May 27, 2003	Tuesday	Rabi-ul-Awwal 24,1424

BERLIN: Convinced that Germany has nothing to fear from its neighbours, the government of Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder has decided to task the Bundewehr armed forces with conflict prevention and crisis management.

This includes “the fight against international terrorism”.

For the armed forces to accomplish new missions, the Bundeswehr would be restructured. That would involve the closure of nine home-based defence facilities in the next two years, rendering hundreds of local employees jobless.

According to defence minister Peter Struck, a revision of German defence policy principles had become necessary “in light of the fact that the security situation has changed in Europe and elsewhere in the world.”

“Traditional national defence considerations can no longer determine the priority structures and capabilities of the armed forces,” said Struck presenting Germany’s first review of defence policy guidelines in more than a decade.

Struck said that Germany no longer ran the risk of being invaded by foreign forces. “At the present time and for the foreseeable future there is no reason to assume a threat of attack against Germany by conventional forces.”

In the Cold War era, when the Soviet Union had nearly half a million Red Army troops based in eastern Germany and surrounding West Berlin, the Bundeswehr was alert to any unusual troop movements in Eastern Germany.

But after the collapse of the Soviet Union, escalated by the fall of the Wall in late 1989, Germany does not perceive any threat along its borders.

Announcing new defence policy guidelines last week, Struck said: “International conflict prevention and crisis management, including the fight against international terrorism, are going to be moved to the top of the list.”

He added, however, that such deployments will be “only in cooperation with allies and partners in the framework of the United Nations, NATO, and the European Union”.

Struck said he would be sticking by the German draft, despite objections from Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer and the Green Party, who are social democratic party’s junior governing coalition partner.

Winfried Nachtwei, defence policy spokesman of the Green Party, says serious discussion must now take place on the future of Bundeswehr conscription. Angelika Beer, the Green’s co-leader and former parliamentary defence critic agrees, saying the defence minister’s guidelines will have to be “corrected.”

Originally, a pacifist party, the Greens have gradually gone from being ‘rejectionists’ to proponents of military reform in the past decade.

The party’s view is that Germany should now follow the example of Britain, France and the United States by converting to a regular, more rigorously trained, “all-professional” army — kitted out with the best kind of equipment.

The social democratic party (SPD), however, is deeply attached to the idea of citizens in uniform. Struck’s belief is that nine months’ national service is not only good for young men, but helps keep the army, navy and air force “anchored in society”.

While the defence policy guidelines do confirm the continuation of conscription, General Wolfgang Schneiderhan, says he could “live with a reduction to only six months’ service”.

Germany’s opposition Christian Democrats have voiced support for the plans, but argue that the military budget of 24.4 billion euros ($28.8 billion) is too small a sum for transforming the Bundeswehr into a really efficient force.

“Without an increase in the defence budget we cannot begin to fulfil our new tasks”, argues Wolfgang Schaeuble, one of the CDU’s more influential members.

Struck’s answer is that by closing bases in the states of Hesse, Lower Saxony, Schleswig-Holstein, North-Rhine Westphalia and Bavaria, and axing ten navy boats and some 80 to 90 Tornado jets, one billion euro ($1.2 billion) will be freed for other purposes.

This, he insists, can be used to invest in modern equipment and training for “deployable forces.”

Germany’s defence minister says reducing the number of Bundeswehr bases had become “inevitable” after the closure of other home bases a couple of years ago, and the posting in recent years of German forces abroad, notably to the Balkans and Afghanistan.

He stressed the importance of a “mobile” military prepared for allied operations outside Germany.

While the defence minister’s plans have generally won the approval of Germany’s main parliamentary opposition parties, they have stirred resentment in poorer parts of the country, where some of the Bundeswehr bases, now scheduled for closure, are located.

In Eydelstedt-Barnstorf, a small town in the northern state of Schleswig-Holstein, the planned shut-down of a Luftwaffe air base means the region will lose its largest employer, a Patriot air raid defence facility with nearly 550 troops.

“Who’s supposed to move in there when the Bundeswehr pulls out?” asks Juergen Luebbers, the mayor of Eydelstedt-Barnstedt. At Eggebek/Tarp, where another Bundeswehr base in Schleswig-Holstein is being closed, the withdrawal of 1,800 soldiers is viewed with anxiety.

At a Luftwaffe fighter base in Lower Saxony the flags were at half-mast last week when news of the defence minister’s plans spread. Already in the past two years some 1,700 jobs have been lost there as a result of Bundeswehr “rationalization.”

The remaining 2,500 work-places at the base will go in the next two years under the defence ministry plans.

The German daily newspaper, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ), claims the cuts which affect some 6,000 soldiers, highlight the defence ministry’s push to transform an army used to defending its borders at the time of the Cold War.

With that era now gone, it is necessary to make the Bundeswehr more modern and deployable, “as illustrated by current operations in Afghanistan, the Balkans and the Horn of Africa,” wrote the newspaper.

Explaining the contents of the 22-page defence policy review in Berlin, Struck said his rationale was, “defence is no longer limited geographically so to ensure our safety, it must be spread to wherever we are threatened.”

This meant that resolving international crises, and combating international terrorism under UN leadership, had now become a priority.

It was back in the mid-1990s that Germany, with some trepidation, first began sending soldiers abroad on peacekeeping missions. There were fears that nations that had suffered Nazi military onslaughts during the Second World War (1939-1945) would be incensed.

Serbian nationalists sought to whip up past hatreds, but Bundeswehr peacekeeping deployments in Macedonia, Bosnia and Kosovo soon won widespread recognition and approval.

In recent years German soldiers have been involved in a series of UN peace-keeping operations in eight different countries. Their contribution has been significantly bigger than any other western nation’s, increasing the Bundeswehr’s image abroad.

A key step in transforming the military to a more mobile force came a few days ago when the German defence budget committee allocated 8.3 billion euros ($9.8 billion) for the “cooperative” European Airbus project. This guarantees the German military 60 new A400 military transport aircraft by 2012.

Originally the government had planned to take 73 of the planes, but with the nation’s economy in a dire state, the defence ministry finally had to settle for the lower figure.

The Bundeswehr’s annual budget is to remain at 24.4 billion euro ($28.8 billion) until 2006. Currently some 280,000 men and women serve in the German armed forces. 25 years ago the number was substantially higher, with more than 450,000 Germans active in the (West) German Bundeswehr.—Dawn/The InterPress News Service.