Strategic Concepts (I)
2009/03/11
BERLIN
(Own report) - The debate about NATO's future intervention strategy is gaining intensity just a few weeks before the war alliance celebrates its 60th Anniversary at its Summit in the beginning of April, where, in light of tensions developing between the principal western powers, a new "strategic concept" is to be initiated. The Secretary General of NATO insists that this concept stipulate when NATO states will intervene in alliance and when they can intervene independently. The relationship to Russia should also be more precisely defined. These demands are particularly directed at Germany, which, over the years, has been seeking to enhance its independence from the USA, to also become a world power. This is the objective behind its cooperating with Moscow. Transatlantic forces in Germany are warning that one should not base ones future on a declining power and plead for Berlin rapprochement with Washington. A northern expansion of NATO is included in their proposals. In light of the rivalry over natural resource deposits at the North Pole, the war alliance should reinforce its position in the Arctic - against Russia.
Indispensable
At its upcoming Jubilee Summit at the beginning of April, the NATO war alliance is set to determine its basic political principles for the foreseeable future, as was demanded by its Secretary General, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer. "The time is right for a new strategic concept" Scheffer wrote in an exclusive article for the journal "Loyal" published by the association of German Bundeswehr reservists.[1] Years of dissention between the leading western powers over the extent of NATO cooperation and what member states should undertake independently, have led to this demand. Whereas transatlantic oriented forces in Europe and North America are demanding a broad-based graduated cooperation, demands are particularly growing in Germany for a clear limitation of the cooperation. Scheffer is demanding that these disputes finally be solved and pleads for comprehensive discussion - an "intra-alliance debate" is "the indispensable prerequisite for a new consensus."[2]
With Russian Help
The structuring of NATO's future relationship to Russia is playing a central role in this debate. Berlin has repeatedly used Moscow to broaden its autonomy in relationship to the USA. One example is the development of the SAR-Lupe espionage satellite system that provides Germany with the capacity of worldwide military intelligence, with which Germans can now wage war without reliance on US satellites. Germany was able to establish this system with Russian assistance. (german-foreign-policy.com reported.[3]) Because of this and other examples,[4] influential forces in Berlin insist upon making concessions to Moscow, to strengthen their position with Russian support also in the future - and become a world power in their own right. These forces often find backing in Paris.
Shaky
Various tendencies in the transatlantic milieu are opposing this political trend, not only in Great Britain and the USA, but in Germany as well. The worldwide resistance to the expansion of the West can "be met solely in close cooperation with our partners" wrote Andreas Schockenhoff, vice-chairman of the conservative parliamentary group in the German Bundestag. Schockenhoff is an expert in foreign and security policy.[5] According to the conservative CDU-affiliated Konrad Adenauer Foundation, this is not possible in cooperation with Moscow. "Russia's power" is "shaky" writes a recent study of the foundation, which diagnoses that though Russia is experiencing an "imperial phantom limb pain," it will have "no prosperous and peaceful future."[6] The paper forecasts that "intermediately, Russia will more than likely be growing weaker rather than stronger", and sees every concession to the Russian government as superfluous.
Authoritative Office
Instead, according to the paper, NATO has to "protect" the West's global expansion "through combating the inevitable backlash (such as international terrorism)."[7] The war in Afghanistan is of particular importance. The Konrad Adenauer Foundation warns that a defeat at the Hindu Kush, would expose NATO's vulnerability and would be "an irreparable loss of credibility for the role of the alliance as a provider of global security". The occupation measures proposed give an idea of the character of future NATO interventions. According to its proposals, not only more soldiers and more non-state occupation forces (non-government organizations - NGOs) should be dispatched, but also new occupation structures must be established. To link the "locally active NGOs" to the military, it will necessitate "at least the establishment of a central office with the necessary authority" (...) "ideally within NATO structures in Afghanistan."
Democrat
In addition the Konrad Adenauer Foundation is considering the replacement of the Karzai regime. The author of the study, who, in his text, just a few sentences earlier, ennobled himself with the call for democratization, proposes that "the ex-finance minister of Afghanistan, Ashraf Ghani or the current interior minister, Mohammad Hanif Atmar would be available as the West's competent and reliable partners."[8]
Northern Expansion
The Konrad Adenauer Foundation is considering a new expansion of NATO in the future. The paper contends that one is confronted with a "growing strategic significance of the 'High North'."[9] This refers to nascent rivalry for Arctic deposits of raw materials, which, with the melting polar cap, will become accessible for mining. Strong rivalry is to be expected. (german-foreign-policy.com will report tomorrow Thursday.)[10] According to the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, this is a case for NATO. Finland and Schweden have already been "more insistently signaling their interest in becoming NATO members." The growing dissention in the "High North" makes "this a welcome development."[11]
[1], [2] "Zeit für ein neues Konzept"; loyal 03/2009
[3] see also World's Spy Champion
[4] see also Richtige Richtung, Militärkooperation and Unheilvoller Schatten
[5] Was uns künftig bedroht; loyal 02/2009[6], [7], [8],
[9] Patrick Keller: Der NATO-Gipfel 2009. Zum 60. Geburtstag ein neues Strategisches Konzept? Analysen und Argumente der Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung, Ausgabe 62, März 2009[10] see also Ice Cold War[11] Patrick Keller: Der NATO-Gipfel 2009. Zum 60. Geburtstag ein neues Strategisches Konzept? Analysen und Argumente der Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung, Ausgabe 62, März 2009
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Germany Behind the Mask
Voter Base
Experts have been apprehensive that rightwing extremists could have more electoral successes this and the coming year, subsequent to the NPD's entry into each of Saxony's county councils through local elections at the beginning of June. In Saxony the NPD was able to extend its structures and have - for the first time - candidates statewide, which enhanced their electoral results from 1.3% in 2004 to 5.1%. In some areas they even surpassed the SPD and got up to 25% of the votes cast. According to opinion polls, they are expected to reach around nine percent in the 2009 state elections and again be represented in the state parliament. Similar prognoses have been made known for the state of Mecklenburg - West Pomerania. Hubertus Buchstein a political scientist based in Greifswald (Mecklenburg - West Pomerania) estimates the NPD's base of traditional voters in that region to be "over five percent" of the population.[1] Besides Mecklenburg - West Pomerania, local elections will also be held in Thuringia, in Saxony-Anhalt and in Saarland in 2009. In Saarland the NPD got more than 4% in the last elections. The influence of a strong rightwing extremist scene is being felt in Thuringia and Saxony-Anhalt. The same holds true for Brandenburg, where local elections are scheduled already for September. Because the NPD, until now, has only been able to create its own structures in but one sector of Brandenburg, it has to give up some candidatures to the rightwing extremist DVU, which is already represented in the state parliament.
Growing Acceptance
As Andreas Speit, an expert on rightwing extremism, described in a discussion with german-foreign-policy.com, the NPD has been able to consolidate itself in several regions of the country over the past few years. The party is not only much more active in local politics than before, it "packages its ideology in a terminology, that speaks to anxieties and fears in the population" says Speit.[2] The party is also benefiting from the rightwing sentiment that, according to opinion polls, has been growing over the past few years. In its regional strongholds, the NPD has been able to considerably broaden its representation ranging from its presence in sports clubs Parent's Associations, in youth clubs and even their own medium and small business structures. Observers in Mecklenburg-West Pomerania are worried that the "civic strategy" is working. "The acceptance of an extremely rightwing content is growing steadily in the population."[3]
Collective Party
Simultaneously the NPD has been able to establish itself, to a growing extent, as a collective rightwing extremist party. It exerts "particularly over the past few years, a gravitational force on the entire extremist rightwing milieu" observes Speit.[4] This allows the NPD to consolidate within its party structures not only the numerous violence-prone neo-Nazis organized in local and regional "Kamaradschaften." It is attracting "even individuals from rightwing extremist intellectual milieus," says Speit. These are particularly active in state legislative parliamentary groups and their entourage. In fact, with the help of government finances to state parliamentary groups, the NPD has been able to gather a large number of academic trained rightwing extremists for its intellectualization efforts. It has had success so far in modulating conflicts between various tendencies and avoiding escalation of internal conflicts - an important prerequisite for success. It was because of such conflicts, among other things, that the NPD lost its newly won parliamentary influence at the beginning of the 1970s.
Violence
The NPD's political affinity to neo-Nazi violence, which has been consolidated through its cooperation with the Kamaradschaften, is not merely symbolized by several parliamentarians and parliamentary assistants with police records for assault and battery. Michael Andrejewski, NPD member of the Mecklenburg-West Pomerania state parliament, was responsible for the "Action 'Rostock stays German'" flyer in 1992, that called for "resistance" against an alleged "flood of aliens". The flyer was distributed in the summer of 1992, a prelude to the Rostock pogrom, during which a hostel was set afire, endangering more than 100 residents, who were barely able to escape the flames in time. Today Andrejewski is doing social counseling in eastern West-Pomerania.[5] The politically necessary verbal dissociation from rightwing extremist violence is generally on hand if needed. During a debate of the pogrom-like assaults on Turkish fast-food stands in the Saxonian capital Dresden, following the German victory over Turkey in the semi-finals of the European Soccer Cup, Juergen W. Gansel, an NPD MP in the state parliament, complained that the Saxonian Economic Minister paid visits of solidarity to the victims. Gansel demands that the state government not become "the fools of the aliens."[6]
European Focal Point
With the reinforcement of the NPD, not only racism and anti-Semitism is gaining influence in the society, great-power fantasies, seeing Germany as a world power in rivalry with the United States, are also being conceptualized. "Europe" must become "an effective political and economic counter-balance to the USA" is the perspective formulated in the party's "Europe Program". This concept sees Germany in a "special role", "as the European focal point."[7] The NPD demands that in the "political reorganization" of the continent, there must be "a ban on interventions for all those powers alien to the region." The keyword was coined by Carl Schmitt, an expert in governmental and constitutional law, the Third Reich's "crown jurist" and described as the "intellectual quartermaster" of German fascism, who today is again being extolled by establishment circles outside those of rightwing extremists.[8] The NPD, in its old anti-Semitic tradition, defines Israel and the USA as "powers alien to the region," but above all US-American influence is to be repelled from Europe.
"School of the Nation"
To "meet the challenges posed by the claims of other continental powers," the NPD calls for the dissolution of the EU and the founding of a loose "European federation", to be enhanced by an "European defense pact," a war alliance, militarily supportive of the rivalry with the USA. As always in German history, the military is of prime importance in these great power fantasies. The NPD demands that the "National German Armed Forces," "in the function of a 'school of the nation,' mold the oncoming generations and teach them the values of an new ethnic order of sovereign national states."[9] The world power ideology loaded with anti-Semitism and racism, makes this party into a highly aggressive potential, even for abroad, whose further development can be observed over the next 12 months in its electoral returns.[10]
Please read our Interview with Andreas Speit and our review of the book Neo-Nazis in Pinstripes by Andreas Speit and Andrea Röpke.
