(Washington) German Chancellor Scholz defended Thursday the decision to deploy U.S. long-range missiles in Germany on an ad hoc basis amid growing fears of a new arms race in a country deeply scarred by the Cold War.
What there is to know
- France, Germany, Italy and Poland signed a letter of intent on Thursday at the NATO summit in Washington on the development and production of long-range strike capabilities.
- The letter, signed by the defence ministers of the four countries, opens the way to “cooperation aimed at strengthening our military capabilities as well as the European industrial and defence base”, the French defence ministry said.
- Other partners may be “brought in to join the initiative, which could also rely on European funding,” he added.
“This is part of deterrence and it guarantees peace, it is a necessary and important decision, taken at the right time,” German leader Olaf Scholz said on the sidelines of a NATO summit in Washington.
The White House announced on Wednesday that the United States would deploy, on an ad hoc basis, starting in 2026, new weapons in Germany, allowing strikes from further away than the American systems currently positioned in Europe.
Specifically, these will include SM-6 missiles, very long-range multi-purpose surface-to-air missiles, Tomahawk missiles and hypersonic missiles currently under development.
Russia, for its part, condemned this decision, which it said was a sign of a return “to the Cold War”.
“All the attributes of the Cold War are returning, with a confrontation, with a direct clash,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told state television.
In an interview with German public radio, German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius welcomed the deployment, which fills a “very serious gap” in the country’s capabilities.
The German army does not have long-range missiles that can be fired from the ground, only cruise missiles that can be launched from aircraft.
According to Mr Pistorius, these deployed American long-range missiles are a temporary solution until Germany has developed its own capabilities.
This “will give us the time we need,” said the Social Democratic minister, in unison with Chancellor Scholz.
“Rearmament”
However, the announcement of the agreement between Washington and Berlin has raised serious concerns in a country divided during the Cold War, where the American and communist blocs faced each other, with troops stationed on both sides.
Criticism comes even from the left wing of the chancellor’s own Social Democratic Party (SPD).
MP Ralf Stegner said in an interview with the Funke media group that “all this will lead to rearmament”. He added: “The world will become more dangerous.”
The co-chair of the new German populist radical left party, Sahra Wagenknecht, who grew up in communist East Germany, said the decision “would increase the risk of Germany becoming a theatre of war.”
The deployment of American Pershing ballistic missiles in West Germany at the height of the Cold War in the 1980s sparked massive peace demonstrations involving hundreds of thousands of people.
American missiles continued to be stationed after German reunification in 1990.
But the United States gradually reduced the number of missiles stationed in Europe significantly as the threat from Moscow faded.
Today, the situation has changed again. NATO countries, led by the United States, are rushing to strengthen their defenses in Europe in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
The Kremlin responded on Thursday by saying it was planning “response measures” to contain the “very serious threat” from NATO.