Status: 02/17/2021 4:46 a.m.
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Today the defense ministers of the NATO countries want to discuss the alliance. Bigger budgets for the military are at the top of the agenda. The US is likely to urge Europeans to take on more responsibility.
From Helga Schmidt,
ARD studio Brussels
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It is the first NATO meeting since the change of government in Washington. There are high hopes in the Alliance’s Brussels headquarters that a new tone will take hold in the relationship and, above all, that the USA, the largest NATO partner, can be relied on again. The Trump years have left their mark, constant going it alone without consultation with its partners in Syria, Iraq and, most recently, Afghanistan – that has always presented the alliance with new and everlasting tests.
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Helga Schmidt
ARD studio Brussels
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Sometimes it was difficult to hold NATO together, said Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg at the beginning of the week. “It’s no secret that we have had difficult discussions in NATO over the past four years,” said Stoltenberg, adding in a rare outburst of emotion: “I’m really excited about the chance to rebuild the alliance.”
“No return to the old protective power role”
NATO Defense Ministers expect their new colleague, Lloyd Austin, to hold talks on an equal footing. However, realism is also mixed in with the anticipation. It is clear to everyone that US Secretary of Defense Austin will not be ready to take on the old protective power role again with all-round insurance for Europe’s defense.
Speaking to his NATO colleagues today: The new US Secretary of Defense Austin.
Image: AFP
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The American defense minister comes with a mixture of carrot and stick, explains Christian Mölling, research director of the German Society for Foreign Policy. He anticipates that Secretary of Defense Austin will first assure the NATO partners on the video line that America will be by their side again. So much for the carrot. “At the same time, he will prepare Europeans to stick to the course for Europeans to take on more responsibility,” he says. That is not Donald Trump’s course, but the American course since the end of the Cold War.
More burdens on the federal budget
More responsibility means more money for the military. That is why defense spending is high on the ministers’ agenda. Allied armaments spending has been rising steadily for seven years. But the curve should continue to go up. “We must keep up the momentum,” says Stoltenberg.
According to Stoltenberg, only nine of all 30 NATO countries achieve the alliance’s goal of spending two percent of annual economic output on defense. Including the USA, Great Britain and France, but also smaller countries such as the Baltic States and Greece. Germany is well below that, at around 1.5 percent.
But even for this, considerable additional expenditure in the federal budget has been necessary in recent years. It is difficult to imagine that this will continue at this pace, not only armaments critics note – at a time when the corona crisis is burdening public budgets with billions of dollars. For this reason alone, the two percent target for military spending could be a long way off.
Promises cannot be kept
Security expert Mölling points out that the Bundeswehr cannot do what was promised in relation to NATO, even with specific armaments projects. “Even before Corona the army lacked 50 percent of the necessary investment funds to be able to fulfill the official NATO registrations,” stated the former defense commissioner of the Bundeswehr, the SPD politician Hans-Peter Bartels, in a guest article for the newspaper at the beginning of the week ” World”.
Three divisions with eight to ten combat brigades should be available to NATO by 2031, Bartels reminds us. But now it will not even work until 2023 to “fully and modernly equip a single German brigade as the spearhead of the NATO Response Force”.
Funds are not enough
It is uncertain whether and when this can change. In any case, the medium-term financial planning of Finance Minister Olaf Scholz does not envisage a major plus for the Bundeswehr in the coming years. Defense Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer poses a dilemma. On the one hand, she wants to assure the NATO partners that Germany stands by the promises made. On the other hand, she knows that the commitments can hardly be kept because the funds are insufficient for the modernization of the Bundeswehr, which has been demanded for years.
NATO defense ministers discuss the future and finances
Helga Schmidt, ARD Brussels, February 16, 2021 10:23 p.m.
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