Last year’s White Paper on German Security Policy lays out the country’s future security and defense trajectory. It omits the politically charged element of security and defense in a country with a Nazi past. It lays out a clear path toward increasing defense resources. And it lists Russia as a threat. The Cipher Brief’s Kaitlin Lavinder asked Christian Mölling, Deputy Director at the Research Institute of the German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP), if the approach outlined in the White Paper indicates that Germany is remilitarizing and, if so, when the movement began and why.
The Cipher Brief: Is it accurate to view what Germany’s defense policy restructuring and armed forces build-up as remilitarization?
Christian Mölling: Yes, it’s remilitarizing, although you can’t see it in terms of big troop numbers and new tanks on the streets. This will take time, but the preconditions to have more people, more tanks, more readiness in the armed forces overall are being generated. You always have to bear in mind that we will have elections this year, but as it looks now, we are remilitarizing in a positive way.
TCB: What’s the impetus behind remilitarization?
CM: The impetus basically came with the Ukraine crisis. That was the game-changer for the Germans. We had been talking a lot about more defense cooperation, but with regards to real defense, it was Ukraine crisis that turned things around. All the other problems that could have had a military dimension with which the Germans could have engaged with were simply too far away from our cognitive map. The threat from the East, Russia, which was socialized into our DNA, was the reason the German armed forces were rebuilt. The Russians have triggered a reason for having a larger and more capable armed forces, which we haven’t had for a very long time.
TCB: Was that element triggered both among the populace and in government?
CM: Yes. The real starting point for the turn-around in the defense establishment happened even earlier than Ukraine. That was the Libya campaign and the fact that the Germans abstained from voting with its Western allies in the UN Security Council. Libya changed the perception in the defense establishment towards the idea that we need to do more in defense, that we have to show we are a reliable ally. The Ukraine crisis gave us the opportunity to communicate this all to the public.
TCB: Has the public perception of Germany’s greater involvement in foreign security matters been relatively favorable so far?
CM: It’s not seen as adventurism. Since 2013 and 2014, after the Ukraine crisis, we have had several attempts by domestic policy players to paint Germany’s policy as adventurism, and it didn’t work out. Interestingly we have had, since 2014, a broad consensus among the political parties and in the society, at least the majority of the society, that these things are necessary. To a certain extent, people think we have matured and don’t pose a risk to the rest of the world but see that we basically have to pay back for the stability we have enjoyed for quite a long time.
TCB: Are Germany’s European neighbors happy with this situation?
CM: So far, they are. It’s an interesting question because many people say our neighbors would be frightened. But I’ve asked around in many countries. I’ve said, look, if Germany were to spend two percent of GDP on defense and generate military might out of that, would you be frightened? And I haven’t met anybody who has said yes. Neither the Poles nor the French nor the Brits nor the Norwegians would be frightened about a Germany spending two percent on defense.
TCB: One thing that could frighten European neighbors is if Germany were to develop a nuclear weapon. That’s not on the table right now, but Roderich Kiesewetter, a member of the German parliament, has been talking about creating a European nuclear deterrent in case the U.S. decides to retreat from Europe. How credible is this idea of a European bomb?
CM: That’s the least feasible option I can imagine, simply because there are legal obstacles. First of all, we are bound by international treaties to not do it, so we would basically have to cut up all these treaties, which would involve Russia, as a party to the treaties. It’s not only UN Security Council resolution on that, but there’s also the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, or the NPT. There’s also the Two Plus Four Treaty. These international agreements bind Germany into remaining a non-nuclear state, so a bomb is definitely not in the cards.
Plus, developing nuclear capabililty would meet tremendous resistance in German society. It would be many bridges too far to think of Germany as a nuclear weapon state. We would leave that to the French and to the Brits.
TCB: What is in the cards over the next few years with regards to Germany’s military buildup?
CM: One side is conventional buildup. That doesn’t mean hundreds of thousands more soldiers, but better-equipped soldiers and much more readiness. We had a tremendous downgrading of our readiness over the last decade because we cut too deep into the armed forces. What we are now creating is a qualitative rebuilding of the readiness within the armed forces, not with numbers but with quality.
Germany has been behind the curve when it comes to cyber. We are now building a cyber command, which is nothing new for the U.S., but for the Germans, cyber has been a very long-neglected topic. We are trying to close the gap with our allies, who have been much more active on the cyber front.
And there’s always, as is typical for Germany, cooperation in a diplomatic initiative to try to engage with the Russians to see whether we can have a dialogue with them. The Germans think there are elements that cannot be managed perfectly by deterrence measures only, but we also need dialogue as part of the security policy.
TCB: I want to go back to the underlying causes for Germany’s remilitarization. You mentioned Libya and Ukraine. Is U.S. policy one of those causes? That is, the Obama administration policy that may be continued in the Trump administration of greater detachment from Europe?
CM: Not so far. The simple reason is although everybody is now talking about Trump and his impact on security, the measures we currently see in place were not taken because of Trump. They were taken before he took office. That doesn’t mean that there will be no measures taken because of Trump. I think that’s something we will see possibly after the summer, when people here think that a reasonable U.S. foreign and security policy could be expected. After six months, you would expect that a government has a foreign and security policy that’s stable, which it currently is not. If the security policy of the U.S. still appears to be shaky and erratic, as it is right now, then I think we could possibly have a new push towards more defense buildup in Germany and a new debate, which would be a much more fundamental debate than the debate about rearming because of Russia. It would become rearming because the U.S. is not showing up, which would question the basic security assumptions of Germany. If you look at the White Paper on German Security Policy that we published just last year, the U.S. and the trans-Atlantic alliance are the bedrock of our security. We could have to rethink all these things. That would be a big challenge.
