Atlantic Community:Open Think Tank Article "Germany's Peace Party"

The road to power in Berlin starts in Kabul. This, in essence, appears to be the German left-wing SPD party’s new political maxim just three months after they lost the Bundestag elections and were kicked out of Chancellor Merkel’s Grand Coalition government. With the SPD in opposition for the first time since 1998, newly-elected party chairman Sigmar Gabriel is beginning to lay the groundwork for a pacifist Afghanistan policy that tries to capitalize on the German public’s growing disenchantment with the military mission there. While he has not (yet) called for a full-scale Bundeswehr withdrawal, Gabriel has already made it clear that he’s firmly opposed to sending any additional German troops to Afghanistan as part of President Obama’s new “surge” strategy. In an interview with Germany’s mass tabloid “Bild” published last week, Gabriel accused the “hardliners” from the ruling center-right CDU/CSU-FDP parties of backing a Bundeswehr troop increase that would only “lead to more dead on all sides.” “An increase in German combat troops beyond the current limit will not be supported by the SPD,” he declared.

In trying to reposition the SPD as the party of peace, Gabriel is following in the footsteps of his political mentor and former Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, who saved his 2002 re-election bid by confronting Washington over the gathering Iraq war. To its credit, the SPD did support the parliamentary vote on the one-year extension of the Bundeswehr’s ISAF mandate earlier this month. However, by strictly opposing any German troop increase beyond the current 4,500 limit, Gabriel is now establishing a major political fault line with Chancellor Merkel. The SPD chairman – a cunning opportunist with a strong populist streak – knows full well that his anti-surge position is backed by at least two-thirds of the German population. Merkel, in contrast, has said that she wants to await the outcome of a major international conference on the country’s future scheduled for late January in London before making any decisions about a potential Bundeswehr troop increase, which analysts say could be as high as 1,500-2,500 soldiers.

Gabriel realizes that in order to help the SPD recover from its biggest crisis ever and to successfully challenge Chancellor Merkel in the future, he needs to energize the party base and regain those former SPD supporters who have been defecting to the pacifist Left Party in droves. A key element in Gabriel’s attempt to reclaim the SPD’s lost left-of-center political terrain is his new push for a pacifist Afghanistan policy that would not only appeal to many Left Party supporters but could also be used to reach out to those middle-of-the-road voters who see Germany’s military engagement at the Hindu Kush as a lost cause. According to media reports, Sigmar Gabriel also plans to reach out to the more than 500,000 rank-and-file SPD members in the coming weeks to ask for their direct input in shaping the party’s future stance on the Bundeswehr deployment in Afghanistan. Given the anti-military and “get-out-of-Afghanistan-quickly” attitudes of many SPD members, one should not expect any surprises from this unprecedented experiment in soliciting policy input from the party base on matters of vital national security. If anything, one must interpret Gabriel’s latest innovation in direct democracy as a thinly veiled attempt to gain convenient political cover to orchestrate a volte-face on Afghanistan and to turn the SPD (again) into Germany’s peace party of choice.

Ulf Gartzke is a contributor to The Weekly Standard blog.

This article first appeared on the Weekly Standard Online and is republished here with permission of the author.

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January 4, 2010

Samir Awwad, Uni - Hagen, University of Jordan, Platinum Contributor (172)

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SPD- ministers served the Afghanistan cause during their administration with the CDU as defense secretaries and never doubted the importance of the Afghanistan mission and the dedication towards the Afghan people. An SPD government approved the Afghanistan war after 9/11 as valid under the light of NATO defense agreements.

Now, in opposition, they turn against their commitment in order to combat the pseudo-pacifist image of their main rival "communist" PDS- Die Linke.

As the "Surge" in Afghanistan is in operation actually, much will happen in four years without any majority change among German lawmakers.

Truly the Afganistan mission is getting increasingly unpopular among lawmakers, but the majority of Germans oppose the war anyway. So less Germany's commitment to the war is to be doubted than the integrity of SPD politicians.

Lets postpone the issue after the next general election in order to observe a SPD legitimation to withdraw from Afghanistan in 2014 when the war is over anyway ;-)

January 4, 2010

Florian Kuhne, Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster, Gold Contributor (103)

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Mr Gartzke,

I don't think Mr Gabriel deserves it to be called a "a cunning opportunist with a strong populist streak". In his term as Environment Minister he made some very good attempts, said wise things and is to be taken as serious as all the other ones who call for nuclear phaseout.
But your point is another one, I see that. One could talk and talk and talk about the commitments made and the strategy in Afghanistan, but I want to make only one point: Military is in for eight years now, the strategy is all in all the same. Why not try it different?
Let me give a short example: A friend, Persian/Iranian, told me about a little girls school in the south of Afghanistan, sponsored and run by a German couple. They have absolutely no problem with "terror", nor even threats against their facility. Thats because they asked the local people when they started, how to behave. And the locals told them: Do whatever you want, build whatever you need, the girls will come and not be threated by fundamental Taliban or someone else. But never ever show that you have ties with the (foreign) armies. Dont talk to them, dont invite them and so on. They only talked with local chiefs, landlords, people, and never had something to do with military: The program is running very well, there are no problems.

January 4, 2010

Samir Awwad, Uni - Hagen, University of Jordan, Platinum Contributor (172)

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Did Mr. Gabriel refer o such examples?

January 5, 2010

Tobias P. Fella, AsiaStudies.de, Silver Contributor (45)

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Florian,

I am with you, when complaining about todays strategic approach for stabilizing Afghanistan. I am not sure if there is indeed a comprehensive approach, including civil and military measures, to pacifiy the country. Especially the Bush-Administration has neglected nation-building in Afghanistan for too long. Besides that, the war in Iraq has absorbed vital US-ressources for Afghanistan for a long time. But there are some changes, since Obama became President (for instance the new rules of engagement, the new integrated civilian-military counterinsurgency strategy an so on).

Despite of that, I think Mr. Gartzke is referring to a different development. His attempt is not to codemn Mr. Gabriel or a possible exit-strategy for Afghanistan per se, rathers he draws attention to the instrumentalization of high politicy issues like Afghanistan for domestic purposes, in this case to win lost votes back. If that's the intention of the SPD, we indeed face a serious case of populism. Don't understand me wrong, I have no problems with voices wanting the NATO to redefine its strategy or to leave the country. But when you go that way, you should present your own approach on how to solve the conflict. When you don't do that, you are choosing the path of fundamental opposition. This is the way, Schroeder acted in 2003. Indeed there have been various and good reasons to oppose the US-led invasion of Iraq. But before the war started, it was Berlins failure to have no strategy on how to respond to further violations of international commitments by Iraq. We can only hope, that Mr. Gabriel is not going that direction.

January 5, 2010

Florian Kuhne, Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster, Gold Contributor (103)

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Tobias,

you are absolutely right with pointing to the other aspect of the article. There should be reservation with the SPD talking about getting out of Afghanistan as soon as possible. But maybe it is a new twist in the party's attempt to reinvent itself. There have been voices in the SPD to be very cautious with Afghanistan the whole time. Maybe these voices have more space now, as the old school is gone and new persons with new profiles are emerging. I don't want to talk in favour of the SPD, but the approach to see only the "evil possibility" (namely populistic tactic) in what Gabriel said, is too easy and also wrong, as I think.
As I wrote at AC in another case, Germany has generally made the wrong decision in engaging in war again after 1998. Now all leaders have to deal with it. There are voices in CDU and FDP to end German engagement in Afghanistan as well. And of course the ones talking like this are considering the feelings of the voters. That´s what democracy should be about, isn't it? Another, question could be, why voters who think that German soldiers should "come home" didn't vote the only party saying this explicit before the election, the Left.

January 5, 2010

Michael Bishop

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Dear Mr Gartzke,

I am much more concerned about Foreign Minister Westerwelle than the Social Democrats, who are in the opposition.

Westerwelle says that he might not attend the Afghanistan conference. And he agrees with the crazy comments from the leader of Germany's protestants,

Fascinating: While Germany talks and talks about pulling out of Afghanistan, the United States is actually doing something: Sending troops into the area, which Germany was supposed to be responsible of:

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,670085,00.html

January 5, 2010

Darrell Brown, Trident Technical College Main Campus, (5)

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'They speak peace with their lips......."

January 5, 2010

Tobias P. Fella, AsiaStudies.de, Silver Contributor (45)

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Dear Mr Bishop,

the sending of 2500 US-soldiers to the German-controlled area is part of the larger surge. Washington is increasing its engagement in Afghanistan with sending more troops and redifining its strategy to stabilize the country. Further it seems the United States is implementing a comprehensive approach for Afghanistan.

I think your point is that Germany is not engaging like it should. Indeed we are currently facing an intensive public debate over the purpose of our engagement in Afghanistan. There can't be a commitment to send more troops, when our political leaders are not sure if we can achieve our goals via another troop surge. Maybe this is the point, when we are talking about burden-sharing. Perhaps there is disagreement about the burden which is needed to stabilize Afghanistan?

January 7, 2010

Ulf Gartzke, Contributor, The Weekly Standard blog, Silver Contributor (63)

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Thanks for all the comments and the lively debate triggered by my piece.

The bottom-line is that Sigmar Gabriel and his SPD are eager to find a polarizing political issue where (a) they can confront Chancellor Merkel head-on and (b) that helps them re-unify Germany's left spectrum acround a common theme. AFG fits that profile very well.

We all know where German public opinion stands on the AFG war. We all know where the Left Party stands. Also, it was interesting to see that the Greens abstained from the Bundestag vote on the ISAF mandate in early December (that's a big change compared to not so long ago when that very party pretty supportive of the AFG mission...). Finally, if German media reports are correct, Sigmar Gabriel plans to get his 500,000-plus rank-and-file party members involved in shaping the SPD's position on the future Bundeswehr engagement in AGF. We also know what to expect from that exercise in direct democracy.

Let's see what the AFG conference in London will yield later this month. The German government will have to make a difficult decision one way or another.

January 16, 2010

Bernhard Lucke, University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Platinum Contributor (332)

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I think there is one major break here between the argumentation of most American and German commentators.

The American commentator see the reasons for failure in Afghanistan in insufficient commitment, partly by the Bush government which was busy in Iraq and did not embark on nation-building in Afghanistan, and partly by the allies (including Germany) who supposedly did not send enough troops. Consequently they now demand more soldiers and see allied reluctance as treason.

The German commentators see the reasons for failure in Afghanistan inherent in the mission itself, especially the deployment of huge troop numbers. From their point of view, a continued presence in Afghanistan can only make sense if the western strategy is fundamentally reviewed. Being supporters of the ISAF mission or not, I saw basically all German comments here demanding at least an adjustment of strategy.

I have long argued that the war in Afghanistan results from a tremendous political failure, with shared responsibility of all who attended the Bonn conference in 2002. As long as there is no political solution, the situation will remain in a statlemate as it is right now - but with high risks, as the ongoing fights started e.g. to destabilize Pakistan.

Americans seem to believe that the military can fix the situation in Afghanistan just by being there. Germans, in contrast, seem far less trustful to the military, which explains the tremendous public opposition to the war. That political leaders like Gabriel and Westerwelle now finally start to oppose the strategy of "business as usual" is long overdue.

By the way, it is simply not true that there are no alternative plans. That was also never true for Iraq: There was a very clear action proposal of WMD controls and possible sanctions by the UN, for example. Similarly, there are withdrawal strategies for Afghanistan, but they are not communicated.

There are not communicated because the only remaining valid argument of the NeoCons for staying there is that there is no alternative. We are there because we have to. And those who think or at least feel critical - like the majority of the German population - are labeled stupid cowards who don't dare doing something.

Let me put it like this: sometimes defeat in an election can have some very positive consequences. In the grand coalition, common sense of the SPD politicians seems to have been kind of hijacked by a feeling of responsibility for the state and the coalition. Thanks god that's over now.

If that big party swings its attitude to the war, that will hopefully impact the new government too. And Westerwelle seems smart enough to see that Afghanistan can't be controlled militarily. That war has long been lost, and its about time to think about consequences, even if some Americans still don't have enough and would like to repeat the Russian experience.

February 15, 2010

Joe Noory

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One can hardly call a policy that will with all certainty return the Taliban to power "pacifist". The German critics need to differentiate whether or not they want a full retreat, or if they just want to take German forces out of risk.

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