German defense spending - Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association

US Nuclear Weapons Should Be Out of Germany Along With Its Troops, German Lawmaker Says

Polina Strelnikova - Sputnik — Mon, 12 Aug 2019 12:14:21 +0000

AP Photo/Mindaugas Kubis

US Ambassador Richard Grenell’s renewed criticism of Berlin’s failure to spend more on defense and praising an idea to withdraw American troops from Germany has prompted a backlash in one of Washington’s key allies in Europe. The head of the left-wing party Die Linke’s parliamentary group has welcomed this idea.

Member of the German Parliament Bundestag Dietmar Bartsch has told the German editorial network RND that the German government should “absolutely accept” US Ambassador Richard Grenell’s offer and not only discuss a plan to pull out US troops from Germany but also try to get rid of Washington’s nuclear weapons in the country.

“The US ambassador is right: US taxpayers should not have to pay for US troops in Germany. The US taxpayers also do not have to pay for deploying nuclear weapons in Germany. If the Americans pull their soldiers out, they should take their nuclear weapons with them”, he demanded.

He insisted that they should take them back home and not to Poland, noting that the latter scenario “would be another dramatic escalation in relations with Russia, which does not coincide with European and German interests”.

However, not everyone on the left-wing of the German political spectrum seemed to like the idea. German MP Carsten Schneider, who represents the Social Democrats, called Grenell’s statements, which echoed an earlier remark by US Ambassador to Poland Georgette Mosbacher, “completely inappropriate for allies”. He stated that Germany cannot be blackmailed and that the “general’s pose wears off”.

The criticism was prompted by Grenell’s recent interview with the German news agency DPA, in which he stated that it was “insulting to expect that the US taxpayer pays for more than 50,000 Americans in Germany, but the Germans use their trade surplus for domestic purposes” and backed Donald Trump’s idea to relocate troops from Germany to Poland.

Mosbacher earlier noted that Poland meets its payment obligation of 2% of GDP, as agreed upon within NATO, while Germany does not do that, so it would be better if American troops go to Poland.

Although Germany announced plans to increase military spending up to 1.35% in 2019 and hopes to boost the number up to 1.5% by 2023, it still falls short of planning to reach the 2% goal, set by NATO members in 2014.

Trump has persistently criticized Germany’s reluctance to comply with this voluntary goal since having taken office. He also previously suggested that a 2,000-strong increase to American forces stationed in Poland should be achieved at the expense of those based in Germany.

Meanwhile, US warheads deployed in Germany have been a point of heated debates within the country with many, including politicians from coalition junior partner, the SPD, demanding that US nuclear weapons be removed from its territory.

Source: https://sputniknews.com/military/201908121076530440-us-nuclear-weapons-germany/

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NATO chief: Germany must increase defense spending

Deutsche Welle — Sun, 08 Jul 2018 19:26:33 +0000

Germany spends 1.24 percent of its GDP on defense and has promised to increase that figure to 1.5 percent by 2024. But Jens Stoltenberg, the head of the NATO alliance, says Berlin needs to spend much more than that.

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg has said Germany should be more vigilant in increasing its defense spending, as 29 countries prepare to meet for a NATO summit on Wednesday.

Speaking to the Bild am Sonntag newspaper, Stoltenberg (pictured) said he welcomed the German government’s pledge to increase the defense budget to 1.5 percent of GDP by 2024.

But he said he expected the country “to do even more” to meet the 2024 alliance target of 2 percent of GDP that Germany and other NATO countries agreed on during a 2014 summit. “I assume Germany will continue aiming to meet that goal,” he said.

Berlin, he added, “had a particularly important role” to play in defense spending because of the large size of its economy.

Trump factor

US President Donald Trump has regularly criticized Germany’s meager defense budget and accused Berlin of taking advantage of the US, which spends more than 3 percent of its GDP on defense and stations tens of thousands of troops in Europe.

The president’s tone has worried some German officials who fear the US could turn its back on the decades-old NATO alliance.

But Stoltenberg said the US was still devoted to the organization, citing commitments Trump personally voiced to him and a more than 40 percent increase in funding for US forces in Europe since the president assumed office in January 2017.

But he warned that the trans-Atlantic relationship underlying the alliance was not “a given.”

“The relationship must be reinvented every single day,” he said. “Politicians and everyone in Europe and North America have a role to play.”

amp/cmk (AFP, dpa, Reuters)

Source: https://www.dw.com/en/nato-chief-germany-must-increase-defense-spending/a-44573637

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The post NATO chief: Germany must increase defense spending first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

Germany Plans to Spend Billions More on Army While Trump Slams ‘Underspending’

Sputnik News — Wed, 04 Jul 2018 10:46:02 +0000

The federal budget draft suggests multibillion increase in defense spending for 2019. Over the recent time, the German military has been struggling to cope with shortages in armor and equipment as well as pressure from its NATO allies, who criticized the country for breaking promises on target budget.

The proposed 2019 German federal budget, which is to be presented by Social Democrats (SPD) Finance Minister Olaf Scholz, has reportedly set aside $51.2 billion aside for the military. As the German business newspaper “Handelsblatt” reported and the German Press Agency (DPA) confirmed, this is not only $4.7 billion more than Germany is slated to spend on its army in 2018, but it also exceeds previously proposed increase for 2019 by $785 million.

Despite the row over stricter migration and border controls between Chancellor Angela Merkel and Interior Minister Horst Seehofer, which impacted the ruling German coalition between the CDU and CSU parties, Scholz wants to hold a special government session on the 2019 budget before the summer break. The German Parliament is to revise and pass the draft before autumn.

According to the German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, as the latest tax estimate predicts much higher government revenues than expected, Scholz promised more money to the army, succumbing to pressure from German Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen, a member of Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union.

This issue of defense spending has been one of the major sources of disagreement between the SPD and Merkel’s CDU/CSU, who form the grand coalition government in Germany. The previous, less generous military budget proposal was strongly opposed by von der Leyen. She criticized it for being inadequate and pointed out the insufficient financing earmarked for the country’s military forces, the Bundesweher.

Aging Tanks, Jet Fighters Not Ready to Fly

While Germany is slated to take command of NATO’s crisis response force in 2019, its military is facing major shortages of basic military supplies. The list of shortfalls also includes fighter aircraft struggling to operate at night, pilot attrition within the Luftwaffe and just four out of 128 Eurofighter Typhoons ready to fly combat missions. The problems aren’t limited to the German Air Force.

“Less than half of the 224 Leopard 2 tanks are ready to roll and a mere five of the Navy’s 13 frigates are seaworthy,” according to the German Defense Ministry’s “Report on the Operational Readiness of the Bundeswehr’s Primary Weapon Systems 2017.”

Grudge Over ‘Continued German Underspending’

Additionally, Berlin has been under pressure from US President Donald Trump, as well as some other NATO members for spending far less than the 2 percent of GDP requirement, NATO members agreed to in 2014.

The New York Times reported on July 2 that US President Donald Trump has sent letters to the leaders of some NATO states, including Belgium, Canada, Germany and Norway, to express Washington’s discontent over the countries’ non-compliance with their obligations to increase defense spending. Germany got a special black mark from Trump, according to the media.

“As we discussed during your visit in April, there is growing frustration in the United States that some allies have not stepped up as promised…Continued German underspending on defense undermines the security of the alliance and provides validation for other allies that also do not plan to meet their military spending commitments, because others see you as a role model,” Trump wrote in his letter to German Chancellor Angela Merkel, in particular.

Germany has kept defense spending at just 1.2 percent of GDP in recent years. Von der Leyen announced the country would increase the defense budget to 1.5 percent of GDP by 2025, still half a percent below the target share.

Source: https://sputniknews.com/military/201807031065994180-germany-military-budget-nato/

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German government clashes over defense spending

Deutsche Welle — Wed, 02 May 2018 17:18:18 +0000

Angela Merkel’s government is stuck in an internal row over Germany’s defense spending. In his new budget, Social Democat Finance Minister Olaf Scholz offered a much lower increase than the Defense Ministry had wanted.

Germany’s freshly-minted Finance Minister Olaf Scholz sparked one of the first internal conflicts of Angela Merkel’s new government on Wednesday by offering the Defense Ministry only half of the money it had asked for.

This meant that Scholz followed the party line set out by Merkel’s junior coalition partner, the Social Democratic Party (SPD), who argue that the German military’s current problems – there have been continual reports of hardware shortages and breakdowns – are down to mismanagement rather than a shortage of cash.

Presenting his 2018 budget, the “cornerstones” of his 2019 budget, and his plans up to 2021 in Berlin on Wednesday, Scholz confirmed that both Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen and Development Minister Gerd Müller had submitted written objections to his budget plans, and explained that they would need more money.

Ursula von der Leyen and her French counterpart Florence Parly presented a new European air defense project last week

The Defense Ministry has calculated that only a fifth of its needs would be covered by the new budget in the coming years. “Then we can only hope that there will be enough money there in the future,” Scholz said. “Of course no one who says they need more money doesn’t have good arguments for it.”

Development Minister Müller said that while he was “very satisfied” with the 2018 budget, he warned that the plans for the following years would “not cover the demands,” pointing in particular to Germany’s commitments to fighting “the causes for migration” in Africa and the rebuilding of Iraq.

More money, more weapons

Scholz, who held up graphs in the press conference showing the continual rise in Germany’s defense budget, announced that Germany would spend €38.5 billion ($46.3 billion) on defense in 2018, €1.5 billion more than last year, and €41.5 billion in 2019. “That’s a massive improvement,” he said. “There has been a turning point in the last few years. I think some earlier people in office would have been very pleased with such an additional investment power.”

But Merkel’s center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) have been supporting the demands made by CDU Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen, who, according to the Bild am Sonntag newspaper, wanted an extra €12 billion until 2021. Scholz, however, was only prepared to offer €5.5 billion, the paper said.

Olaf Scholz holds up a graph showing Germany’s defense spending from 2010 to 2022

Von der Leyen gave her own statement immediately after Wednesday’s cabinet meeting, when the budget plans were decided, to say she had got a “good result.” But she warned that, for the budget planning up to 2022, it was important to “create solid financial prospects.” Fighting terrorism and securing the European community were “all issues that will be of great importance in the next few years, and which will need a solid financial foundation.”

Wolfgang Steiger, general secretary of the CDU Economic Council, also said the Bundeswehr needed more money: “The current draft budget won’t meet the growing challenges facing Germany and Europe,” he said in a statement released Wednesday morning. “The foreign and security policy circumstances have all worsened significantly in the last few years, so that our country must face up to greater international duties and take on more responsibilities.”

Trump pressure

Germany’s defense budget has become a touchy subject internationally ever since Donald Trump took over the US presidency. In March, the president once again claimed that Germany “owed billions” to NATO over its relatively low defense budget.

That wasn’t entirely accurate. It is true that last year Germany only spent 1.13 percent of GDP on defense – far below the 2-percent target agreed by NATO in 2014 – but NATO also gave its members until 2024 to reach that goal, and Berlin has already vowed to meet that commitment. The issue came up again during Merkel’s meeting with Trump in Washington last week.

Germany’s opposition parties, meanwhile, have condemned the Defense Ministry’s calls as a capitulation to the US. “Ursula von der Leyen’s demands are an embarrassing prostration to Donald Trump and an attempt to curry favor with the arms industry,” Left party deputy chairwoman Gesine Lötzsch told the Kölner Stadtanzeiger newspaper.

In Wednesday’s press conference, Scholz flatly denied that the pressure from Trump had any influence at all on the negotiations about the defense budget. The cornerstone plan for 2019 is due to be approved by parliament in the fall.

But the fact that the German military is lagging behind its NATO partners has been obvious for some time. “The problem is that over the last few years – in fact almost the last two decades – the defense budget has been driven down – it was always been about spending less, reducing the size of the Bundeswehr, and saving money on materiel,” veteran German defense policy correspondent Thomas Wiegold told TV network RTL. “Turning that trend round is a task that will take a while.”

“The main problem is simply spare parts – in the past the ministry would save a few hundred million on these because they figured: oh, we’ll be able to order them in future,” he added. “But now that the money is there and the parts are ordered, it can take two, three, four years – because they are very specialized parts.”

Source: http://www.dw.com/en/german-government-clashes-over-defense-spending/a-43622812

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The post German government clashes over defense spending first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.