U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock met in Washington on Wednesday to discuss various issues between the two countries. One critical issue was that of the increase of Russian troops along the border of its former Soviet neighbor Ukraine. The build-up is said to be caused by Ukraine’s attempts to join NATO, which the U.S. and Germany are both members of. The two representatives agreed that this military presence can be dangerous.

“Both Germany and the United States see Russia’s actions toward Ukraine as an immediate and urgent challenge to peace and stability in Europe,” said Blinken. “We condemn Russia’s military buildup on Ukraine’s borders, as well as Russia’s increasingly harsh rhetoric as it continues to push the false narrative that Ukraine seeks to provoke them. That’s a little bit like the fox saying it had no choice but to attack the henhouse because somehow the hens presented a threat.”

Without using analogies like her American counterpart, Baerbock agreed that Russia’s actions are a form of intimidation.

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“We jointly reiterated that Russian actions and activities come with a clear price tag,” she explained, “and a renewed violation of Ukrainian sovereignty by Russia would have severe consequences.”

The Blinken-Baerbock meeting followed a telephone call last week between President Joe Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin, a conversation Sunday between Biden and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and a group discussion Tuesday among Biden’s national security adviser Jake Sullivan and his counterparts from the five Nordic nations.

It also preceded a flurry of meetings involving NATO foreign ministers, senior U.S. and Russian officials, the NATO-Russia Council and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe set for next week.

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“The real question is whether Russia is serious about diplomacy, serious about de-escalation,” Blinken said. “Let’s see where this goes over the next weeks.”

Western officials have hinted at any number of economically crippling sanctions that could be imposed should Russia act. Those include near-total cutoff from the international financial system and steps toward greater NATO integration with non-allied European nations.

But, there have been very few specifics and Blinken again declined to discuss them. “I’m not going to telegraph them publicly, but I can tell you with great confidence that a tremendous amount of work has been done already. There is very strong coordination and collaboration and very strong agreement on measures that would be taken in the event of renewed Russian aggression against Ukraine.”

As the Biden administration moves to build international consensus around a set of possible punitive measures, Germany is clearly the linchpin. Securing the support of Europe’s biggest economy will be key to both messaging and implementation of whatever is decided.

Baerbock is the top diplomat in the first German government in 16 years not headed by Angela Merkel. She has struck a tougher tone on Russia than her predecessor. But Germany has adopted a less confrontational stance toward Russia compared with many other European nations.

Germany’s business ties with Russia could provide leverage, but they could also prove a hindrance for forging a united front toward Moscow. Despite strong criticism from the U.S., the center-left government of new Chancellor Olaf Scholz hasn’t shown itself willing to block the start of natural gas deliveries through a newly built pipeline linking Russia and Germany—a move that would hurt both countries.

Under Merkel, Germany persuaded the Biden administration last year not to impose sanctions on the company building the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, which many believe will leave Europe beholden to Russia for energy and Ukraine more vulnerable.

Blinken noted that the pipeline, while completed, has yet to go into operation and said gas flows through it would be unlikely if Russia invades Ukraine.

“If Russia renews its aggression toward Ukraine, it would certainly be difficult to see gas flowing through it in the future,” he said. This actually gives the EU leverage over Russia, he said, rather than the other way around.

Baerbock sidestepped the question of whether the pipeline would be operationalized in the event of a Russian intervention. However, she said the new German government would abide by an agreement signed last summer with Washington that says Russia will not be allowed to use energy as a political weapon against Europe.

“We agreed on this, together with our European partners, that we would take effective measures together with our European partners, should Russia use energy as a weapon or should it continue its aggressive acts against Ukraine,” Baerbock said.

Blinken did not directly address her response but said the U.S. would press ahead with joint measures on the pipeline if necessary.

“We will continue to work in a way that I hope can be effective in dealing with energy issues and challenges, including those posed in our judgment by Nord Stream 2, and also in a way that preserves what is so vital, and that is strong trans-Atlantic solidarity. That is the most effective response and most effective tool that we have in countering Russian aggression,” he said.

Nord Stream 2 is a topic of major concern in Washington, and Congress is expected to take up two bills related to it and other Russia sanctions next week, just as the meetings in Europe are happening. A GOP bill would automatically impose Nord Stream sanctions, while a Democratic version would impose a wider range of penalties on Russia should it invade Ukraine.

Both Democratic and Republican lawmakers in Washington have blamed Nord Stream 2 for increasing Russia’s leverage over Germany and limiting what Berlin would be willing to do in response to a new invasion. Germany, like much of the European Union, is heavily reliant on Russian natural gas.

Blinken said the U.S. has delivered weapons to Ukraine and would continue to do so in the event of a further Russian military assault on the country.

Echoing concerns by some in Germany that this could stoke military tensions with Russia, Baerbock said “we have a different position on arms supply to Ukraine,” but noted that Berlin has provided a military hospital to the Ukrainian army and support in treating wounded soldiers.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Source: https://www.newsweek.com/us-germany-say-russia-military-buildup-ukraine-poses-immediate-urgent-challenge-1666076

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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/

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Germany has had a lot of nasty geopolitical surprises in recent years. But the worst by far — what strategy wonks call a black swan — wasn’t Russian aggression on Europe’s doorstep, China’s quest for global dominance or Turkey stoking conflict in the eastern Mediterranean. It was the election of Donald Trump as US president. Consequently, the nation is mesmerized by the possibility of his re-election on November 3.

Chancellor Angela Merkel, a dedicated transatlanticist, never established the kind of rapport with Mr Trump that she’d had with his predecessors George W Bush and Barack Obama. Mr Trump is the first postwar US president not to have made a state visit to Germany in his first term. But Berlin’s troubles with Washington go beyond the two leaders and extend across the political aisle. On many points of contention, there is near-bipartisan agreement.

Trade protectionists have Germany’s surpluses in their sight. Middle East hawks are upset that Berlin (locking arms with Paris and London) wants to preserve the Iran nuclear agreement. China hawks accuse Ms Merkel of being soft on Beijing. Russia hands are upset at Germany’s reluctance to stop the Nord Stream 2 pipeline project. The defence community is deeply underwhelmed that the country spends no more than 1.5 per cent of its gross domestic product on defence.

Of course, a second term for Mr Trump would have a wholly different impact on US-German relations than would a Joe Biden presidency. It is conceivable that a victorious Mr Trump would push hard to end US wars in Afghanistan and the Middle East, and take American troops out of Europe. He might even hope to make an ally of Russia against China. It would almost certainly be the end of Nato.

Mr Biden cherishes the transatlantic alliance and appreciates the EU’s economic and regulatory heft. Yet bogged down by a multitude of domestic challenges, his administration would have to focus urgently on China’s rise. The burden of regional security — from north Africa via the eastern Mediterranean and the Middle East all the way to the Caucasus, Ukraine and Belarus — will fall to Europe.

In either election outcome, the simple truth is that the onus is on Europe’s most powerful country to turn itself into the continent’s security anchor. Germany is unprepared for this, says Norbert Röttgen, chair of the Bundestag foreign affairs committee.

Still, there is a new sense of urgency in Berlin. In the summer, Germany backed a massive debt-financed recovery programme for the pandemic-stricken EU. It has supported new sanctions against senior Kremlin figures after the assassination attempt on Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny. And while Ms Merkel still appears unwilling to suspend Nord Stream 2, for the first time she has refused to rule it out. The legislature is considering a law that would effectively ban the Chinese telecoms provider Huawei from Germany’s 5G network.

As for the US, German defence minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer gave a forceful speech last week in which she said Germany would have to become a “strategic giver” and play a stronger role in the security of Europe’s neighbourhood. Foreign minister Heiko Maas followed with an op-ed warning that the “profiteers of our differences sit in Beijing and Moscow, but also in Tehran and Pyongyang”. Both emphasised the need to co-operate on confronting Chinese assertiveness — but the fear of being dragged into a confrontation by the US is palpable.

Berlin’s dilemma is that it badly wants to reserve the right to agree to disagree with Washington, regardless of who is the next president. But it is a long way from being able to afford to.

Constanze Stelzenmüller

Senior Fellow – Foreign Policy, Center on the United States and Europe

Source: https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2020/10/26/germany-needs-to-step-up-to-europes-defense/

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President Trump recently ordered a 12,000-troop reduction in American military personnel stationed in Germany. That leaves about 24,000 American soldiers still in the country.

A little more than half of the troops being withdrawn will return home. The rest will be redeployed to other NATO member nations such as Belgium, Italy, and perhaps Baltic and Eastern European countries.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel is said to be furious. She claims the redeployments will “weaken the (NATO) alliance.” German commercial interests chimed in that the troop withdrawals will hurt their decades-old businesses serving U.S. bases.

Perhaps, but Merkel surely cannot be surprised. Six years ago, all NATO members pledged to spend 2 percent of their GDP on defense. Yet only eight of 29 so far have kept their word.

Germany spends only about 1.4 percent of its GDP on defense. As NATO’s largest, wealthiest, and most powerful European member, it sets the example for the rest of the alliance.

Merkel’s reneging on her 2014 pledge helps explain why less wealthy and influential NATO members also see no reason to meet their obligations.

Germany surely knows that 2020 marks the 75th anniversary of the end of World War II, and the 29th year since the fall of the Berlin Wall — the symbolic end of the Cold War.

Will there be any point in the future when Europe is confident enough to be a full defense partner with the U.S. rather than an eight-decade client?

NATO, of course, still provides a common European defense, but only by habitually relying inordinately on U.S. military contributions. That dependence seems increasingly odd when the European Union has an aggregate GDP nearly as large as America’s.

More important, NATO’s frontline threats are now mostly concerned with rogue member Turkey, especially its bullying of Greece, and its increasingly aggressive stance in the Middle East.

Russia always poses a threat to Europe. But the likely flashpoints are not on the German border, but more likely eastward in the Baltic states or on the Russian frontier with Poland.

Moreover, the Merkel government has concluded, over American objections, a huge natural gas deal with Russia that is currently under some U.S. sanctions and short of cash.

Russian energy exports to Germany are said to earn Russia $10 billion a year, with a likely doubling of that income once additional pipelines to Germany are completed.

Merkel likes to lecture the world on moral issues, but what is so noble about empowering Russian President Vladimir Putin, who recently reclaimed Crimea and seems now to be eyeing Belarus?

Like a modern-day Byzantine emperor Justinian, who recovered much of the lost Western Roman Empire, Putin seems to think he can reabsorb the lost Soviet republics.

The post A Sort-of goodbye to Germany? first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

Tino Chrupalla, the co-chairman of Alternative for Germany, told public broadcaster ZDF the move was in line with his party’s program, which seeks the removal of Allied troops and American nuclear warheads from German soil.

The Trump administration intends to bring about 6,400 American troops home from Germany and shift about 5,600 to other countries in Europe. The plan, which Trump has linked to Berlin’s failure to spend enough on its own military, foresees leaving about 24,000 troops in Germany.

“In my opinion this even makes Europe a bit more peaceful,” Chrupalla said in the ZDF interview broadcast Sunday.

He added the withdrawal of U.S. troops “can be a signal toward Russia.”

His comments echo those of Germany’s ex-communist Left party, which has praised the U.S. move. Both parties have close ties to Moscow, which considers the presence of U.S. troops in Europe an affront to its interests.

Chrupalla said he also favors lifting economic sanctions imposed on Russia over its 2014 annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula.

Alternative for Germany entered the national parliament for the first time in 2017, coming third with 12.6% of the vote. The party has recently lost traction in opinion polls amid infighting over suspected extremist links among some of its members and a surge in support for German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic.

Source: https://apnews.com/fe31444860e129d4d4241e93cb37bfe6

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The removal order would reduce the U.S. troop presence in Germany by 9,500 from the 34,500 service members who are permanently assigned there. It would also cap at 25,000 the number of American troops in Germany at any one time. Under current practice, overall troop levels can rise to as high as 52,000 as units rotate in and out or take part in training exercises.

GERMANY’S MERKEL ACCUSES RUSSIA OF HACKING HER EMAIL ACCOUNT

The Trump administration ordered the change in a memorandum signed recently by White House national security adviser Robert O’Brien, the officials said Friday.

U.S. President Donald Trump, left, is welcomed by German Chancellor Angela Merkel on the first day of the G-20 summit in Hamburg, northern Germany, Friday, July 7, 2017. (Associated Press)

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The decision drew criticism from some former senior defense officials and lawmakers concerned that it would further weaken a key alliance and empower U.S. adversaries. Moscow is likely to welcome the open display of differences between two key North Atlantic Treaty Organization allies, U.S. experts said, though Russia didn’t comment publicly on the development.

One senior U.S. official said that the administration has been discussing the move since September and that it isn’t linked to German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s decision not to attend a G-7 meeting Mr. Trump was to host in Washington at the end of June.

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But the official acknowledged that it reflected the Trump administration’s long frustration with German policy, especially the nation’s level of military spending and its insistence on completing the controversial Nord Stream 2 pipeline that will channel Russian gas directly to Germany under the Baltic Sea.

Source: https://www.foxnews.com/us/trump-directs-pentagon-to-pull-9500-us-troops-from-germany-by-september

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Germany’s Angela Merkel says Europe shouldn’t rely on U.S. directives and create its own sovereignty.

Angela Merkel once again talked about the need to reduce Europe’s dependence on the United States, at least in terms of foreign and defense policy on Wednesday during a federal budget debate in the nation’s Bundestag, or legislator.

In her own words, it’s time for European nations “to take their fate into their own hands” referring to creating greater European Union sovereignty. The German chancellor told lawmakers in Berlin that the end of the Cold War 30 years ago revealed “a new narrative of global power distribution.”

She also added that the U.S. and EU must strengthen diplomatic relations and move towards spending two percent of GDP on defense, the amount prescribed by the Trump administration for Germany and other NATO allies.

Also during her Wednesday speech, Merkel said the trade war between the United States and China was hitting Germany, which has traditionally relied on exports to propel its economy.

“The U.S.-China trade conflict … is of course having an impact on an export nation like Germany,” the chancellor said Sept. 11. The Trump-initiated conflict was officially kicked off in June 2018 and the U.S. has applied US$550 billion in tariffs onto Chinese imports, while China has placed US$185 billion in tariffs on the North American country, according to China Briefing.

Source: https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Merkel-Urges-EU-to-Reduce-Dependence-on-White-House–20190911-0033.html

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