Britain seeks to push Germany down the military path


	December 1, 2001	atimes.com

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Britain seeks to push Germany down the military path
By Samanta Sen

LONDON - In the living memory of many, the Luftwaffe was the dreaded name that rained death on England. Now Britain complains there is not enough German military action.

Britain's partnership with Germany in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and in the European Union (EU) is now old hat, but Germany's first involvement in a war effort since the end of World War II has provoked far more of a hysterical backlash within Germany than in Britain. The Luftwaffe began this week to transport military supplies to the Incirlik air base in Turkey to support US troops in Afghanistan. The involvement in military action was indirect, but it came as a historic political step for Germany and within Europe.

"Most people in Britain welcome this development very much," William Hopkinson, a leading defense specialist at the Royal Institute for Defense Studies, said in London. "We are thinking of defense for Europe now and Germany must be prepared to send troops and to advance its position from that at the end of the Second World War."

German Chancelor Gerhard Schroeder won the November 16 vote to send in troops by a whisker. The move won 336 votes in the Bundestag, the Lower House of German parliament, when it needed 334. The strong doubts within Germany are of greater concern within Britain than Schroeder's actions.

"The German chancelor wanted this but we're not sure if German society as a whole does," said Hopkinson. "The position is still delicate and the position can become very critical if there were to be casualties to German troops," he said. "There is still far from a degree of maturity on this."

British keenness on a stronger military role for Germany follows concerns within Britain over casualties if Britain were to engage in a ground war. "We are not going to deploy troops unless there is a clear understanding of the role and risk they face," a spokesman for the Ministry of Defense said in London.

Opposition from the Northern Alliance stopped the British from sending in about 6,000 troops they had on the ready. Nor is there a ready combat role for the 3,900 troops Germany pledged. But Britain and Germany are the only two countries to have pledged a large military force to back the United States. The British want the Germans to share responsibilities - and any losses on the ground.

The German government's offer included 800 troops with armored vehicles to fight biological, chemical or nuclear attacks, a naval force manned by 1,800 soldiers to keep shipping lanes free, and 100 troops from a special force. "What is surprising here is that a pacifist country like Germany still has many more advanced defense systems than Britain," retired Major Steve Roberts told a radio panel discussion on the developments in Germany. "Most of us didn't even know they had these things."

That move to welcome a new Germany to play a military role in a new era was pushed strongly by British Prime Minister Tony Blair at a rally of the ruling Social Democratic Party (SPD) in Nuremberg. "For you, in Germany, the militarism of former times has many bitter memories," Blair said. "But today, in the 21st century, as a leader of Europe, with huge economic and political power, it is in your interests and those of the wider world that you play your full part in foreign and defense policy, recognizing those memories are indeed the past not the present or the future."

Blair delivered his speech on the anniversary of the start of the Nuremberg trials of Nazi war criminals 56 years ago. Blair dealt with that legacy by making no mention of it. Blair said: "For you, Europe is relatively easy as an issue; the commitment of military forces hard. For us the opposite." Blair won a longer standing ovation than did Schroeder at the convention a day earlier.

But the British were looking also at the nearly half-empty part of the glass reflected in the divided Bundestag vote. Several commentators in Britain say they can understand the difficulties in Germany for historical reasons. The idea of sending German troops out to war "still causes huge pain and real dilemmas for all progressive Germans of the post-Hitler era", Martin Kettle wrote in The Guardian. But it's time now for Germany to get over this burden of history, he said.

Hopkinson said the opposition to a wider military role for Germany could be greater than the Bundestag vote suggests. "Armed forces are accepted in Germany for territorial defense but there is very little support for them to play a greater role," he said.

The Nuremberg rally, where the leader of New Labor sought a military role for what he called a "new Germany", was a significant milestone in calling for Germany to play a stronger military role after its earlier interventions in Kosovo and Macedonia. In a far cry from the days of Winston Churchill and Adolf Hitler, now the British people and their prime minister are trying to push a still largely unwilling German people down the military path.

(Inter Press Service)

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