How they see us: A threat to pull troops from Germany
“Germany is risking its most important alliance,” said Philip Volkmann-Schluck in Bild (Germany). That was the message the U.S. ambassador in Berlin, Richard Grenell, delivered last week, warning that America will remove its troops from the country and relocate them to Poland unless Germany honors its NATO defensespending obligations. Alliance members are supposed to spend at least 2 percent of their gross domestic product on defense, but we spend less than 1.4 percent on the military. “The German government is even planning to lower the rate after 2021.” Grenell fumed at how “offensive” it is to “assume that the U.S. taxpayer must continue to pay to have 50,000-plus Americans in Germany but the Germans get to spend their surplus on domestic programs.” The ambassador was echoing what U.S. President Donald Trump has long insisted: Germans aren’t paying their fair share.
To hear the Trump administration tell it, the U.S. troops here are “an undeserved gift to the Germans,” said Stefan Braun in the Süddeutsche Zeitung (Germany). Nothing could be further from the truth. During the Cold War, America’s bases in Germany served as a bulwark against the Soviets, defending Europe and the U.S. And Germany is now “the linchpin of global U.S. operations,” said Christoph von Marschall in Der Tagesspiegel (Germany). The U.S. base at Ramstein serves warplanes and drones that fly missions in the Middle East and Africa, while the Landstuhl military hospital has treated thousands of American troops wounded in Afghanistan and Iraq. Stuttgart hosts the U.S. command center for the European and African theaters, and Grafenwöhr boasts a vast training ground. All these facilities are worth billions of dollars and could not be easily replicated in Poland. Nor would it be legal under a NATO-Russia treaty to station so many U.S. troops in a former Warsaw Pact nation.
The U.S. president doesn’t care about upholding treaties, said Konrad Schuller in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (Germany), but that doesn’t mean he’ll follow through with his threat. He is a professional bluffer. Remember two years ago, when he threatened North Korea with “fire and fury” if it didn’t dismantle its nuclear programs? Pyongyang keeps testing missiles, but Trump makes excuses for this behavior and praises dictator Kim Jong Un. Same with Iran: Trump sent aircraft carriers to the Persian Gulf to protect ships, yet when
Iran sabotaged and confiscated tankers, he did nothing. Trump “will not do what he threatens.”
Trump and Grenell’s “style may be harsh,” said Marc Felix Serrao in the Neue Zürcher Zeitung (Switzerland), but they’re telling the truth. “Europe’s largest economy” really isn’t doing its bit to help to defend Europe. Underspending has crippled the German military: Warplanes have been grounded for lack of spare parts; troops are going without bulletproof vests and winter clothes; and fewer than 50 percent of tanks are battle ready. Berlin should step up defense spending—not because of Trump’s threats but because it’s in Germany’s national interest.