FACEBOOK
TWITTER
Germany’s militarised foreign policy
Global stability and world peace will not come from the barrel of a gun.
by Arshin Adib-Moghaddam
Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah (R) welcomes German Chancellor Angela Merkel on her arrival at the Royal Palace in Jeddah, May 25, 2010. REUTERS/Saudi Press Agency/Handout.
Imagine Iran would be the target of an Israeli nuclear attack launched from submarines designed, built and delivered by Germany. This dystopia may seem unlikely, but it is now entirely possible. The German magazine Der Spiegel, not known for its critical stance towards Israeli policies, recently revealed how German officials facilitated the delivery of the so called dolphin submarines which were built in a shipyard in the northern German town of Kiel and which are capable of carrying nuclear warheads.
Ever since the end of the Second World War, Der Spiegel, reports in an exclusive, German leaders have acted as a conduit for military deals with Israel circumventing German law and parliamentary approval. The late, former Defence Minister Franz-Josef Strauss, a member of the right-leaning Christian Social Union (CSU), did even go as far as to drop off explosive equipment personally when he ‘drove up to the Israeli mission in Cologne in a sedan car and handed an object wrapped in a coat to a Mossad liaison officer, saying it was “for the boys in Tel Aviv.” It was a new model of an armor-piercing grenade.’
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (2ndR) hosts German Chancellor Angela Merkel (2ndL) at the King David Hotel in Jerusalem 31 January 2011. Merkel echoed Israeli fears over the stability of the Middle East on 31 January as unrest swept Egypt. But she also urged Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to halt construction of Jewish housing in Palestinian areas. The German chancellor is in Israel for two days of meetings, along with much of her cabinet. EPA/MOSHE MILNER / HANDOUT
The sixth submarine has just been delivered, ironically amidst the controversy about Iran’s nuclear energy programme and Germany’s involvement in the punitive sanctions regime against the country. The government of Germany seems comfortable to deliver nuclear capable submarines, but when it comes to Iran the Merkel administration is quick to join the chorus denouncing Iran’s ‘nuclear threat’ to the region.
A Leopard 2A6 (L) and a Leopard 2 PSO (Peace Support Operations) of the German armed forces Bundeswehr are pictured during a demonstration at the exercise area of Munster about 80 km south east of Hamburg June 20, 2007. REUTERS/Christian Charisius (GERMANY)
Israel is not the only recipient of military hardware made in Germany. Amidst an uproar among parliamentarians and the potent German peace movement, the government of Chancellor Angela Merkel agreed to sell 200 Leopard 2A7+ tanks to Saudi Arabia in a deal worth €1.5bn. This generation of the Leopard tank is specifically designed to operate in both high intensity combat and in low intensity conflicts, i.e. in urban settings.
Prince Saud Al-Faisal, the Saudi Minister of Foreign Affairs (R) receiving the German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle (L) at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on 09 January 2010. Prince Saud said that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia sees the importance of intensifying efforts to make the Middle East and the gulf region free of weapons of mass destruction and the necessity to provide peace and security for all states in the region. EPA/SPA (SAUDI PRESS AGENCY) / HANDOUT.
Reportedly, the ammunition for the tanks has already been delivered and the Germany military is on the ground providing training for the Saudi defence forces on how to operate the tank. As such, the pro-democracy demonstrators in Bahrain, who are faced by troops from Saudi Arabia, may soon be countered with the help of German tanks. Here as well, Iran is a convenient bogeyman for German arms sales. According to Chancellor Merkel, Saudi Arabia requires the tanks in order to counter the ‘nuclear threat’ from its neighbour.
Tanks from Saudi Arabia roll into protest-hit Bahrain
There is a historical backdrop to German arms sales to the region. During the rule of Saddam Hussein in Iraq, German businesses were involved in delivering dual use equipment that ended up as components in the dictator’s WMD industry.
Saddam’s Iraq
The German involvement in Iraq’s chemical weapons infrastructure initially was concentrated on the chemical plant in Samarra which was built by Iraq’s SEPP (‘State Establishing for Pesticides Production’). The companies involved in this project were Preussag Heriger, Hammer, Rhein-Bayern, Karl Kolb/Pilot Plant and Water Engineering Trading (WET), a company based in Hamburg.[1] The German weekly magazine Stern reported on 10 December, 1987, that Kolb/Pilot Plant exported a ‘gas chamber’ to Baghdad which was suitable to test chemical weapons on dogs and cats. The same company was involved in the second largest chemical weapons plant in Fallujah. All of this happened during a period when Saddam Hussein gassed the Kurds in northern Iraq and when he sanctioned using chemical weapons at the warfront against the Iranian army.
In 1990, a report submitted to the German parliament by the late German minister of Trade Jürgen Möllemann provided further insights about the involvement of Kolb/Pilot Plant in Iraq’s chemical weapons industry. On page 22 it is stated that the German government knew as early as in 1982 that German companies were involved in Saddam Hussein’s chemical war industry and that these allegations were verified in 1984. The German government subsequently offered ‘informal’ talks with the companies concerned which did not yield any results.[2] The Möllemann report also revealed that toxics such as Botulinus A und B were exported from Germany, without, however naming the perpetrating parties. Kolb/Pilot constructed a new chemical plant in Falluja in 1988 which featured in Colin Powell’s case for the invasion of Iraq which was presented to the UN Security Council in February 2003. It also featured in a September 2002 report by Britain’s joint intelligence committee to great avail of Tony Blair’s justification of the invasion of Iraq in the following year.
Today, Germany has the third largest arms exports in the world behind the United States and Russia. Most of the exports go to NATO allies such as Turkey and Greece but German weaponry is also contributing to the arms race in West Asia and South America. The European Union in general and Germany in particular have prided themselves in pursuing diplomatic solutions to major conflicts. The current German arms policy betrays that commitment and unnecessarily militarises the foreign policy of the country. Global stability and world peace will not come from the barrel of a gun.
Parts of this article were excerpted from Iran in World Politics: the Question of the Islamic Republic (New York: Columbia University Press, 2008).
[1] See further http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/EB05Ak02.html
[2] See Hans Branscheid (medico international), “Dokumentation über den deutschen Rüstungs- und Giftgas-Transfer: Die Akte Möllemann” and Ronal Offeringer, “Irakische Vernichtungswaffen und industriestaatliche Proliferation: Die UN Kommission für Irak (UNSCOM) und die Bundesrepublik.”
ABOUT Arshin Adib-Moghaddam : Arshin Adib-Moghaddam is the author of The International Politics of the Persian Gulf: A cultural genealogy (Routledge, 2006, 2009), Iran in World Politics: The question of the Islamic Republic (Columbia University Press/Hurst, 2008, 2010) and over a dozen peer-reviewed research papers. His newest book is A Metahistory of the Clash of Civilisations: Us and them beyond Orientalism (Columbia/Hurst, 2011). Educated at the Universities of Hamburg, American (Washington DC) and Cambridge, he was the first Jarvis Doctorow Fellow in International Relations and Peace Studies at St. Edmund Hall and the Department of Politics and International Relations, University of Oxford. At Cambridge, where he obtained a MPhil and PhD, he was elected Honorary Fellow of the Cambridge European Trust Society. His writings have been translated into many languages and he is a frequent contributor to leading newspapers and TV channels around the world. Adib-Moghaddam has lectured globally on topics ranging from Iranian and west-Asian politics, Islamophobia, critical theory and the myth of a clash of civilisations. Currently, he is Reader in Comparative Politics and International Relations at SOAS, University of London.
Short URL: http://www.veteransnewsnow.com/?p=212853
Posted by Arshin Adib-Moghaddam on Jul 27 2012, With 0 Reads, Filed under AfPak, Americas, Asia, Bahrain, Editors' Picks, Europe, Expert Opinions ME, Global, Iran, Iraq War, Israel, Libya, Middle East, Middle East Conflicts, News From the Region, War. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
COMMENTS
To post a comment, you must login using Facebook, Yahoo, AOL, or Hotmail in the box below.Don't have a social network account? Register and Login direct with our site and post your comment.
Before you post, read our Comment Policy - Legal Notice
Germany is playing games with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and the Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany.
From Wikipedia:
Germany ratified the Geneva Protocol on 25 April 1929, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty on 2 May 1975, the Biological Weapons Convention on 7 April 1983 and the Chemical Weapons Convention on 12 August 1994. These dates signify ratification by the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany), during the division of Germany the NPT and the BWC were ratified separately by the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) (on 31 October 1969 and 28 November 1972, respectively).
Before German reunification in 1990, both West and East Germany ratified the Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany. Germany reaffirmed its renunciation of the manufacture, possession, and control of nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons. In addition to banning a foreign military presence in the former East Germany, the treaty also banned nuclear weapons or nuclear weapon carriers to be stationed in the area, making it a permanent Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone. The German military was allowed to possess conventional weapons systems with nonconventional capabilities, provided that they were outfitted for a purely conventional role.
The United States provides about 60 tactical B61 nuclear bombs for use by Germany under a NATO nuclear weapons sharing agreement. The bombs are stored at Büchel andRamstein Air Bases, and in time of war would be delivered by Luftwaffe Panavia Tornado warplanes. As well as being a breach of the Protocols to the (revised) Treaty of Brussels, many countries believe this violates Articles I and II of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), where Germany has committed:
“… not to receive the transfer from any transferor whatsoever of nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices or of control over such weapons or explosive devices directly, or indirectly … or otherwise acquire nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices …”.
The U.S. insists its forces control the weapons and that no transfer of the nuclear bombs or control over them is intended “unless and until a decision were made to go to war, at which the [NPT] treaty would no longer be controlling”, so there is no breach of the NPT. However German pilots and other staff practice handling and delivering the U.S. nuclear bombs. Even if the NATO argument is considered legally correct, such peacetime operations could arguably contravene both the objective and the spirit of the NPT.
For further information: http://ieer.org/wp/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/9-3.pdf
From the June 4, 2012 issue of Der Spiegel:
With the help of German maritime technology, Israel has managed to create for itself a floating nuclear weapon arsenal: submarines equipped with nuclear capability and in doing so has violated Germany’s arms export rules which clearly state that supplying weapons “is not authorized in countries that are involved in armed conflicts or where there is a threat of one.” There is no question that that rule would include Israel.
Is Berlin recklessly promoting an arms race in the Middle East?
In 1991, Israel blackmailed Germany into supplying Dolphin submarines with nuclear capability by threatening Germany with disclosure that Saddam Hussein’s Scud missiles had German-made parts.
On Jan. 30, 1991, two weeks after the beginning of the Gulf War, the German government agreed to supply Israel with armaments worth 1.2 billion deutsche marks. This included the complete financing of two submarines [submarines #4 and 5] with 880 million deutsche marks.
In August 2009, Netanyahu came to Berlin requesting a 6th submarine. Merkel’s response included three specific requests in exchange. First, Israel should halt its policy of settlement expansion, and second, the government should release tax assets it had frozen, which belong to the Palestinian National Authority. Third, Israel must allow construction of a sewage treatment plant in the Gaza Strip, funded by Germany, to continue.
The agreement was made, and Germany made further concessions, agreeing to pay €135 million ($170 million), a third of the submarine’s cost, and to allow Israel to defer payment of its part until 2015.
Netanyahu has simply ignored the terms of the agreement. Israel’s policy of settlement continues unabated and no further progress has been made on the sewage treatment plant. The Israeli government only released the Palestinian tax money.
How does this keep going on?
In a March 2008 speech in the Knesset, Chancellor Merkel said that Israel security has become “part of Germany’s reason of state.”
Former German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt: “Hardly anyone dares to criticize Israel here, out of fear of being accused of anti-Semitism,” the former chancellor told Jewish American historian Fritz Stern. Yet Israel is a country, Schmidt suggests, that “makes a peaceful solution practically impossible, through its policies of settlement in the West Bank and, for far longer, in the Gaza Strip.”
From the June 4, 2012 issue of Der Spiegel:
With the help of German maritime technology, Israel has managed to create for itself a floating nuclear weapon arsenal: submarines equipped with nuclear capability. By providing this technology, the German Chancellor and the cabinet ministers have violated Germany’s arms export rules which clearly state that supplying weapons “is not authorized in countries that are involved in armed conflicts or where there is a threat of one.” There is no question that that rule would include Israel.
Is Berlin recklessly promoting an arms race in the Middle East?
In 1991, Israel blackmailed Germany into supplying Dolphin submarines with nuclear capability by threatening Germany with disclosure that Saddam Hussein’s Scud missiles had German-made parts.
On Jan. 30, 1991, two weeks after the beginning of the Gulf War, the German government agreed to supply Israel with armaments worth 1.2 billion deutsche marks. This included the complete financing of two submarines [submarines #4 and 5] with 880 million deutsche marks.
In August 2009, Netanyahu came to Berlin requesting a 6th submarine. Merkel’s response included three specific requests in exchange. First, Israel should halt its policy of settlement expansion, and second, the government should release tax assets it had frozen, which belong to the Palestinian National Authority. Third, Israel must allow construction of a sewage treatment plant in the Gaza Strip, funded by Germany, to continue.
The agreement was made, and Germany made further concessions, agreeing to pay €135 million ($170 million), a third of the submarine’s cost, and to allow Israel to defer payment of its part until 2015.
Netanyahu has simply ignored the terms of the agreement. Israel’s policy of settlement continues unabated and no further progress has been made on the sewage treatment plant. The Israeli government only released the Palestinian tax money.
How does this keep going on?
In a March 2008 speech in the Knesset, Chancellor Merkel said that Israel’s security has become “part of Germany’s reason of state.”
Former German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt: “Hardly anyone dares to criticize Israel here, out of fear of being accused of anti-Semitism,” the former chancellor told Jewish American historian Fritz Stern. Yet Israel is a country, Schmidt suggests, that “makes a peaceful solution practically impossible, through its policies of settlement in the West Bank and, for far longer, in the Gaza Strip.”
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/israel-deploys-nuclear-weapons-on-german-built-submarines-a-836784.html
Last I heard, the Thyssen submarine “Werft” in Kiel was sold to Saudi Arabians about a year ago.
Confirmed. The HDW Ship and U-Boot factory in Kiel was (partially) sold to the Abu Dhabi Mar-Gruppe in 2010. The German governement rejected American involvement in the industry for reasons of national security, but the Saudis — thanks to political correctness — were allowed to buy in. The factory has a very strong leftist-leaning, Islam-friendly workers’ union (Verdi) and criticsm of the sale within company ranks met with physical threats, said my source. Also efforts by citizen action groups were met with deaf ears in administration; the sale should have been illegal under Article §170 Abs. StPO forbidding the sharing of German military technology with foreign nations.