The Wars of the Near Future (I)

Turning Point

For the first time since 1990, the Bundeswehr will be increased in size. As announced by Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen, yesterday, Monday, the current personnel ceiling for the armed forces (185,000 military and 56,000 civilian employees) has been repealed. From now on, "human resources," which will grow, due to an increasing number of military missions, will be "annually determined for the medium-range." A new "Personnel Board" will be established under the direction of the two State Secretaries for Defense (Gerd Hoofe, Katrin Suder) and the Bundeswehr Inspector-General (Volker Wieker). The "turning point for personnel" will be introduced already next year, starting with the creation of 7,000 new military assignments, von der Leyen declared. According to the current "medium-range" planning around 14,300 additional soldiers and about 4,400 additional civilian employees will be needed by 2023 - representing a nearly eight percent increase. An supplementary "internal optimization" of "structures and processes" within the troops should facilitate an enhancement of the armed forces' "impact potential." The objective is "to increase the Bundeswehr's perseverance capacity, strengthen its sturdiness and develop new capabilities," the minister explained.[1]

Billions

To enhance "the Bundeswehr's capabilities" in this sense, von der Leyen plans 96 "separate measures,"[2] including the creation of an independent branch of the service specializing in cyber warfare. For this, highly qualified IT specialists will be recruited. Furthermore, "Special Forces in the infantry and the navy" will be reinforced, as well as new "boarding companies" being assigned to the sea battalions for combat in coastal regions.[3] The "capacities for the management of more extensive weapons projects" must be expanded, along with an enhancement of the Bundeswehr's medical units - both at home and abroad. All this is tied in with a massive military budget increase. Whereas the German military budget, with 33 billion Euros in 2015, was already 40 percent more than the budget in 2000 (€23.1 billion), it is now scheduled to swell even further. Already for 2017, €36.6 billion have been planned; by 2020, the Bundeswehr is supposed to dispose of €39.2 billion, which, along with the growth in the number of personnel, will also finance numerous weapons projects. In January, the defense minister had already announced that, by 2030, she wants to spend around €130 billion to procure new weaponry - twice the amount originally planned.[4]

Dialogue Downward

The increase in Bundeswehr personnel and the multibillion weapons programs comply with Berlin's expansive geopolitical ambitions, which, since the fall of 2013, have been propagated offensively and at times even like a crusade. In his speech on the occasion of the German National Holiday in 2013, Germany's President Joachim Gauck admonished that Germany must show "a stronger commitment in international affairs" and contribute more to the "solution" of global - even military - conflicts.[5] Berlin must show a "more resolute" presence on the world stage, to globally "shape ... the governance framework," repeated Gauck at the Munich Security Conference, in late January 2014, which may "also include sending soldiers."[6] A few days earlier, Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier and Defense Minister von der Leyen had made similar statements. Germany is "too important to merely comment on global policy from the sidelines," said Steinmeier, while von der Leyen declared, "indifference" is "not an option for a country like Germany."[7] Most recently, the Federal College for Security Studies (BAKS) announced that the debate on Berlin's geopolitical activities will engage "the broader public" even more strongly than had previously been the case.[8] BAKS has announced that new measures to integrate journalists have been planned.[9]

A Ring around Europe

German policy strategists' plans clearly suggest which regions of the world Berlin's global ambitions will require ever more extensive military operations in the years to come. For example, a strategy paper, published in October 2013, the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP) proposed - in reference to the United States' intensifying focus on the power struggle with China - that, "to relieve" the USA, Germany "should primarily concentrate on the increasingly instable periphery of Europe extending from North Africa to the Middle East to Central Asia." This would also necessitate "military interventions."[10] Similar proposals were made in an intervention in the debate on the new "White Paper" of the Bundeswehr. An "arc of crisis," stretching "from the Baltic, through the Middle East to the Maghreb" surrounds Germany and Europe - and this is "why we have an armed forces."[11] Some of the countries making up this arch of crisis are the countries Berlin and Brussels want to have as suppliers of raw materials and serve as markets in a neo-colonialist manner - the oil-rich countries of North Africa and the Middle East. Some of these should be controlled to create a "cordon sanitaire" preventing the entry of refugees, as well as to armed attacks inside the EU and against European interests (Mali, Libya and Syria).

War Rather than Policy

In reference to the current "arc of crisis," the "European Security Strategy" adopted in Brussels in December 2003, stated: "Our task is to promote a ring of well governed countries to the East of the European Union and on the borders of the Mediterranean with whom we can enjoy close and cooperative relations" - a rampart of controllable, stable client states surrounding a prosperous EU.[12] This objective has been completely missed, concluded Wolfgang Ischinger, Chairman of the Munich Security Conference at the beginning of this year. The "vision of a European Union that would be surrounded by a cordon sanitaire of stability, growing prosperity and cooperation south of the Mediterranean and in Eastern Europe," has "completely failed."[13] To shield the German-European empire from all sorts of problems and facilitate economic access to interesting neighboring regions, soldiers are now being deployed in the respective countries, ranging from Mali and Syria to Iraq - for the wars of the near future.

How the Bundeswehr is preparing for the wars of the near future by growing larger, restructuration, and rearmament, can be read in an intermittent succession of articles over the next few weeks in german-foreign-policy.com.

[1], [2] Trendwende Personal: Tagesbefehl der Ministerin. www.bmvg.de 10.05.2016.
[3] See Das Multitool der Marine.
[4] Christian Thiels: Von der Leyens 130-Milliarden-Wunschzettel. www.tagesschau.de 27.01.2016.
[5] See Sleeping Demons.
[6], [7] See Der Weltordnungsrahmen.
[8] See Dialog von oben.
[9] See Alle für Deutschland.
[10] Neue Macht - Neue Verantwortung. Elemente einer deutschen Außen- und Sicherheitspolitik für eine Welt im Umbruch. Ein Papier der Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik (SWP) und des German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMF). Oktober 2013. See The Re-Evaluation of German Foreign Policy.
[11] Hilmar Linnenkamp, Christian Mölling: Das Weißbuch zur Verteidigungspolitik. SWP-Aktuell 21, Februar 2015. See Modern Strategy Concept (II).
[12] Ein sicheres Europa in einer besseren Welt. Europäische Sicherheitsstrategie. Brüssel, den 12. Dezember 2013.
[13] Eine Zukunftsaufgabe für die EU. Internationale Politik, Januar/Februar 2016, S. 28-32.