THOMAS FLICHY DE LA NEUVILLE | THE WEICHERT REPORT
THE DEFEAT OF MAINSTREAM PARTIES SPAWNS THE ACCELERATION OF THE ARMY STANDARDIZATION
The last German elections will have impact on the positioning of the armed forces. For several years now, Germany has been under pressure to increase the involvement of the Bundeswehr into NATO operations. These pressures were confronted with institutional obstacles, in particular the fact that the Bundeswehr is the army of the Parliament in order to prevent the constitution of a State within the State.
We must also mention the concept of Innere Führung invented by post-war romantic liberals in order to restrict the use of armed force, except in the case of a communist coup. Today the Innere Führung has been diverted from its initial objective by the conservative fringe of the German army. It is being used so as to resist the pressures of neoconservative leaders, who hope to use the German armed forces outside its state borders, in coalitions under international control.
Measures are therefore being prepared to soften this concept.
For the neo-conservatives, this softening is all the more urgent as Germany’s participation in external operations is currently threatened by the outcome of the last elections. There must be a two-thirds majority in Parliament to hire these troops. The voices of the SPD — now opposed to Angela Merkel — added to the traditional opponents of military adventurism (AfD and die Linke), now constitute a blocking minority of more than a third.
From a financial point of view, the new Jamaican coalition (CDU / Grünen / FDP) has already agreed to follow the US instructions to raise the defence effort to 2% of GDP. Within the corps of officers, the manoeuver will consist in relying on a majority of officers, exasperated by the constraints of commitment linked to the Innere Führung and wishing to be unbridled — even if they become the mercenaries of a new imperialism — while silencing the most measured and intellectually formed fringe. The latter group realized that in the absence of a genuine independent political strategy, it was far better to confine the use of force to the strict defense of the territory.
Thomas Flichy de La Neuville teaches geopolitics at France’s prestigious Saint-Cyr’s military academy. He has also recently been named as a Research Professor at the Institute of World Politics in Washington, D.C. Neuville has published numerous articles on international relations, some of which have been featured in The World Post and is a contributor to The Weichert Report, offering his expertise in European geopolitics.
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