On German contributions (or the lack thereof)
It is interesting that, of all nations in Nato not largely involved in the south, the main criticism seems to hit Germany. This is peculiar indeed considering its past (and comparably intensive involvement in the north).
Some aspects of the German contribution (as well as of its limits):
1) German forces have been part of offensive operations in the context of Anaconda (special forces) and Harekate Yolo 1 + 2.
2) The Germans do have a problem to extend their mandate to the south and let things get hot with larger forces being involved (which cannot be obfuscated wrt to the media).
The WW2 aspects should not be underestimated. On the one hand, Germany gets constantly reminded of the 3rd Reich ( by countries officials including todays allies), especially when it is profitable from the other countries point of view. On the other hand, Germany was no asked to help invading a sovereign country (which they did) and join in messy warfare implying collateral damage. ... That is asking a lot.
There are two other points in this regard. Politically speaking, the allied tactics during WW2 to, by explicitly attacking civilians, bomb/shell/starve out any appetite for military campaigns out of the Germans forever seems to have worked out quite well. Today, the democrats in the States would be best compared to the German conservatives, i.e. the political climate is rather leftish-liberal and most certainly pacifistic. No chancellor would survive (politically) media reports of German forces having mistakenly dropped a bomb on a wedding ceremony... or sth. like this.
WW2 also greatly influenced the German constitution. That is, any form of offensive wars are forbidden by it. It has been controversially debated whether even peace-keeping missions are unproblematic. So, building schools in the north is much less of a legal issue than fighting Taleban in the south.
3) The opinions of German leaders as of how to bring peace to the south are quite different from the ones advertised and implemented by their American colleagues. If the Germans would enter the south then they would do so as junior partners following American instructions in a blood demanding operation the Germans do not believe to be promising. A question we all need to ask ourselves is whether it is feasible to build a stable Afghan nation with the amount of energy and investments the west is willing (and able) to spend.
In the final analysis, I believe it should be clear that, from a German point of view, their current contribution could already be considered being maximally supportive. I would be optimistic that those limitations may slowly erode as WW2 becomes more and more forgotten and younger (less biased by this past war) generations take over in all nations.
Bayernwahl bremst Bundeswehr in Afghanistan
From the German Newspaper Spiegel (Mirror)
'Bavarian vote slows Bundeswehr in Afghanistan'
Quote:
Die Furcht der CSU-Führung vor einer Schlappe bei der Landtagswahl im September hat Auswirkungen auf den Afghanistan-Einsatz der Bundeswehr. Nach Informationen des SPIEGEL soll die Truppe erst im Oktober verstärkt werden. Es droht neuer Ärger mit den Verbündeten.
“The fear of the CSU Leadership (Christian Social Union – a conservative German political party headquartered in Bavaria) of a slap (at their policies) in the state vote (Germany has 16 Lander or States) in September has affected the Afghanistan mission of the Bundeswehr. Spiegel has learned that the troops are to be increased in October. This has threatened to again upset the political alliance.”
More in German at the link....
German Special Forces leave Afghanistan without conducting a single mission?
If true, Wow:
Quote:
GERMANY has admitted its Special Forces have spent three years in Afghanistan without doing a single mission, and are now going to be withdrawn.
More than 100 soldiers from the elite Kommando Spezialkrafte regiment, or KSK, are set to leave the war-torn country after their foreign minister revealed they had never left their bases on an operation.
The KSK troops were originally sent to Afghanistan to lead counter-terrorist operations.
But Frank-Walter Steinmeier, the foreign minister, admitted they had not been deployed "a single time" in the last three years, despite a desperate shortage of Special Forces units in the country.
Germany and the Haji Sakhi Dedby airstrike
Sole Informant Guided Decision On Afghan Strike
By Rajiv Chandrasekaran
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, September 6, 2009
Quote:
HAJI SAKHI DEDBY, Afghanistan, Sept. 5 -- To the German commander, it seemed to be a fortuitous target: More than 100 Taliban insurgents were gathering around two hijacked fuel tankers that had become stuck in the mud near this small farming village.
The grainy live video transmitted from an American F-15E fighter jet circling overhead, which was projected on a screen in a German tactical operations center four miles north of here, showed numerous black dots around the trucks -- each of them a thermal image of a human but without enough detail to confirm whether they were carrying weapons. An Afghan informant was on the phone with an intelligence officer at the center, however, insisting that everybody at the site was an insurgent, according to an account that German officers here provided to NATO officials.
Based largely on that informant's assessment, the commander ordered a 500-pound, satellite-guided bomb to be dropped on each truck early Friday. The vehicles exploded in a fireball that lit up the night sky for miles, incinerating many of those standing nearby.
A NATO fact-finding team estimated Saturday that about 125 people were killed in the bombing, at least two dozen of whom -- but perhaps many more -- were not insurgents. To the team, which is trying to sort out this complicated incident, mindful that the fallout could further sap public support in Afghanistan for NATO's security mission here, the target appeared to be far less clear-cut than it had to the Germans.
Anyone know how this is playing out in Germany?
Difficult but not an insurmountable path...
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Igel
Despite the frequent criticism of german politicians I suspect they understand Clausewitz only to well. A war has to be fought according to its aim. Now, if the aim of the german engagement in Afghanistan really is nation building and the defeat of the Taliban, than Germany doesn't fight according to its aim. But what if the aim is to symbolize a commitment to the transatlantic alliance, a try to gain political points in the USA while avoiding to upset the german public? If it is the later, the mere presence of german troops serves this aim. Fighting against the Taliban not only is not necessary but also harmful to the political aim of the politicans themselves - the reelection.
Igel, thanks for posting. When you get a chance please introduce yourself here.
This event is something that I am following closely as well. This link appears to speak to German fears...
From this mornings Spiegel Von Gregor Peter Schmitz Bundeswehr-Bashing erstaunt US-Experten
Quote:
Stephen Szabo glaubt, dass das Pentagon und das Militär durch die Kritik den Druck auf Merkel erhöhen wollen - und indirekt auch auf Obama. "McChrystal und das Pentagon versuchen, die Debatte um die Bombardements zu pushen, um das Weiße Haus auf ihre Linie zu bringen", sagt Szabo. "Vor allem die Briten erhöhen den Druck auf die Amerikaner, die Deutschen zu mehr Kampfeinsätzen im gefährlichen Süden Afghanistans zu verpflichten. Obama muss entscheiden, ob er mehr Truppen sendet und wieviel mehr Druck er auf Verbündete wie Deutschland ausübt. Das Pentagon versucht, ihn unter Druck zu setzen."
And this link appears to capture much of the American understanding of the German effort in Afghanistan...
From last night's Washington Post by Craig Whitlock, In Germany, Political Turmoil Over Ordering Of Airstrike
Quote:
Regardless of whether most of those killed in the bombing were civilians or Taliban fighters, there was genuine shock among many Germans that one of their military commanders could have been responsible for an attack that killed so many people.
About 4,200 German troops are stationed in Afghanistan, the third-largest foreign contingent, after the those of the United States and Britain. But the German troops are generally restricted from engaging in combat operations and concentrate instead on civilian reconstruction programs.
The government approved sending troops to Afghanistan as part of a peacekeeping operation but officially says it is not involved in a war. The German constitution, adopted after the defeat of the Nazis, prohibits the country from going to war unless it or one of its allies is directly attacked by another state.
I suspect that this event is a pivotal one which will serve to shape Germany's approach and to a lesser extent NATO's. The Tuesday Sondersitzung (special meeting) in the Bundestag will be interesting however, in my opinion, this event is something that the alliance will work through.
Rightly or wrongly a prevalent American view of NATO is that we have been doing the heavy lifting for quite some time and are nonetheless roundly criticized for doing so. What is your take on the German view of NATO?
The Taliban's version of Kunduz....
...according to a report (PDF at non-terrorist site, in Google English & Arabic) from a "fact-finding committee" - the Readers Digest version from the Taliban:
- We attack fuel trucks, and NATO runs away, leaving one truck stuck in the river.
- The area residents (who were up late during Ramadan) asked if they could have fuel from the truck.
- We said OK, but told them to run away when they realized a plane was in the area.
- Big boom.
- No bomb crater, and NATO allegations that people were incinerated are lies. Therefore, some sort of weapon against the Geneva conventions/laws of war (chemical perhaps?) must have been used.
- Therefore, we have a war crime.
- By the way, here’s a list of 79 names of the “martyred” we got from area residents.
Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight....
German troops to get US attack helicopters...
......I found this interesting given the Tigre/Tiger attack helicopter programme looked pretty solid a fews ago (i.e., before the recession). IMO it's a pretty capable platform. Back when the UK needed an Attack helo Euromil offered Britain 90 odd Tigers for the price of the 67 AH-64D's we eventually got (I remember arguing for the Tiger at the time at Uni!). Anyway, according to the English language German newspaper The Local German troops to recieve US "combat" helicopters. The article provides no indication of which helicopters Germany is aquiring/borrowing; "combat" helicopters doesn't necessarily mean "Attack" (although it is implied in the headline) and could also mean "assault" (i.e., UH-60), "medium transport" (i.e., Ch-47). I know the French and German governments are looking to/or are already co-operating with Russia on the Mi-38 programme (as part of the Euromil consortium) for a medium assault transport/lift helo (IMO much more cost effective than Britain's EH-101 for a similar capability). Defence Minister Guttenberg also ...
Quote:
...promised to provide soldiers with
two new
PzH 2000 armed [sic]vehicles "as soon as possible" during a surprise visit with troops stationed at headquarters in Northern Afghanistan
Politics, Economics, and Security...
Firn, Igel, Fuchs, and Mike,
Many projects have at least three parts, a political part, a economic part, and a technical one (security in this case). In theory at least, all portions of a project need to be at least somewhat synchronized or harmonized in order to achieve success (defining success, however, can be tough)...
Recent German elections in the Land (or State) of North Rhine Westphalia, the most populous state with ~ 18 million out of ~82 million people, point towards a democratic dissatisfaction with the direction of Germany's course under the current political coalition. Does this particular Land represent the national consensus across all 16 of Germany's Lander?
The majority of the reporting seems to focus upon economic (Euro) issues at this point, but as we have discussed previously over 60% of German voters seem to be against the Afghanistan expedition.
From the May 13th edition of the Economist, Now what?
Quote:
MAY 9th is not a day Angela Merkel will soon forget. First voters in North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW), Germany’s most populous state, booted the chancellor’s allies out of office, meting out her worst political drubbing in more than five years in office. That evening European finance ministers meeting in Brussels armed a financial bomb to deter speculators threatening the stability of the euro (see article). It seemed to work, but may also demolish Germans’ long-term trust in the single currency. Both events will transform Mrs Merkel’s chancellorship.
The setbacks are at least partly of her own making. In NRW voters unseated a coalition between her Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and the liberal Free Democratic Party (FDP) akin to the one she leads nationally. That was in part a slap at Mrs Merkel’s seven-month-old government. Jürgen Rüttgers, the defeated CDU premier, had struggled against a “headwind” from Berlin, she acknowledged.
From the 9 May edition of the German Newspaper/Magazine Stern, Warum NRW Berlin erzittern lässt
Quote:
Dort leben knapp 18 Millionen Menschen, deutlich mehr als in den Niederlanden, Belgien oder der Schweiz, von Dänemark ganz zu schweigen. Von diesen 18 Millionen Menschen sind 13,5 Millionen wahlberechtigt. Allein deswegen werden die Landtagswahlen in NRW völlig zu Recht als "kleine Bundestagswahl" bezeichnet. Darüber hinaus ist NRW eine Art politischer Seismograph: Die Ergebnisse spiegeln auch die (Un-)Zufriedenheit mit der Bundesregierung.