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Mobilising the concept of strategic culture, this study develops a framework for understanding developments in German security policy between 1990 and 2003. Germany's contemporary security policies are characterised by a peculiar mix of continuity and change. From abstention in the first Gulf war, to early peacekeeping missions in Bosnia in the early 1990s and a full combat role in Kosovo in 1999, the pace of change in German security policy since the end of the Cold War has been breathtaking. The extent of this change has recently, however, been questioned, as seen most vividly in Berlin's response to ‘9/11’ and its subsequent stalwart opposition to the US-led war on terrorism in Iraq in 2003. Beginning with a consideration of the notion of strategic culture, the study refines and adapts the concept to the case of Germany through a consideration of aspects of the rearmament of West Germany. It then critically evaluates the transformation of the role of the Bundeswehr up to and including the war on terrorism, together with Germany's troubled efforts to enact defence reforms, as well as the complex politics surrounding the policy of conscription. By focusing on both the ‘domestics’ of security policy decision making as well as the changing and often contradictory expectations of Germany's allies, this book provides a comprehensive analysis of the role played by Germany's particular strategic culture in shaping policy choices. It concludes by pointing to the vibrancy of Germany's strategic culture.
. One of the many effects of that day was the emergence of a fundamental difference between US and German perspectives regarding the use of force and how best to combat the sources of global terrorism. The transformation that US foreign policy underwent after (and arguably even before) September 11 brought into focus the peculiarities and continuities present within German security thinking. The Longhurst, Germany and the use of force.qxd 80 30/06/2004 16:25 Page 80 Germany and the use of force next section discusses at some length the evolution of US
the PLO thus achieved international legitimacy could it afford to recognise Israel and in November 1988 it accepted UN Resolution 242, contingent on acquisition of a Palestinian state in the occupied territories. The consequent US decision to start a dialogue with the PLO after it renounced terrorism, presented a new opportunity but was taken by the Israeli elite to be a threat against which the Labour and Likud parties joined in a ‘wall-to-wall coalition’ government. However, the two main Israeli parties were drawing apart. The Likud
more far-reaching reforms emerged, with many of Germany’s allies and partners eager to see a greater commitment to modernise the Bundeswehr as well as increase defence spending. Stimulus for change was then provided by the events of September 11 2001 and the subsequent US-led war on terrorism, which served to finally explode the longstanding assumption that national and alliance territorial defence was central to the Bundeswehr’s mission and rationale. Certainly, the Bundeswehr at the start of the twenty-first century is a very different entity from that of the Cold War
on the use of force became, especially in the context of the expansion of the US-led war against terrorism in 2003, more reminiscent of the restrictive, amilitaristic, foreign policy style of the pre-1990 Bonn Republic. This mixture of change and continuity also pervades the structure of the Federal armed forces and the pace of defence sector reforms. While the Bundeswehr, Germany’s armed force, has become better equipped for modern out-of-area missions, its post-1989 process of transformation and modernisation remains limited and largely inadequate due to the
to take economic or military risks for such causes. The OIC did have some success in articulating a Muslim consensus on international issues that affected the Muslim world. Thus, after the 11 September events, the OIC condemned terrorism but rejected ‘any linkage between terrorism and rights of Islamic and Arab peoples, including the Palestinian and Lebanese … to self-determination … [and] resistance to foreign occupation [which are] legitimate rights enshrined in the United Nations charter’ (OIC Qatar communiqué, 10 October 2001 in Murden 2002: 204). Ironically
streitbare Demokratie Structural Funds [See: Economic and Social Cohesion] subsidiarity Suez crisis Tangentopoli terrorism Treaties of Rome Treaty of European Union (TEU) [See: Maastricht Treaty] Treaty of Nice Treuhandanstalt Trizonia [See: Bizonia] two-ballot electoral system ‘Two
structural adjustment, of unpopular and inequitable peace treaties with Israel, of a US campaign against terrorism and so-called ‘rogue states’. This, however, spelled increased domestic risks. While the Middle East region has proven more resistant than others have to the neo-liberal rules of the international economy, even its incremental integration into this order threatens to undermine the very foundations of current states. Regimes that have built their legitimacy on a distributive social contract are being pushed toward a policy of trickle-down capitalism. At least
of the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association and a member of the Belfast Housing Action Committee. He joined the Republican movement in 1964. In March 1972 Adams was interned in Long Kesh under suspicion of terrorism but was released in July 1972 to take part in secret talks between the UK Secretary of State for Northern Ireland and the Irish Republican Army (IRA). He was rearrested in 1973 and tried to escape from the
to be focused more on out-of-area missions, which became the principal role of the Bundeswehr, a focus largely accepted across the nation’s political spectrum. Germany’s combat role in Kosovo in 1999, a critical juncture in this development, considerably increased the momentum to modernise the Bundeswehr, an objective given even greater impetus by the events of September 11 2001 and the subsequent war on terrorism, imposing on German security thinking a global perspective and exploding the notion that traditional national and alliance defence remained the core