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| PHÎÒÎ: AP |
On August 23, Germany’s Minister of Defense Karl-Theodore zu Guttenberg officially presented to military experts of the governing coalition Christian Democratic Union/Christian Socialist Union and the Free Democratic Party the concept of reform of the armed forces
The Bundeswehr, Germany’s armed forces, is expecting the largest scale of reformatting in its history. The changes in the structure and numbers envisaged by the current military reform are expected to be be the most significant reform conducted by a NATO member country after the Cold War.
Moreover, if the ministry of defense manages to implement the planned reforms they will result in drastic changes in Germany’s foreign and domestic policies. So, it is totally natural that the reform draft elicited heated debate long before its official presentation. Even in the ruling coalition there is no common opinion of what the Bundeswehr should be. The presentation of the ministry of defense merely added fuel to the fire. Overall, Guttenberg presented five models of reform of the Bundeswehr. He himself gives preference to the so-called fourth model, which envisages downsizing of the army by one third from 252,000 to 163,000. In addition, every fourth military base in the country will be shut down and the management vertical in a number of command headquarters will be curtailed.
But this is just the tip of the iceberg. The minister of defense infringed on overall military duty by proposing provisional suspension of the draft. Provisional in this particular case implies that the German government will reject the suspension of the draft, but the corresponding norm in the Constitution will be preserved just in case. Guttenberg explained this as follows: “I am always intrigued when some smart ass knows what the world will be like twenty or thirty years down the road. I don’t even know. For this reason I feel that we must retain the draft should it become necessary in the future.”
The basis of the post-war German model of the draft was the idea that a soldier is a citizen in uniform. Creators of the Bundeswehr in their time put in great efforts to ensure civil control over military forces to prevent the formation of an ideological army.
The sad experience of the Weimar Republic when the leadership of the nation created a “state within a state” still remains in people’s memories. The draft served the critical function of ensuring ties between society and the armed forces. For this very reason the position of Germany’s minister of defense to this day is civilian not military in nature.
From the mid 1950s to the mid 1990s this model was particularly valuable since the only task of the German army was to defend the homeland and democracy from the Warsaw Bloc.
But over those 40 years the British and French armies on more than one occasion participated in a number of missions and even full-scale war, for example the Suez Canal incident, the Falkland Islands, Africa, Lebanon, Cyprus, etc.
The “expedition know-how” gained from these conflicts allowed the French and British to gradually reform their armed forces. The Germans, who after World War II practically did not have a foreign policy of their own, mainly watched over the “iron curtain”. Today, Berlin is becoming a more active player on the international arena. There is much testimony to this – from the disputes between the U.S. on the installation of anti-missile defense systems and NATO enlargement to the positions related to the default of the Greek government and even more heated discussions with France on the on financial flows with the framework of the EU. And the participation of the Bundeswehr in peacekeeping operations from the Balkans to Afghanistan obviously transcends the boundaries of immediate defense tasks. Moreover, for the most part it defends itself from nobody.
Draftees can only be recruited for foreign operations only if they are volunteers, while in Germany they have nowhere to serve. In 1991, immediately after the reunificiation of Germany, 211,000 individuals were drafted. Today, only 68,000 of the 80 mn people in Germany are drafted and that’s only for half a year.
So, with the current organization of the army, the number of drafted servicemen turns out to be quite insignificant (only 16%). Most of them do not understand the sense of it all: their only task is providing work for professionals, while nobody is ready to publicly admit them to the core of Bundeswehr. The draft has long lost its military significance, but preserved the political function of showing German citizens that the Bundeswehr remains an army of citizens in uniform, like in the 1950s when Germany began building a democratic system. One should not underestimate this obsession with democracy and it is precisely for this reason that a number of projects of military reform still envisage a 20,000 strong army by enlistment as embodiment of the principle “army with the people”. Guttenberg just has to take these moods into account. He proposes compensating draft dodging by recruiting volunteers for a period of 12 to 23 months.
The minister expected that there will be up to 7,500 young men willing to serve their country every year. This will be the so-called trial service: based on its results, professional contracts will be signed. Meanwhile, the critics are already skeptical. Patriotic rhetoric is a very weak stimulus to make young men sacrifice a year (or two), which they could use for studying or working. Even Bundeswehr Chief of General Staff Volker Wieker stated that the plan is way too optimistic. First of all, the real number of volunteers can be seen only in practice. Secondly, the Bundeswehr simply may not be able to compete with other employers.
The other problem that the Ministry of Defense pays little attention due is that the future of an alternative army service is closely associated with the general service duty. Should the draft be suspended, around 90,000 jobs in hospitals, homes for the elderly and many other civilian institutions that will have to be replaced by hired employees. On the other hand, this could actually have certain positive influence on the labor market. Folding of the military infrastructure will also deal a blow to several thousand civilians now employed in the sphere of servicing the Bundeswehr, who will then also be forced to seek other employment. And that is aside from the massive job cuts of the army. Meanwhile, what has to be be downsized and how remain one of the biggest questions. Clearly, military forces will suffer the most since their number is expected to be cut by 40,000.
As for recycling of military hardware and property, not much is clear. However, for example, it is known that the plans envisage leaving 150 Leopard 2 basic combat tanks out of 330 in operation. This will be nearly three times less than the army in neighboring Switzerland boasts.
Finally, it is unclear how these changes will reflect on Germany’s participation in NATO and the European security system. Meanwhile, the Bundeswehr does not have much of a choice since by 2014 as the military must economize a total of EUR 8.3 bn. Experts say, however, that small professional armed forces in practice turn out to be more expensive than a large drafted army. In addition to that, it is clear that doing away with the draft will not be “temporary”. This means that the ties between society and the army so desired by the conservatives will be severed. German politicians will likely prefer not to risk and sacrifice a part of their foreign policy ambitions connected with reform of the army for the sake of internal peace and quiet. It is difficult to say what the compromise will look like: the ruling coalition has decided to postpone the discussion of this issue until the party congresses of the Christian Democratic Union and Christian Social Union are held this fall.
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