REVIEW - Germany Might Lose US Garrisons To Poland Amid Estrangement Over NATO Expenditures

BRUSSELS (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 23rd August, 2019) US Ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell has recently said that the United States might consider redeploying some of its troops from Germany to Poland over the former's failure to increase its defense expenditures to 2 percent of its GDP, a target set by NATO.

While Poland has spoken against this initiative, the new defense minister of Germany, Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, has been quite vague about Berlin's determination to adjust its military spending plan.

Germany, which hosts 35,000 US troops and 17,000 support staff, currently spends only about 1.2 percent of its GDP on defense.

GERMANY KNOWS ITS SPENDING LIMITS

Kramp-Karrenbauer ended up focusing on this very matter during her first press encounter on July 30 at the NATO headquarters in Brussels, her first foreign visit in an official capacity.

"We in Germany have in recent years set ourselves the goal of building up, of rebuilding, the Federal Armed Forces. It is a goal that comes from national aims, but also from commitments and obligations to the Alliance [NATO]. And to achieve this goal, in our own national interests too, we need the appropriate resources to be able to carry these efforts through. And that means we need 1.5 percent of GDP by 2024 and we must also continue along the ever-upward path in pursuit of fulfillment of our obligations within NATO as regards the 2 percent target. That will be one of the upcoming tasks and one of the upcoming debates in German politics," she said when asked whether Germany intended to achieve NATO's 2 percent goal.

This was the only time she voiced the figure of 2 percent. All other time she has insisted on Berlin's determination to get defense spending at 1.5 percent and reiterated her country's loyalty to the alliance and readiness to engage in a joint discussions.

The efficiency problems in the German military seem to have attracted criticism from all across the German political spectrum, including from the backbenches of Chancellor Angela Merkel's center-right Christian Democrats.

For the hard-right opposition party Alternative for Germany (AfD), the situation looks catastrophic. For one thing, former Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen, who left the post to head the European Council, has left a troubled legacy in terms of defense budget management, AfD spokesperson Georg Paderski said.

"Von der Leyen should have to answer the years of planning chaos, the lack of staff, the bad investments, the waste of money and completely meaningless measures that have led the Bundeswehr [German military] to the biggest crisis in its history. Germany is simply no longer able to defend its territory and fulfill its NATO alliance obligations. Our navy last year did not have a single operational submarine. Only half of the Leopard II tanks are ready for action. The training of our helicopter pilots now has to take place at the private ADAC [motor club] because the army and air force no longer have the necessary capacities," Paderski said.

Furthermore, the army lacks enough elemental uniforms and tents for cold weather, while the ammunition and spare parts stocks have nearly been depleted, he added.

"Of course, von der Leyen is not alone in being responsible for the condition of the troops. Her predecessors have systematically reduced budgets of the Bundeswehr since the end of the Cold War," Paderski said.

US THREATENS TO MOVE TROOPS TO POLAND

"It's really offensive to expect the US taxpayer to continue to pay more than 50,000 Americans in Germany, while the Germans use their trade surplus for domestic purposes," US Ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell said in an interview with the German Press Agency.

During Polish President Andrzej Duda's trip to Washington in June, US President Donald Trump already ordered the transfer of about 1,000 US troops from Germany to Poland. This was around the same visit when Trump criticized Germany for supporting Russia's Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline project and said said he was mulling sanctions for the project.

Opinions have been voiced as to whether the genuine motivation behind Washington's decision was unmet budgetary promises or the negative attitudes of the German political elite toward the United States.

Merkel along with leaders of her coalition partner, the Socialist Democratic party, and Foreign Minister Heiko Maas, have been openly critical of Trump since he came after the chancellor for her country's failure to pay its share of the NATO defense budget at the alliance's summit in July 2018.

However, at the Munich Security Conference earlier that year in February, German Liberal Party (FDP) spokesman Alexander Graf Lambsdorff warned his colleagues at home against anti-US sentiments.

"The German relationship with the Trump government be not confrontational but cooperative, since even the strongest European countries are not able to act without the transatlantic partner. We must think and finance our international tasks together: diplomacy, development and defense," he said.

He went on even further to suggest that the 2 percent target was not enough because Germany spent much less on its defense with NATO that it would without the alliance.

"If they [NATO] did not exist, our defense spending would automatically skyrocket. Successful international politics is more than defense. That is why the FDP wants to invest 3 percent of the German GDP in diplomacy, armed forces and development cooperation in the long term," Lambsdorff said.

The FDP, like most German political parties, is relatively at ease with the huge amounts that a 2 percent of GDP spending level would mean for the country's budget at a time when the economic powerhouse seems to be showing signs of decline.

GERMANY SAYS ALREADY SPENDS MORE

The German government has been trying to somewhat deflect Washington's accusations by underlining that they spend money not only on military equipment or equipment maintenance. In the German federal budget, defense spending is currently the second largest item, making up 10 percent of the budget, and includes payments to civilian and military personnel who are not combat troops.

The distinction runs between the operational "business" expenses and defense-intensive expenditures. The largest share of expenses goes to salaries, pensions and social spending for personnel. Another portion is paid toward the construction and maintenance of buildings, rent and lease payments for real estate, and insurance. Additionally, money is needed for private services such as training fleet management and the alike.

Defense-intensive expenditures, on the other hand, go directly to arms systems, such as the Eurofighter jet, new frigates, submarine fleet, tanks, and so on.

"The amounts communicated by the ministry do not include the construction costs for administrative buildings, barracks or schools for the children, for example. The government also mentions 480 million Euros [$532 million] for buildings occupied by NATO partners since 2012, but these are almost exclusively American forces," Bundestag member Brigitte Freihold told Sputnik.

She insisted that these costs and others associated with the presence of US troops in Germany be integrated into the calculation Berlin's defense spending.

"The Americans have transformed Germany over the years into the main hub of their global warfare, and the German taxpayer is heavily subsidizing their installation. We have less American troops than during the Cold War, but the equipment and weapons are much more dangerous," she added.

Since the formation of the Bundeswehr in 1955, defense-intensive expenditure has declined, while the share of operational expenditure has increased.

Merkel's coalition does not seem to have developed an investment plan viable enough to increase expenditure from the current 1.2 percent rate to 1.5 percent by 2024, as per Kramp-Karrenbauer's statement.

"The budget of the former Grand coalition and its increases have been kept by the present coalition. The defense budget would be increased each year, as an indication, there would be an additional 10.2 billion euros in 2020. It is not negligible, even of most of it would be for personnel costs and not weapon systems," Pierre Henrot, a Brussels-based military expert, told Sputnik.

The Socialist front of Germany's Grand coalition has not been very vocal in criticizing the increase of military spending because it was them who campaigned for accepting the 2 percent expenditure goal.

Back at a meeting with Kramp-Karrenbauer on July 30, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg stressed that higher investments in defense were needed in times when tensions in world politics went up.

"I am confident that Germany will make good on the promises that Germany and all other Allies made back in 2014. We have to remember that the pledge to increase defense spending was something we all agreed at the NATO summit in Wales in 2014. This is something we do because it is in our security interests to invest more," he said.

Since then, Germany's new defense minister has approved the idea of building a German aircraft carrier, despite Gabriel's call to avoid unnecessary spending, and is careful not to go too far in promising more than a 1.5 percent expenditure goal.