Military modernization and political choice: Germany and the US-promoted military technological revolution during the 1990s

Defense and Security Analysis

Volumn 20, Issue 3, 2004, Pages 261-272

  Lungu, Sorin ^a  

^a TUFTS UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

MILITARY APPLICATION; MODERNIZATION;

CENTRAL EUROPE; EASTERN HEMISPHERE; EURASIA; EUROPE; GERMANY; NORTH AMERICA; UNITED STATES; WESTERN HEMISPHERE; WORLD;

EID: 23244436217     PISSN: 14751798     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/1475179042000260688     Document Type: Article

References (50)

1. Without attempting here to choose between conflicting definitions or to offer yet another definition, it will be considered that the RMA debate is in many ways a response to the end of the Cold War, providing a new paradigm for the US defense and security policy - giving direction, debating, and deciding what is important and what is not, and what type of military forces, technological capabilities, and organizational structures are needed for the conflicts of the future.
2. See, among other sources, David Yost, France and the Revolution in Military Affairs, unpublished paper draft of 31 March 1997;
3. and Patrick Bratton, "France and the Revolution in Military Affairs", Contemporary Security Policy, 23(2), August 2002, pp. 87-112.
4. However, it must be said that ideas and arguments about the new role of Germany in international affairs in the post-1989 setting were exchanged in various political circles and foundations and think tanks (such as the Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik, the Deutsche Gesellschaft fur Auswärtige Politik (DGAP), the Berteismann Foundation, and the Centrum für angewandte Politikforschung) and in the German press especially in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Die Zeit, and Süddeutsche Zeitung. But, compared with the US, with its open competition among institutes, lobbies and political consultants, the practical influence of the German international affairs community on government policy was limited during the 1990s.
5. Holger Mey, "The Revolution in Military Affairs: A German Perspective", Comparative Strategy, 17(3), July/September 1998, p. 316.
6. For example, according to the same Holger Mey, "Clearly, Germany has no interest in a sequel to Admiral Tripitz's blue water navy, a giant armaments program with poor strategic results." See Mey, op. cit., p. 316.
7. Martin Koch, "Die 'Revolution in Military Affairs' - Zur Kritik eines Mythos", Europäische Sicherheit, 49(8), August 2000, pp. 51-54. Hoch was then a researcher with the Konrad Adenauer Foundation.
8. For another skeptical view of the RMA see Reiner Huber and Bernhard Schmidt, "Ein Dilemma für die Bundeswehr? 'Revolution in Military Affairs' und die Haushaltskürzungen", Europäische Sicherheit, 48(10), October 1999, pp. 33-39. Both authors were then teaching at the University of the Bundeswehr in Münich.
9. Holger Mey, "The German Response to the Revolution in Military Affairs", National Security Studies Quarterly, 6(2), Spring 2000, pp. 29-30.
10. Figures up to and including 1990 refer to the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany). Source: SIPRI database, accessed online at http://first.sipri. org on 15 August 2003.
11. Regarding Germany's defense policies in the 1990s, one interview source suggested that "the right strategies might have been implemented if the money would have been available. While in charge of the German Planning Staff, both Dr Hans Rühle (1983-92) and Vice-Admiral Ulrich Weisser (1992-98) politically did the right thing, but then failed to hinder the defense budgets cuts forced by Kohl and Rühe. Unfortunately they did not have the possibility to stop the process of defense budget 'cannibalization' which was obvious in Germany during the 1990s. The important thing to keep in mind for post-Cold War Germany is that defense funding was a deliberate political option!" (Author's interview in Brussels on 4 September 2002.) Another interview source considered that one major causes of the post-Cold War under-funding of German armed forces was: "Personal ambition of leading politicians - see the case of Volker Rühe who tacitly agreed to all the cuts in Germany's defense budget imposed by Kohl because he hoped to become his successor!" (Author's interview in Sankt Augustin, 24 June 2002.)
12. Commentary by Hans Rühle in "Kosovo and Europe's Defence Illusions - The Widening Gulf Between Rhetoric and Practice", Neue Zürcher Zeitung - Online English Window, 6 August 1999. Rühle is a retired German Ministerial Director, former Head of the Planning Staff in Bonn's Ministry of Defense and former Director of the NATO MRCA/Tornado Agency.
13. Figures up to and including 1990 refer to the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany). Source: NATO Defense Expenditure database, accessed online at http://www.nato.int/docu/pr/2002/p02-139.xls on 15 August 2003.
14. Robert Grant, The Revolution in Military Affairs and European Defense Cooperation, Arbeitspapier, Sankt Augustin: Konrad Adenauer Stiftung, June 1998, p. 20.
15. Defense Minster Volker Rühe introduced the Bundeswehr Plan, 1994-2006 in December 1992 and the industry was unable to oppose it. The document remained the cornerstone of German defense planning during the 1990s and was intended to reduce procurement spending by DM 24 billion. These cuts were in addition to the DM 43.7 billion reductions of the 1993 plan. These reductions were intended to be realized through the extension of procurement schedules, program cancellations and reduced purchasing. The cabinet also ordered a reduction of DM 863 million in the 1993 defense budget shortly after the adoption of the 1994 Bundeswehr Plan.
16. For the problems raised by such measures for the German defense industry see also Brian Davidson, "German Procurement Plans Pose Problems", Interavia Business & Technology, 48(571), October 1993.
17. Author's interview in Berlin, 18 July 2002. Another source, a close collaborator of Defense Minster Rühe during the 1990s, considered that the German defense establishment "did, however, initiate the creation of first crisis reaction forces and did indeed send them to Africa, Cambodia and, above all, to the Balkans. This part of our new strategic approach was more than difficult to pursue and very controversial. The then political opposition took us to the Supreme Court - claiming that our new commitments were unconstitutional. So there was no lack of vision on Volker Rühe's side. He was very wise not to over-demand the political debate in Germany. The country was just not mature enough to accept the completely new role of the German forces and to think in terms of power projection. But we did start an educational process by doing the right things - things and contributions which served our interests and were expected from a responsible member of NATO." E-mail to the author on 18 February 2004. Finally, according to another well-informed German source: "I believe that your picture of Rühe is not correct - a very energetic, powerful Secretary of Defense with foreign policy ambitions and perhaps hoping to become Chancellor, later perhaps yet hoping to become Vice-Chancellor in a Schröder Cabinet. Consequently he was performing within the frame Chancellor Kohl granted to him. His Planning Staff was outstanding, but of course supporting the thrust of Rühe's interests and by that did not particularly focus on the Bundeswehr Capability profile. I recall that LTG Hansen, when he was Army Chief of Staff, almost got fired when he tried to focus in the mid-1990s on the German Army Crisis Reaction Capabilities. Rühe considerably changed attitudes and preferences over his tenure as Secretary of Defense. He started pro-French and reconsidered after several interesting experiences; he started saying 'I'm not an industry-Secretary of Defense' and came up with far-reaching industrial/armament concepts in the mid-90s." E-mail to the author on 25 February 2004.
18. This section draws on author's interviews in Sankt Augustin, Bonn and Berlin between June and September 2002.
19. It was estimated that between 1990 and 1999 the German government had spent at least $500 billion in the new Bundesländer on infrastructure projects and social benefits. See, for example, "A Tale of Two Cities: After 10 Years of Unity, Germany is Still a Nation Divided by its Past and Burdened by the Costs of its Future", Time International, 9 October 2000.
20. See, among other sources, Bertel Heurlin (ed.), Germany and Europe in the Nineties, London: Macmillan, 1996.
21. As such, during the 1990s, "Germany aimed to create interlinked layers of stability with a fully integrated core Europe at the center, surrounded by a layer of bilateral and multilateral affiliation agreements with Eastern Europe, combined with a second layer of strong bilateral and multilateral support for Russia. This order would be secured by a transatlantic layer of relationships with a deepened German-American central axis." As assessed in Hartmut Mayer, "German concepts on a European order", International Affairs, 73(4), October 1997, p. 733.
22. According to a German interview source, during the 1990s: "The Planning Staff was a collection of outstanding minds under the impressive leadership of Admiral Weisser, but unfortunately not focused on Bundeswehr capabilities, but rather on foreign and security policy issues." E-mail to the author on 25 February 2004.
23. Mey, "The German Response to the Revolution in Military Affairs", op. cit., p. 32. It must be also mentioned that the Gulf War of 1990-91 came as a major shock to Germany, forcing it to rethink its military role in the world. Although the country provided massive financial support for the allied war effort in the Gulf, the Germans proved virtually incapable of providing serious military support. Moreover, the Kohl government was paralyzed in the face of a growing tide of American diplomatic pressure to get more involved. As a result, in the aftermath of the first Gulf War, a consensus emerged among German élites that they had survived a close call. Had the US suffered significant casualties and become bogged down in a Vietnam-like quagmire in Iraq - as had been predicted by many experts in the United States and elsewhere - Germany's conspicuous absence from the fighting would have sub stantiated charges of "free riding" on an international security order paid for with American lives.
24. See, among other sources, Thomas Berger, "Unsheathing the Sword?", World Affairs, 158(4), Spring 1996, pp. 174-191.
25. See, for example, the following speeches: Gerhard Schröder, Germany's Foreign Policy Responsibility in the World, Berlin: DGAP, 2 September 1999, text available online at http://www.dgap.org/IP/ip9910/schroder020999.htm on 20 August 2003;
26. Rudolf Scharping, Baselines of German Security Policy, Hamburg: The German Command Staff College, 8 September 1999, text accessible online at http://www.dgap.org/IP/ip9910/ scharping080999.htm;
27. and Rudolf Scharping, The Kosovo War: Consequences for the European Security and Defense Policy, Berlin: DGAP, 26 October 1999, text available online at http://www.dgap.org/texte/scharping261099.htm on 20 August 2003.
28. An interesting analysis is presented also in Jeffrey Lantis, "The Moral Imperative of Force: The Evolution of German Strategic Culture in Kosovo", Comparative Strategy, 21 (1), January/March 2002, pp. 21-46.
29. Hans R̈hle, "'RMA': un point de vue allemand", in Yves Boyer (ed.), "Une révolution dans les Affaires Militaires?", Cahiers de la Fondation pour les Etudes de Défense, 13, Paris: Fondation pour les Etudes de Défense, June 1998, p. 28.
30. Assessment based on author's interviews in Sankt Augustin, Bonn and Berlin between June and September 2002.
31. Rühle, ibid.
32. By government policy, Germany's defense industrial base lies almost entirely within the private sector, although many have stock owned by federal states or banks. There are no government defense production plants, and most defense industries are also heavily involved in civilian markets.
33. DASA stands for Deutsche Aerospace A. G. From 1995, DASA's parent, Daimler-Benz renamed Deutsche Aerospace A. G. as Daimler-Benz Aerospace A. G. while retaining the same abbreviation DASA.
34. As quoted in Brian Davidson, "Profits the Top Priority for DASA's New Boss", Interavia Business & Technology, 51(599), April 1996.
35. Data presented in Table 3 in Joachim Rohde, Die Entwicklung des deutschen Rüstungsexporte in den 90er Jahren - Ergebnisse der vier wichtigsten internationalen Statistiken, Berlin: Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik, 12 June 2001, p. 13.
36. See, among other sources, Hartmut Küchle, Rüstungsindustrie im Umbruch: Strategien deutscher Unternehmen und Ansätze einer europäischen Neuordnung, Baden-Baden: Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft, 2001.
37. Furthermore, "Specializing in component production, the industry engages in little thinking about the growing role of systems integration. With little industrial system competence, there is little capacity for system leadership." In Robbin Laird and Holger Mey, "The Revolution in Military Affairs: Allied Perspectives", McNair Paper 60, Washington: Institute for National Strategic Studies, National Defense University, April 1999, p. 80.
38. Post-Cold War German military forces have been used before the Kosovo 1999 air campaign also in the coalition against Iraq in 1991, in support of United Nations operations in the former Yugoslavia since 1992, and in Somalia in 1992.
39. Weissbuch zur Sicherheit der Bundesrepublik Deutschland und zur Lage und Zukunft der Bundesrwehr, Bonn: Bundesminsterium für Verteidigung, April 1994.
40. Guillaume Parmentier, "French and German Defence Policies in 1997", in "La France et le Japon face aux nouvelles questions de sécurité", Cahiers de L'Ifri 21, Paris: Institut Français des Relations Internationales, 1997, p. 29.
41. Laird and Mey, "The Revolution in Military Affairs: Allied Perspectives", op. cit., p. 86.
42. Ibid., p. 88.
43. Author's interview in Bonn, 2 September 2003.
44. For some of Germany's intentions and attitudes vis-à-vis the Helios-2, Horus, TriMil-Satcom, and Galileo projects during the 1990s, see for example: Alexander Szandar, "New Aerospace Priorities for Germany's Defence", Interavia Business & Technology, 51(597), January/February 1996;
45. Alexander Szandar, "Friction in Franco-German Aerospace Relations", Interavia Business & Technology, 51 (599), April 1996;
46. Parmentier, "French and German Defence Policies in 1997", op. cit., 1997, pp. 36-37;
47. Chris Bulloch, "Space for Investment", Interavia Business & Technology, 53(626), December 1998;
48. Alexander Szandar, "Germany's Space Push", Interavia Business & Technology, 54(631), May 1999;
49. and Chris Bulloch, "Europe's National Space Agencies Contra ESA", Interavia Business & Technology, 54(635), October 1999.
50. Josef Joffe, "German Defense Policy: Novel Solutions and Enduring Dilemmas", in Gregory Flynn (ed.), The Internal Fabric of Western Security, Totowa, New Jersey: Allanheld, Osmun and Co., 1981, pp. 67-68.