The decision this week to station regular US long-range missiles in Germany as a deterrent against Russia has sparked both supportive and critical reactions in Berlin.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz defended the announcement, made on the sidelines of a NATO summit in Washington on Wednesday, as a “necessary and important decision taken at the right time” in terms of “deterrence” and “ensuring peace”.
The move would allow long-range U.S. cruise missiles, including SM-6s, Tomahawks and hypersonic weapons under development, with longer ranges than those currently held in European armies, to return to German territory for the first time since the late 1990s.
German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius told broadcaster Deutschlandfunk: He said the deployment would address “very serious shortcomings” in Germany’s defense capabilities.
“The use of these advanced capabilities demonstrates the United States’ commitment to NATO and its contribution to Europe’s integrated deterrent force,” a joint German-U.S. statement said.
“Sufficient deterrent”
“We have been working for a long time on the question of how, with conventional options, we can ensure a deterrent force that not only defends the territory of our allies but also Germany,” Scholz told reporters in Washington on Thursday.
“This decision has been a long time coming and should come as no surprise to anyone involved in security and peace policy,” he added.
The move also has the support of Germany’s conservative opposition Christian Democrats (CDU), but given the current unpopularity of Scholz’s centre-left coalition, the CDU could be back in power by 2026, when the missiles are due to be deployed.
“This is good news, it shows that the US stands by its security guarantees,” Johan Wadepoel, defense spokesman for the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), told DW. “We need a sufficient deterrent against Russia.”
Criticism from within Scholz’s own party
The decision has been criticised within the ruling coalition and even within Scholz’s own Social Democrats (SPD), with one lawmaker warning of a new “arms race”.
“This does not make the world safer,” SPD’s Ralf Stegner told the Funke media group. “On the contrary, it creates a vicious cycle in which the world becomes even more dangerous.”
The Greens, who, along with the neo-liberal Free Democrats (FDP), are in Scholz’s coalition government, said they and the German public had not been fully informed about the decision and demanded an explanation.
“It could increase fear and leave room for disinformation and incitement,” Sara Nanni, the Green party’s parliamentary security spokeswoman, told regional newspaper Rheinpost, adding that Scholz had provided little information about the exact threat posed by Russia.
Green party leader Katharina Droege told RTL broadcaster Scholz “should explain and answer these questions publicly”.
Criticism from the far left and the far right
The announcement was met with opposition from within German politics, including from the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), the Traditional Socialist Left Party (Left Party) and the new left party Zahra-Wagenknecht Union (BSW).
“Chancellor Scholz is not acting in Germany’s interests,” said AfD co-leader Tino Krupalla, who continues to oppose German arms supplies to Ukraine.
“He is allowing German-Russian relations to be permanently damaged and we are returning to a pattern of East-West confrontation,” Krupala said, adding that the U.S. missile deployment would “target Germany.”
The Left party called the decision “highly problematic,” and Sara Wagenknecht, the politician after whom the new BSW is named, told Der Spiegel magazine that the move “increases the risk of Germany itself becoming a battlefield.”
In the 1980s, the deployment of US Pershing ballistic missiles in West Germany, then on the front lines of the Cold War, sparked widespread pacifist demonstrations. After German reunification, US missiles remained stationed in Germany until the 1990s, when they were gradually removed.
The United States currently has nuclear weapons stationed in Germany, a non-nuclear power, but its conventional weapons capabilities are limited in range.
Russia, whose full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 has prompted Western rearmament, said it was planning “response measures” to contain a “very serious threat” from NATO.
mf/lo (AFP, Reuters)
