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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.
first Gulf War. In his book, Waging Modern War: Bosnia, Kosovo and the Future of Combat, Wesley Clarke reflects on the Bosnian conflict, noting that modern communications and the media – actions that were relatively small could have potentially large political impact, and therefore affect the course of an entire campaign. Such an incident occurred in the Gulf War, when our aircraft struck a command bunker that was being used as a bomb shelter by families. The lesson wasn’t lost on us: watch the political impact of every decision and event.21 Clarke of course went on
European military force as an alternative to NATO in mid-1991, the idea was met with ‘immediate and unambiguous opposition’ from Washington.57 Likewise, when Germany responded to centrifugal pressures in Yugoslavia by supporting Slovenian and Croatian aspirations for secession, the United States, in line with the Wolfowitz Doctrine, moved to restrain German ambitions by encouraging Islamic Bosnian and, later, Kosovo Albanian statehood, partly motivated by the need to compensate for the suspicion in the Muslim world aroused by the first Gulf War, and partly out of a
bombing operations in retaliation for Libyan involvement in terrorism.6 Transatlantic relations in the post-Reagan era, on the other hand, were discernibly less buoyant. Notwithstanding the obvious continuance of military cooperation, most notably with Britain’s involvement in the first Gulf war, the personal links between Margaret Thatcher and the new US President, George Bush Senior, were palpably cooler. At the same time, the fall of the Berlin Wall and the demise of Soviet-style Communism during the early 1990s ushered in an era of global uncertainty, accompanied 11
unskilled workers. The first Gulf War hit Indian workers and India hard. Following Operation Desert Storm, the number of Indians in Iraq was reduced to a handful. The Indian community in Libya has also shrunk, mainly due to an economic slowdown, from almost 40,000 in the mid-1980s to about 12,000 in 2000–01. However, on a visit to Dubai in December–January 2003–04, the present author noted the presence of Indian workers and businesses in the city. Although it is not always easy to distinguish Indians from Pakistanis or Bangladeshis, it may be safely concluded that large
the source of 30 per cent of India’s oil imports and employed about 90,000 Indians, but after the first Gulf War many Indian workers left Iraq. India holds that Iraq should comply with UN resolutions and that sanctions should be lifted for humanitarian considerations if it does. As discussed in Chapter 7, there are also three million Indian expatriates in the Gulf region.The Indian government is concerned that military action in Iraq will lead to more bitterness and violence and create a more unstable and volatile situation. In an era of economic growth, Indian
to the Rwandan crisis, as Mark Curtis indicates, has until now been an event that has been written out of British foreign policy history.12 White.indd 3 10/6/2014 5:35:35 PM 4 The ignorant bystander? What is meant by humanitarian intervention? In the years preceding Rwanda’s genocide, following the end of the Cold War and the US-led coalition’s success in the first Gulf War (1991), humanitarian intervention looked to be on the way to becoming an international norm. The peaceful collapse of communism and the end of East–West proxy wars appeared to herald a new
to expand the global reach of the US and enhance its geo-strategic leverage within the Middle East, to promote democratic political reform within the region (this being thought to provide security benefits and a greater integration into the world economy), to secure increased influence over international oil markets (with 46 Chaos Iraq possessing the second largest proven reserves in the world), and to conclude the sense of unfinished business hanging over from the first Gulf war. Crucially, too, a key ambition was to assert US credibility in the war on terror.8
Provide Comfort. In that mission US, British and French troops had deployed to the borders of Iraq to protect Kurds being persecuted by Saddam Hussein’s government troops in the aftermath of the first Gulf War. If humanitarian zones on the borders of the state had proved successful in Iraq, surely, the logic followed, they could also work in Rwanda. However, it is evident that any such arguments were merely cover for the fact that the US had significant reservations about deploying troops into Kigali itself as long as the civil war continued. The State Department noted
recognized the legitimate and political rights of the Palestinian people while in return the PLO renounced terrorism and recognized Israel’s right to exist in conditions of peace and security (Rynhold 2007 : 423). Problems and policies Like in the Greek case discussed above, international developments, in particular the end of bipolarism but more importantly the 1991 first Gulf War, brought along new preoccupations in the Israeli foreign policy. First, the United States put pressure on Israel to foster closer relations