The German Defense White Paper
By Stephen Szabo

The first comprehensive official explanation of German defense strategy in twelve years, White Paper 2006: Security and the Future of the Bundeswehr, was recently published by the Ministry of Defense.  It provides a good measure both of how far Germany has come over the past decade and what lies before it in the coming decade. 

New Threats and Missions
The White Paper reflects the changes in defense strategy that have been underway both in Germany and in NATO since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.  A reader of the Weißbuch would not see too much difference from reading similar documents issued by the major NATO countries, including the United States. The threat assessment is strikingly similar.  No longer is interstate warfare seen as a major or realistic threat, but rather the new threats are more asymmetric and the boundary between internal and external security is now fuzzier if not non existent.  The threats are associated with the darker sides of globalization: international terrorism, proliferation of WMDs, regional conflicts and failed states, transnational crime, energy security, migration and epidemics and pandemics. 

In short this is defense for a globalized and post cold war era.  As the writers state, "the need for the protection of the population and of the infrastructure has increased in importance as a result of the growing threat that terrorist attacks pose to German territory." This shift toward a concept of societal security marks an important evolution in German defense thinking as does the growing recognition that conflict prevention and management has replaced territorial defense as the ordering principle of force planning.

This is a comprehensive concept of security which combines a wide range of both military and non-military tools and approaches and is embedded in a multilateral framework.  This approach is now called "networked security," which emphasizes networks between agencies and nations, but it is also one that is network-centric in terms of the need for more technology-based capabilities and jointness in operations.

Force Structure
In order to cope with these new types of threats and missions, German forces will continue their transformation from large, heavy and armored-dominant forces designed to deal with territorial defense to smaller, more mobile crisis intervention forces.  This transformation was already begun under the Social Democratic Defense ministers, Rudolf Scharping and Peter Struck.  In particular, Struck's Defense Policy Guidelines issued in 2003 set out the rationale and form of the force structure reforms which are restated in the White Paper. (See the AICGS Policy Report #11, "Reinventing the German Military")  German forces will continue to be restructured to be able to perform three key missions: crisis intervention with high intensity short duration capabilities (the response forces of 35,000 men), crisis stabilization forces designed for the longer duration lower intensity operations of post conflict stabilization (70,000 men), and a third residual group of support forces of 147,500, which will provide the normal support of Bundeswehr operations and routine duties.  As conscription will be retained, the latter forces will be filled largely by conscripts, who will only be used for crisis interventions if they volunteer and extend their period of enlistment.

Significant is the reemphasis upon NATO as the central security institution for Germany's multilateral approach. While both the EU and the UN are given important mention, NATO is called "the bedrock of common security for Germany and Europe," and "the cornerstone of German security and defense policy." This is especially important given the split that occurred between the U.S. and Germany during the Schröder years. 

A Normal Defense Policy?
The White Paper offers evidence of a new sense of both self confidence and recognition of the growing importance of the role Germany plays in European security when it states, "an important role in the future shaping of Europe and beyond falls on the united Germany."  The French newspaper Le Figaro has even gone so far at to call this a declaration of an "emancipated Bundeswehr." Certainly the rapid evolution of German defense policy and practice over the twelve years since the last White Paper is dramatic.  It was only in 1994 when the Constitutional Court ruled that the Bundeswehr could operate outside of Germany. Now the White Paper notes that over 200,000 German military personnel have served on international missions, including over 9,000 who are currently deployed on missions in Congo, Afghanistan, Lebanon, and the Balkans.  The goal is now to expand this capability so that 14,000 troops can be deployed at one time in two larger scale or five smaller scale operations.

Much of this transformation has occurred with either support or acquiescence of the German public and encouragement from Germany's European neighbors.  This is indeed a long way from Helmut Kohl's reluctance to send the Bundeswehr anywhere the Wehrmacht had been.

While some of this represents continuity in the traditional German multilateral civilian power approach, there is a clear strengthening of a military component to this strategy.  The document points out, for example, that "Germany, whose  economic prosperity depends on access to raw materials, goods and ideas, has an elementary interest in peaceful competition of thoughts and views, an open world trade system and unrestricted transportation routes."  The discussion of specific German interests marks part of an evolution in what many have noted is the "normalization" of German foreign and security policy.

Questions
A number of important questions arise from a reading of the White Paper.

- Internal security: The role of the Bundeswehr in internal security remains a contentious one within the governing coalition.  The Christian Democrats would like to see the armed forces play a larger role in this regard while the Social Democrats want to see this role remain strongly limited. The White Paper states only that "the Federal Government deems it necessary to expand the constitutional framework in this regard."  The discussion over network security, which mentions the need for coordination between the various levels of government in Germany, remains vague and undifferentiated.

- Resources vs. ambition: The paper makes it clear that there is "no room for further reductions in spending" but is silent on the need for more resources, which is implicit in the new missions, transformation and network centric warfare.  Germany only spends 1.4 percent of its GDP on defense, substantially below the spending of such "normal" states as the UK and France and below the NATO target of 2 percent.  Until and unless German policy makers allocate substantially more resources to defense and allocate more to research and development and procurement and less to personnel costs, many of these admirable ambitions will remain just that.

- NATO vs. EU: While the paper is clearly NATO centric, the role of the EU and its relation to NATO remains unclear.  For example, the MOD discusses its commitments to both the NATO Reaction Force and the EU Reaction Force yet it remains unclear how these two will be linked. The discussion also does not really address the limits of NATO in coping with many of the new threats, including terrorism, crime and others that cannot be primarily dealt with by military means.

- Interest prioritization: The long list of interests offered does not leave a sense of priorities for the deployment of German forces.  The recent decision to deploy the Bundeswehr to Congo created a heated debate over the role of German interests in this decision, with many conservative critics arguing there was no clear German or even European interest involved.  If "deployment fatigue" grows among the public, this could become a serious problem.

- Lessons Learned:  It would have been useful if the White Paper had included some discussion of what has been learned from the experience in the Balkans and Afghanistan for future strategy and force planning.

Conclusion
The White Paper provides strong evidence that the reorientation of German defense policy is continuing in the right direction to meet the new needs demanded by a new security environment.  The rationale for defense policy and the consequences drawn for force structure and procurement all make sense.  What is now needed is a realistic commitment of resources to allow these sensible goals some hope for realization.  This is not a question for the Bundeswehr but rather for the civilian politicians.

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Stephen F. Szabo is Professor of European Studies at the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University and is AICGS's Director of Research.

This essay appeared in the December 7, 2006, AICGS Advisor.

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