, security, defenseand development policy has become a buzzword to explain and legitimize theGerman government’s approach to Bundeswehr missions abroad ever since theAfghanistan mission, this very networking is impeded at the inter-institutional level.The military strategic and administrative expertise available within the Bundeswehris hardly communicated to other governmental departments or inter-governmentalcommittees, such as the Foreign Office or the Federal Security Council. As aconsequence, existing military and geopolitical analyses are not integrated with eachother.This was one of the reasons why the CDU called for a reorganization of the FederalSecurity Council in the 2021 election campaign. In recent decades, this Councilhad developed into a secretive decision-making body for taking arms exportsdecisions without providing any input for public debate or strategic analysis. Andfinally, an inter-institutional approach is also lacking in the organization of parliament:while the ministries involved in arms deliveries or army deployments at the veryleast coordinate their standpoints in the Federal Security Council or in the cabinetregularly, a cross-departmental Bundestag committee is missing. The parliamentarycommittees for foreign affairs, defense and economic affairs work side by side andin their structure also reflect the departmental structure of the government. Jointmeetings, analyses and the development of solutions do not take place. As a result,parliament has a hard time debating these issues in a cross-cutting, far-sighted- 3 -manner. It also has difficulties initiating public debate on questions which go beyondspecific policy measures.The role of the Federal Constitutional CourtTo a certain extent, at the very least, this state of affairs is a result of the caselaw of the Federal Constitutional Court: in a long line of adjudication, going backto the 1984 Pershing ruling, the court has repeatedly affirmed that foreign affairslie fundamentally in the competence of the executive branch. Parliament doesnot always have a say in this area, and sometimes does not even dispose of theright to information that is crucial for exercising its rights of governmental control.Particularly with regard to arms export decisions, it is often made difficult for theBundestag, and in particular to the opposition factions, to hold the governmentaccountable: decisions are made in secret and the Bundestag is only informed expost and only about the key data of approvals of arms exports. In the case of armydeployments, the Bundestag is known to reside over a far-reaching parliamentarydecision-making power (wehrverfassungsrechtlicher Parlamentsvorbehalt). Yet,when it comes to communicating these decisions back to the public, the situation isnot much different with regard to arms exports or army deployments. In both cases,public debates going beyond limited and specific questions are seldom been held.As a result, foreign missions and arms exports are similarly unpopular, despite thevery different institutional setup for decision-making in these fields. The way in whichthe Federal Constitutional Court has shaped the parliament’s role in mandating aforeign deployment of the Bundeswehr as a time-limited, case-by-case decision withdetailed information on troop strength, deployment duration, deployment area as wellas military capabilities in the AWACS decision of 1994 no doubt contributed to thisproblem.Dare more security strategy?In its coalition agreement, „Dare More Progress“, the current governmental coalitionignites the prospect of improvement: on p. 144, it details its aim to present „acomprehensive national security strategy in the first year of the new federalgovernment”. On March 18, 2022, Foreign Minister Baerbock announced that shewould make good on this promise. With her speech at the kick-off event for thedevelopment of a National Security Strategy, she intended to initiate a broad debatewith participants from the relevant ministries, parliament, international partners,experts and the wider public. The goal is to reconceptualize and update the notionof security. With regard to the decisions of February 27 of 2022, it is essential toinclude those into the debate who demonstrated west of the Brandenburg Gateon this day. In addition to the development of a national security strategy, it isessential to work on the prerequisites for an inter-institutional debate on foreignand security policy that is also carried into the public arena. Which institutionalapproach would enable such debate: a networked Bundestag committee, a newlyestablished Security Council, the amendment of the Parliamentary Participation Acton Bundeswehr deployments or legal codification of an Arms Export Act? This blogsymposium aims at providing room for discussion to these questions.- 4 -- 5 -

The End of Germany’s Strategic Restraint

https://intr2dok.vifa-recht.de/servlets/MCRFileNodeServlet/mir_derivate_00012172/The_End_of_Germanys_Strategic_Restraint.pdf

The End of Germany’s Strategic Restraint

Abstract

Similar works

Full text

Available Versions

<intR>²Dok