“As the most populous nation with the greatest economic power and a country in the centre of the continent, our army must become the cornerstone of conventional defence in Europe, the best-equipped force,” Scholz said in a speech before the top personnel of the Bundeswehr.

Russia’s war in Ukraine has been a turning point for German defence policy, with the country creating a special fund of €100 billion to upgrade its armed forces.

Continue reading HERE

Source: https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2022/09/16/germany-must-become-the-best-equipped-armed-force-in-europe-scholz-says

____________________________________________________________________________________________________

[Disclaimer]

The post Germany must become ‘the best equipped armed force in Europe’, Scholz says first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

Last month, Chancellor Olaf Scholz made a special address to the Bundestag and the German public, in which he declared a “turning point” in the modern history of the country. The era of a shrinking German military is over, he said. The days in which only three German combat aircraft are operational, and no submarine can put to sea because of technical problems, are at an end. The time has come to invest in the Bundeswehr, which steadily withered after the collapse of the Iron Curtain and the end of the Cold War. There’s a new war in the neighborhood. Russia invaded Ukraine unprovoked, and the biggest battles on European soil since the Second World War are taking place just hundreds of kilometers east of the German capital. “Soon,” Scholz promised, “Germany will have the largest conventional army in Europe within NATO.”

Such militant talk has been heard from Berlin several times in the past century or so, but this time, the decision by the Bundestag after Scholz’s speech to allocate one hundred billion euros immediately to massive rearmament of all Germany’s armed forces did not arouse waves of fear around the world, but rather plaudits. The current democratic Germany is well anchored in NATO, and even more so in the European Union. Rearmament is coming after years of appeals from the West for greater military involvement.

The German pendulum, one that in recent decades has remained steadily at the diplomatic end, where dialogue is always preferable to unilateral action and concepts such as “soft power” and “change through trade” are constantly heard, has swung sharply to the other side over the past three months. Germany is now on a clear path to rearmament, after decades of neglect and downsizing, abolition of mandatory conscription, and limited military procurement.

” I’m the one who must give answers about the unpreparedness of the German army,” Chief of German Army Lieutenant General Alfons Mais posted on social media just days after the war broke out, in a post critical of his country. “For decades, we conducted a mistaken military policy,” lamented former Minister of Defense Ursula von der Leyen. It seems clear, now that it is enjoying the public legitimacy it previously lacked, that the time has come for the German military’s star to shine once more.

And this time, one relatively small country, one with a thriving arms industry and “special relations” with Germany, suddenly finds itself at the heart of the German procurement campaign. What began in the 1990s with unilateral and one-time German compensation to Israel in the form of submarines, has in the past decade become a closer and more reciprocal security relationship than ever, turning over billions of euros. UAVs built in Israel, air-to-surface missiles fired from UAVs developed by Israel’s defense industry, small arms, German warships, electronic warfare systems and of course sophisticated submarines made in Germany – all have already changed hands. Even Israel’s Arrow 3 missile defense system with its state-of-the-art radar is there for purchase, as is the Iron Dome system for short-range rocket defense.

The German switch of direction, the Zeitenwende (“change of eras”) mentioned by Scholz, catches Israel when it has closer than ever security relations with Europe’s biggest economy, meaning an opportunity for a financial bonanza. “From the moment the German army’s procurement list was published, that is, the key areas where it intends to spend the €100 billion, the phones have not stopped ringing,” an Israeli source familiar with security procurement relations between the two countries told “Globes”. “Every Israeli company, state-owned or private, believes it can find an item that fits the systems it develops, and that now is the time to sell to the Germans.”

In the past, fearing the reaction of the Arab countries and their possible recognition of East Germany, West Germany refused to build submarines for Israel; they were built in foreign shipyards according to German design. The turning point in relations occurred only after the Gulf War in 1991, which coincided with reunification, and the desire of a newly united Germany to gain legitimacy from Israel. In those days, after two world wars, the very idea of a unified Germany scared the West.

Five German submarines have already been delivered to Israel. Among other things, these have become, according to foreign reports, Israel’s strategic home defense, capable of launching a “second round” of nuclear cruise missiles in the event of a nuclear attack. Four corvettes were also provided. The sixth submarine is currently under construction at the Howaldtswerke-Deutsche Werft (HDW) shipyards in Kiel and is supposed to be the glory of Germany’s naval shipbuilding industry, the biggest built in Germany since World War II. Last year, a contract was signed for the supply of three even more advanced submarines at close to three billion euro. According to the SIPRI Arms Transfers Database, over the last three decades, Israel has become the German arms industry’s fourth largest export destination, after Greece, Turkey and South Korea.

But what has changed in recent years is reciprocity. The German army finds in Israel a modern and relatively proximate army that it can learn from, with similar potential enemies, like Iran and Russia (which are operating in Syria). In addition, Israel is a leading arms exporter in areas where Germany is relatively weak, such as modern warfare. Instead of just receiving submarines, Israel now sells anti-tank missiles and missile defense systems to Germany. It even leases advanced UAVs to the German army and will soon arm them with advanced air-to-surface missiles. Security relations are flourishing, and past attempts to make them conditional upon political progress with the Palestinians, as Merkel tried to do briefly, have evaporated.

“Germany is changing the way it thinks about war and its military procurement,” explains Dr. Peter Lintl, of Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik (SWF, the German Institute for International and Security Affairs) and an expert on Germany-Israel relations. “The Germans see clearly that Israel arms work, and there’s no doubt that Israel is a leading country in this area. In addition, it’s important to remember that most German politicians have a basic ambition to strengthen relations between Israel and Germany. There are many considerations in buying weapons systems, but they are undoubtedly always joined by a longstanding German consideration – reinforcing ties between the countries, because of the history.”

Dr. Lintl believes that these days “There’s a consensus not to sell weapons related to the occupation, but only a minority within the political system say that weapons should not be bought from or sold to Israel at all because of the conflict with the Palestinians” But, he says, “Should there be another confrontation with Gaza, some will say, once again, that Germany needs to be more careful. In fact, there is a constant tension between the desire to strengthen the special relationship, because of the past, and the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. ”

Strangely, the Holocaust created a special bond between the countries, Dr. Lintl believes. “Just as pacifism has been, so far, a part of German national identity, so has battle readiness been in Israel. Both sides came out of the Holocaust saying ‘Never again’. In Germany it meant ‘No more war, ever,’ and in Israel it meant and still means ‘We will never again go like sheep to the slaughter.”’

The present global Zeitgeist is clearly leaning towards the Israeli approach. The war in Ukraine has led many European militaries to announce they are rearming, and Germany sees in Israel an arms industry that complements what it lacks: creativity, computing, innovation, and everything related to digitization and software. The close relationship between the two countries is reflected, for example, in the 2018 German deal to lease seven Heron-TP UAVs, which allows for training and information sharing between the parties, and not just purchasing a “black box” weapons system. Last April, the German government even announced that it would equip the drones with Israeli missiles, for which it will pay at least €150 million. The Germans hope this will also help them develop future European UAVs, and they are willing to pay billions of euros for that.

The German army’s generational shift is also doing its part. “The older generation with its forms and rubber stamps is gone, and younger people are coming in,” says an informed Israeli source. “They travel to Israel, go to the beach, visit Air Force bases, see the weapons systems in action – and they get excited. The same dynamics that made Israel the start-up nation also works in selling advanced weapons.”

Joint flights and training exercises

About €40 billion of the approved €100 billion are earmarked for equipping the Luftwaffe, which maintains the warmest of ties with its Israeli counterpart. The joint flyovers above Dachau and the Negev are symbolic, but also reflect the depth of the relationship forged between the forces, especially in recent years. At the Israel Air Force’s Tel Nof base, a German squadron trains UAV pilots, German and Israeli families walk around the base, and all have lunch together, shoulder to shoulder, each wearing their own uniform. The name of the squadron – The Red Baron – was suggested by the Israelis in honor of the German World War I flying ace.

The depth of this relationship was evident last month at a ceremony held near Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate. The commanders of the Israeli and German Air Forces – General Amikam Nurkin (who retired about two months ago) and General Ingo Gerhartz – jointly received the Ernst Cramer Medaille, a medal awarded by the Deutsch-Israelische Gesellschaft (DIG, the German-Israeli Society). This was the first time the award was presented to military personnel, and the Air Force commanders of both countries praised the cooperation between them.

Gerhartz later told newspaper Die Welt how much he valued his Israeli counterpart. “Israel has the most active air force in the world and a very efficient military industry. We, on the other hand, have complex bureaucratic structures.” Gerhartz added that the German Air Force was preparing for the day when it would be called upon to side with Israel in the name of the commitment made by former Chancellor Merkel and current Chancellor Scholz, that viewed ensuring Israel’s existence as part of the Federal Republic of Germany’s Staatsraison (meaning, ‘reason for being’). “If we say this,” Gerhartz said, “then we should also stand behind it. It means that the two air forces must be able to work together. The question of whether that will actually happen will depend on a political decision.”

Yoram Erlich, an Israeli who has lived in Germany for more than four decades and deals in tourism, is one of the members of the DIG leadership who decided to award the medal to both commanders. “I saw it as very natural,” he tells “Globes”. “The photos from the exercises in the Arava and the joint flights over Jerusalem or Dachau are part of very broad cooperation on security issues, much more than in the past.” Beyond that, he says, “there are very close personal relations between many Germans and Israelis these days. The Germans have a kind of attraction to Israel, because of the past. There are many exchange visits, whether for youth, journalists, military personnel, or politicians.”

Ehrlich says that he sensed security relations were growing closer when he began to see more and more German military personnel, especially from the Luftwaffe, at the Tel Aviv hotels he visits as part of his travels. “On one flight, I found myself sitting next to the German chief of staff who had apparently come to visit the country for security talks, and on another visit, in a Tel Aviv hotel lobby, I met German helicopter pilots who boasted to me that they had purchased an important component from the Israeli Air Force.”

“But, of course, you have to have a good product,” Ehrlich adds. “The German army won’t buy just for its own sake, just because of the history, or the special relationship. All my German acquaintances saw on television the Iron Dome system in action last year. One of the first things I have been told since the outbreak of the war in Ukraine is that Germany needs such a system, too.”

A slice of the budget pie

Meanwhile, Israel’s defense companies are not wasting time, with all of them trying to obtain a share of the heavy German military budget. Last week, the Innovation and Leadership in Aerospace (ILA) trade show was held in Berlin, after two years during which the Covid-19 pandemic halted international security conferences. Israel – which SIPRI ranks as the world’s ninth largest arms exporter – was lavishly represented at a variety of defense industry booths. Meanwhile, Rafael’s German subsidiary Dynamit Nobel Defense (DND), has already won a major contract to supply anti-tank rocket launchers to the German army.

At present, the German request to be the world’s first Arrow 3 customer is also being discussed. German political delegations have already visited Israel to discuss the purchase, and Gerhartz told the media he had recommended that the German government should purchase it. The sophisticated EL/M-2080 Green Pine missile-defense radar, which is part of the system, is supposed to protect not only Germany but the Baltic states and Poland as well. The initial cost of the project is estimated at €3 billion.

These billions are proof that security relations between Israel and Germany could hardly be closer. Less than 70 years after the Holocaust, German submarines are protecting Israel, and Western Europe’s defensive architecture is about to be “Made in Israel”.

Source: https://en.globes.co.il/en/article-germany-rearms-with-israeli-weapons-1001416383

The post Germany rearms with Israeli weapons first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

The German military will contribute considerably to the strengthening of NATO’s east flank, the country’s Chancellor, Olaf Scholz, has announced. He also promised major investment that would turn the Bundeswehr into the largest military force among European members of the US-led military bloc.

Speaking before the German parliament on Wednesday, Scholz assured fellow lawmakers that Berlin would “defend every square meter” of NATO territory, if necessary. The chancellor added that the bloc’s members in Eastern Europe could count on Germany. The country would increase its military presence in the region, including in and around the Baltic Sea, Scholz revealed.

Among the countries where the Bundeswehr will be permanently stationed as part of NATO forces is Lithuania. The Baltic state’s already strained relations with Moscow further escalated last week when Vilnius decided to block the transit of sanctioned goods to Russia’s Kaliningrad exclave. The Kremlin warned it would retaliate severely.

Commenting on Germany’s and NATO’s relations with Russia, Scholz pointed out that a partnership with the eastern neighbor is “unimaginable in the foreseeable future” now that an “imperialist Russia” has attacked Ukraine.

The German head of government warned, however, against terminating any of the fundamental agreements currently existing between the military alliance and Russia.

“We will campaign more than ever for the preservation of an international order that is based on law rather than force,” the German chancellor clarified.

Scholz also said that the sight of destruction in the towns of Irpin and Bucha outside of Kiev, which he had recently visited, reminded him of pictures of destroyed German cities after WWII.

“And just like the war-ravaged Europe then, today Ukraine needs a Marshall Plan for [its] reconstruction,” the chancellor argued, referring to the famous US-sponsored program for European post-war recovery.

The chancellor called it Europe’s “duty” to provide Ukraine with assistance.

To this end, Berlin has invited Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to join via video link the upcoming meeting of G7 leaders, which will take place in Bavaria from June 26 until June 28.

Scholz also said that he intended to hold a special conference of international experts, aimed at raising additional aid for Ukraine.

Speaking in the Bundestag, the chancellor revealed that German self-propelled howitzers had already been supplied to Kiev, with Ukrainian troops also currently undergoing training in the use of self-propelled anti-aircraft Gepard guns, and will start getting acquainted with US-designed M270 multiple launch rocket systems and the German-made IRIS-T air defense system. All of these weapons systems will be provided to Ukraine by Germany.

Later in the day, Chancellor Scholz was quoted by several media outlets as promising to make the German military the “biggest conventional army” among European NATO member states. According to the chancellor, this would have a positive effect not only on Germany’s security but also on that of its allies.

To this end, a special fund to the tune of €100 billion has been earmarked, which will help to considerably upgrade the German military’s capabilities, he reportedly also noted.

After weeks of talks, the ruling traffic-light coalition and the conservative opposition agreed in late May to allocate the money.

Source: https://www.rt.com/news/557679-german-chancellor-military-eastern-europe/

The post Germany makes major announcement on army first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

The decision clears the way for the government to move ahead with a massive procurement drive that Chancellor Olaf Scholz announced shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine.

Parliament’s upper house, which represents Germany’s 16 state governments, signed off on the plan a week after the lower house gave its blessing. Scholz’s governing coalition held lengthy negotiations with the main opposition Union bloc to secure wide backing ahead of the votes.

Scholz announced the fund on Feb. 27, three days after Russia invaded Ukraine, and said that Germany would now spend over 2% of its gross domestic product on defense — a NATO target on which it has long lagged. The government and the opposition agreed that defense spending would meet the 2% target “on a multi-year average,” with help from the special fund.

Officials acknowledge that the German military, the Bundeswehr, has for years suffered from neglect and in particular from aging, poorly functioning equipment.

Among other things on the shopping list, the defense ministry says it will buy 60 Chinook CH-47F transport helicopters, made by Boeing. The government also wants to buy up to 35 Lockheed Martin F-35 fighter jets to replace aging Tornado aircraft.

___

Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

Source: https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-politics-sports-germany-230ba0d176b095606861f70578375513

The post Huge German military fund clears last parliamentary hurdle first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

BERLIN — On the last Saturday in February, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz gathered with his top advisers in his vast, glass-walled office and read aloud a speech condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine — remarks that would transform his nation’s security and defense policy.

As he queried particular phrases in the draft, his advisers proposed alternatives. Scholz, 63, who has known his nation only at peace, was desperate to avert a third world war, said a senior German official who, like others close to the chancellor, spoke on the condition of anonymity to recount private discussions. Initially, that concern made Scholz reluctant to speak of armaments, above all sending weapons to Ukraine.

But when aides presented the chancellor with the question of arming Ukraine directly or simply releasing German-made weapons purchased by partner nations, a request being weighed the same day, he approved both — assessing that sufficient support existed within his government and party to jettison Germany’s long-standing aversion to exporting weapons into conflict zones.

In the course of the deliberations that day, the chancellor also resolved to make explicit how Germany would develop its arsenal to guard against a widening conflict. The country, whose wars of conquest in the previous century had made the projection of military power verboten, would in effect become the world’s third-largest military spender, not only bolstering NATO deployments but strengthening the Bundeswehr, Germany’s armed forces, with procurements including new armed drones and fighter jets.

“He’s aware of what that means,” said an aide involved in the discussions. “That with growing abilities will also come growing demands and expectations.”

The challenge remained to find the words to announce these policies without alarming the public, recalled Scholz advisers. “We are also doing this for us, for our own security,” the chancellor said in the final version of the speech, which he delivered that Sunday to the German parliament. He declared Russia’s invasion three days earlier, on Feb. 24, a “Zeitenwende,” or “turning of an era.”

As over 100,000 rally for Ukraine, Germany announces vast defense spending increase that may upend European security policy

Scholz’s carefully crafted speech signals his approach to taking the reins of government in a crisis — cautious and calculating, constrained by history. The test is whether the same approach can steer his country through a national security transformation and into a more active and confident role on the world stage.

“Scholz sleepwalked into the crisis, seemingly never thinking it would actually happen, but has now brought about Germany’s most significant U-turn since 1989,” said Peter Wittig, a former German ambassador to the United States, referring to the fall of the Berlin Wall. “The chancellor said, ‘Germany needs hard power.’ ”

But decisions made in crisis can be difficult to sustain, Wittig said. Already Berlin is facing intensifying criticism from Ukrainian officials for not doing enough to export arms. And some in Scholz’s party say his security commitments are unrealistic.

In this new era for Germany, marked by the return of land war to Europe, the past casts a long shadow. When Scholz led his Social Democratic Party to victory in last fall’s elections, he inherited the mantle of German chancellors with complex ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Angela Merkel, a fluent Russian speaker raised in Germany’s former communist east, was a frequent interlocutor for Putin, pressing him on issues ranging from migration to human rights. She also steered the Normandy Format talks — among France, Germany, Ukraine and Russia — that helped broker a 2014 cease-fire agreement in the contested Ukrainian region of Donbas.

Scholz, who had been finance minister and vice chancellor in Merkel’s final coalition government, positioned himself as her natural heir. She was among those he consulted in preparing to meet with Putin in February.

Now, Merkel’s legacy is coming under new criticism. The center-right chancellor supported the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, bucking U.S. recommendations and deepening her country’s dependency on Russian fossil fuels. She also favored dialogue with Putin over more forceful measures. She counseled President Barack Obama against sending lethal aid to Ukraine when he sought her advice in 2014 and 2015, according to current and former German diplomats familiar with the conversations.

Germany, urged to ‘stop Putin’s war machine,’ resists embargo on Russian energy

At the same time, Merkel “had no illusions about Putin’s ruthlessness,” said a former German diplomat.

That sets her apart from Gerhard Schröder, the chancellor before her, whose refusal to relinquish board seats on Russian energy companies has made him persona non grata in Scholz’s party, which he twice led to victory, in 1998 and 2002. His deference to Putin has also threatened to discredit Germany’s broader policy of Ostpolitik, the normalization of relations with the East, pioneered by the Social Democrats in the 1970s.

Schröder’s access to strongmen in Eastern Europe and Western Asia has at times proved useful to his government. In 2017, he helped persuade Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to release a detained human rights activist, said Ulrich Brandenburg, a former German ambassador to Russia. But the 77-year-old’s trip last month to Moscow yielded no results, according to German officials, who said he is acting independently. In a speech last month, Schröder spoke of “many mistakes on both sides.”

The legacy of his predecessors is hard for Scholz to escape, said Pavlo Klimkin, a former Ukrainian foreign minister and ambassador to Germany. “Under moral and political pressure, Scholz is clearly trying to exit this friendly mentality to Russia,” Klimkin said.

What you need to know about Olaf Scholz

The chancellor’s mentality already differed from that of his predecessors, his allies say.
Scholz, a onetime vice president of the International Union of Socialist Youth who criticized the “aggressive-imperialist NATO,” increased Germany’s defense budget when he served as finance minister in Merkel’s cabinet. In 2018, his role in selecting a new foreign minister caused blowback in his center-left party when his pick took a tough line on Russia, accusing the Kremlin of defining itself in opposition to the West. Scholz and others faced internal recriminations, associates said, for advocating what one person called a “Europe First” agenda.

Some within Scholz’s party are still skeptical of such an agenda. Ralf Stegner, a Social Democratic lawmaker and member of the foreign affairs committee, said security in Europe is possible only “with Russia, not against Russia.”

Philipp Türmer, deputy chairman of the Social Democratic Party’s youth organization, said a better-equipped military is a necessity. But “abstract aims of military expansion,” including the NATO commitment of spending 2 percent of economic output on defense, “don’t make sense,” said Türmer, who holds the same position at the youth organization, called Jusos, that Scholz once did.

In the short term, “the party will remain united around Scholz and this goal,” said Nils Schmid, a lawmaker and foreign policy spokesman for Scholz’s Social Democrats in parliament. Then, he said, the chancellor will have to “spell out exactly which projects and which purchases are needed.”

The path is uncharted in a country without a national security council or a well-supplied military. Germany’s army chief took to LinkedIn in the early hours of Russia’s invasion to warn that the country’s armed forces were “more or less powerless.”

Power is what Scholz decided his country needed, after diplomacy failed to bring Putin back from the brink.

During his February visit to Moscow, the chancellor accepted sparkling wine from his Russian counterpart. But when Scholz asked the Russian president, “Mr. Putin, can you assure me that once I leave Moscow, that’s not the moment your fighter jets start to invade Ukraine?” Putin gave no answer, according to someone briefed on the conversation.

Scholz says response to Russia will be ‘united and decisive’ if Ukraine is invaded

A week before Russia’s invasion, when the leader of an allied nation asked Scholz on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference what he thought the probability was that Putin would give the order to attack, on a scale from 1 to 10, the chancellor refused to make a prediction, according to a person familiar with the exchange. Scholz also demurred when pressed to counter early Russian hostilities, most notably resisting calls to halt Nord Stream 2 — before reversing course and preventing certification of the controversial project.

Scholz has told associates since his Feb. 27 speech that German power means not only national defense but also economic prosperity and the cultural factors that make Germany an attractive place to live.

A majority of the public backs sending arms to Ukraine, according to recent polling, a reversal from earlier this year during Russia’s military buildup, when surveys showed that most Germans still opposed weapons deliveries.

But public confidence is at a low ebb. Only 19 percent of Germans are optimistic about the near future, the lowest share since 1949, according to a March poll by the Allensbach Institute. “The population is in shock,” wrote the institute’s managing director.

Scholz’s calls with Putin since the invasion have been carefully coordinated with European allies, the United States and Ukraine. “It is the Ukrainians that need to call the shots,” said the senior German official, so no one will “betray them, even accidentally.”

Ukrainian assessments of German leadership are already laced with a sense of betrayal, especially after evidence of civilian massacres emerged from Bucha. Ukraine’s ambassador to Germany, Andriy Melnyk, said last weekend that Scholz “finally has to take on this leadership role” and advance tougher sanctions.

In Bucha, the scope of Russian barbarity is coming into focus

Norbert Röttgen, a lawmaker from Germany’s center-right Christian Democratic Union, accused Scholz of pursuing a “policy of deliberate halfheartedness.” Scenes from Bucha demand the chancellor make good on his language about a new era, Röttgen said.

“A ‘Zeitenwende’ requires much more than just a defense fund,” said the lawmaker, a former chairman of the foreign affairs committee. “The government has to deliver on its promise that everything fundamentally has changed.”

In a Wednesday appearance before lawmakers, Scholz defended his government’s arms shipments, saying Germany was sending everything it could. He stressed that shipments were being coordinated with NATO, in response to questions about a Ukrainian request for 100 German infantry vehicles. That request was relayed to Scholz and his team by Wladimir Klitschko, the Ukrainian celebrity and former professional boxer, during a visit to Berlin last week, according to a person with knowledge of the meeting. A Ukrainian official declined to comment.

Ukraine presses NATO for immediate aid: ‘Weapons, weapons, weapons’

Despite the decision to send arms into a conflict zone, said a senior German diplomat, “our history doesn’t go away. You will see a careful approach in foreign policy.” The foremost task, according to the diplomat, is to “hold Europe together.”

And that falls to Scholz. “He is the center of power, even in a parliamentary system,” the diplomat said.

Parts of the German media doubt he has what it takes. The chancellor, wrote a columnist in the Munich-based Süddeutsche Zeitung, embodies his country’s problems: “weak in leadership, self-centered and helpless.”

That assessment, say Scholz’s allies, is contradicted by his success in overturning decades of foreign policy consensus in a single weekend, and bringing his three-party coalition government along with him. “He’s proactive and pushy,” said Schmid, the lawmaker and foreign policy spokesman. “He wants to see things implemented.”

At 5 feet and 7 inches, Scholz is not an imposing presence. When he was mayor of Hamburg, from 2011 to 2018, he used to row before cabinet meetings on Alster Lake. Now, he uses an indoor water rower — or else runs two times a week. Despite his serious manner, he has a mischievous, high-pitched laugh, say associates, and aides address him with the informal pronoun “du,” instead of the professional “Sie.”

French President Emmanuel Macron, a longtime advocate of greater European military cooperation, has staked out a more high-profile role rallying the continent behind the Ukrainian cause. Biden went to Warsaw to proclaim a new “battle for democracy.” Scholz is less comfortable standing at a lectern than he is sitting at a conference table. “He’s someone who knows his briefing book,” said the senior German diplomat.

After call with Putin, Macron convinced that ‘the worst is yet to come’ and that Russia wants to take all of Ukraine

That attitude also shapes Scholz’s engagement with fellow leaders. He feels especially aligned with Macron and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, said the senior German official, who added, “Olaf Scholz is not the guy who bonds in a way that they’re best buddies and drinking, but I think they all click politically.”

Scholz’s advisers have benefited from strong ties with Biden’s team, said senior officials in Berlin.

Scholz’s closest confidant, Wolfgang Schmidt, the chancellery chief of staff who has the rank of a cabinet minister, speaks regularly to William J. Burns, the CIA director, who was in Berlin last month. Scholz’s chief economic adviser, Jörg Kukies, a former Goldman Sachs banker, works with Daleep Singh, a deputy national security adviser handling sanctions. And foreign policy adviser Jens Plötner consults with Jake Sullivan, the national security adviser.

The chancellor’s advisers hope Biden’s leadership role in responding to Russian aggression might help him win over Trump supporters who crave American strength. And they’re even inclined to help. One adviser mused about Scholz and Macron, who is up for reelection this month, traveling to the United States and reaching out to American voters.

“They could go to where the F-35 is produced,” said the adviser, referring to the combat aircraft, which is made in Fort Worth and which Germany has promised to buy. “And they could say, ‘That’s your leader who made this happen.’ ”

Vanessa Guinan-Bank contributed to this report.

Source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/04/08/olaf-scholz-germany-russia-ukraine/

The post Embracing military power, Olaf Scholz tries to lead Germany into a new era first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

The post Heaviest rainfall in a century devastates parts of Western Europe first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

I watched and held my breath with thousands of others on that heady night in November 1989, when one brave young man dared to jump off the wall into what had been “no man’s land”.

Days earlier he would have been shot, joining all those who had paid with their lives for daring to try to bridge the gap between East and West. Not on the night the wall fell. He held out a flower to a bewildered-looking East German soldier who, after a pause that seemed to last a lifetime, held out his hand and accepted the gesture of peace. The crowd lining the wall cheered wildly.

Mr. Scholz announced his country would now offer real military aid to Ukraine.

A few weeks before, his government had been mocked for its offer of 5,000 helmets to equip the Ukrainian army. The head of the German navy had to resign after he observed that all Mr. Putin wanted was respect and that he probably deserved it.

The German chancellor has now pledged to spend more – €100bn (£84bn) more – on defence. What that means is that this country will soon become the biggest military power in Europe and the third biggest in the world – behind only China and the United States.

Not so very long ago, that prospect would have been greeted with fear abroad and protests at home.

As a young man – a member of what he calls “the 1989 generation” – Nils Schmid studied in Ukraine in what was then part of the Soviet Union. These days, he is a German MP and foreign affairs spokesman for the governing Social Democrats. He told me he and his fellow countrymen and women now had to accept that the “iron curtain” which divided Europe had simply moved.

Once it had stood a few hundred yards from his office. Now, long after the fall of the wall, it is on the border between Nato countries – whose defence is guaranteed by the US – and those who look to Moscow.

Opposite his office stands the vast Russia embassy – in what used to be East Berlin. It is now protected by police and there are barricades decorated with anti-war posters. A blanket lies on the ground and is filled with soft toys. The message to passers by is that it could be your children dying in Ukraine.

There, I met Michael – a biker from the Black Forest in south-west Germany. He was recording a video next to his Yamaha, which he had re-painted in the blue and yellow colours of the Ukrainian flag. He had ridden for eight hours carrying a folder bulging with 600 messages to Vladimir Putin – from friends, neighbours and colleagues calling on the Russian president to stop the war.

The embassy staff had refused to accept it. Michael had come to realise that talking to Russia (what used to be called detente) was not enough. Germany now had to be prepared to confront Moscow.

What that means is the children of that 1989 generation will not enjoy the same freedoms as their parents. They will not grow up believing that wars are what happened in the past. Indeed a recent poll showed that seven in 10 Germans fear the spread of this war.

And no wonder. The refugees driven from their homes by this conflict are pouring off trains into Berlin’s stations at a rate of, some say, 10,000 a day.

This war is re-shaping how Europe’s most powerful country thinks. That will have dramatic consequences which are only just beginning to be thought through.

You have be almost 40 years old to remember the day when the wall fell back in November 1989. These days of February and March 2022 are turning out to be just as consequential.

Source: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-60743342

The post Ukraine: Nick Robinson on how Germany is reversing decades of closer ties with Russia first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

Germany’s Defense Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer meets with U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin at the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, U.S., June 30, 2021. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst/File Photo

BERLIN, Aug 9 (Reuters) – Germany’s defence minister rejected on Monday calls for its soldiers to return to Afghanistan after Taliban insurgents took Kunduz city where German troops were deployed for a decade.

Germany had the second largest military contingent in Afghanistan after the United States, losing more troops in combat in Kunduz than anywhere else since World War Two.

The Taliban overran three provincial capitals including Kunduz at the weekend as it pressed an offensive since foreign troops began a withdrawal. read more

“The reports from Kunduz and from all over Afghanistan are bitter and hurt a lot,” Defence Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer said on Twitter.

“Are society and parliament prepared to send the armed forces into a war and remain there with lots of troops for at least a generation? If we are not, then the joint withdrawal with the partners remains the right decision.”

Some within her own conservative party want German troops to participate in an intervention against the Taliban, but Kramp-Karrenbauer said defeating them would require a long and hard campaign.

Since the United States announced plans in April to pull out troops by Sept. 11, and the transatlantic alliance NATO followed suit, violence has escalated as the Taliban seize territory.

Kramp-Karrenbauer blamed former U.S. President Donald Trump for undermining the Afghanistan operation, even though it is his successor Joe Biden implementing the withdrawal policy.

“Trump’s unfortunate deal with the Taliban was the beginning of the end,” she said of an agreement Trump struck with the Islamist militants in 2020 for U.S. troops to leave.

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Source: https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/germany-rejects-calls-troops-return-afghanistan-2021-08-09/

The post Germany rejects calls for troops to return to Afghanistan first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

The post German troops withdraw from Afghanistan first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

Germany inaugurated its first military rabbi in a century on Monday in a ceremony at a Leipzig synagogue attended by the country’s defense minister and the Israeli ambassador.

Rabbi Zsolt Balla was appointed to the role earlier this month, becoming the first Jewish chaplain to the German armed forces since the First World War.

Nearly 100,000 Jews fought for Germany in the conflict between 1914 and 1918.

The subsequent rise of Nazi Germany and its antisemitic policies forced one-time military rabbis including Leo Baeck and Jacob Sonderling to leave the country.

Few of those who remained survived to see the end of the Second World War.

Josef Schuster, the leader of Germany’s Jewish community, told German soldiers that “you probably imagined an old man with a white beard, long temple curls, and a large hat.”

“I can assure you that as a trained industrial engineer he knows of the difficulties when there is a problem in logistics,” Schuster said, adding that as a dad of three children, “he is also used to having to throw all the planning overboard.”

The 42-year-old Hungarian-born Balla remains a community rabbi of Leipzig, as well as the state rabbi of Saxony.

Up to ten military rabbis will be appointed in the coming months, officials said.

Germany’s defense minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer said Monday’s appointment strengthened “something which especially in light of Germany’s history means a lot even though it almost sounds banal: normality.

“A normality which recognizes that Jewish life, Jews belong to Germany and that Judaism belongs to the (German army).”

She added: “We all agree: it is the responsibility of every democrat to fight anti-Semitism. And I will say very clearly: this is a highly personal responsibility for each and every one of us, also for myself.”

Source: https://jewishnews.timesofisrael.com/germanys-first-military-rabbi-in-a-century-begins-work/

The post Germany’s first military rabbi in a century begins work first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.