An unsuccessful New Year’s Eve message, helicopter flight with youngsters – Minister Lambrecht had a soft spot for blunders. What is fatal, however, is what they didn’t have: the necessary backbone to fight for a modern troop.
Christine Lambrecht resigns and reveals in her official resignation statement that she has not understood why this resignation is really necessary. “The media’s focus on me for months,” said the soon-to-be ex-defense minister, “hardly allows for factual reporting and discussion about the soldiers, the Bundeswehr and security policy issues.”
So that’s what didn’t go well from Lambrecht’s point of view: The media has been picking on their misconduct for too long, leaving no room for factual debate, she says. An assessment of her own performance – in public, in the troupe, but above all for the troupe – she does not include in any half-sentence of her statement.
The obvious mistakes – an enormously unsuccessful New Year’s Eve greeting for her Instagram profile, a flight of the son in a military helicopter, a visit to the Bundeswehr in the desert in high heels – are no reason for this resignation. Still, he was inevitable.
Lambrecht did not fail in the media’s self-portrayal or self-portrayal. She failed to treat the “turning point” proclaimed by Chancellor Olaf Scholz three days after the start of the Russian war of annihilation against Ukraine as what it is: the most difficult and probably also the most expensive challenge for Germany since reconstruction after the Second World War.
The future is about safety Before Russia
Phew, isn’t that a stretch? This question, this skepticism, is a central part of the problem. Because too many Germans, especially too many Germans who hold important offices in the SPD, still think that this country’s foreign and security policy – once the war is over – will be largely the same as before.
Despite all the unpredictability regarding the further course of the Ukraine war, one thing is 100% certain: the future of Europe will look different afterwards. Because the common security order, based on the agreement that the sovereignty and borders of other states are inviolable, was significantly disrupted with the annexation of Crimea in 2014, but was completely overturned on February 24, 2022. In the coming decades, Europe will not be concerned with security with Russia, but with security from Russia.
It is a turning point, with this assessment Olaf Scholz hit the mark eleven months ago, and if you think of this term in its full size, it quickly becomes clear that the project to spend an additional 100 billion euros is by no means done can.
Spending money sensibly is by no means trivial, and anyone who has followed the debates that have been going on in circles for years about the perfect successor to the Bundeswehr aircraft Tornado has had to acknowledge that Lambrecht’s messing around with the almost silent decision in favor of the US stealth jet “F-35” has cleared. Chapeau.
That was it already. The defense budget for the next few years will not be increased bit by bit, but frozen. Including inflation, the purchasing power of the Bundeswehr is reduced. NATO’s 2 percent target will not be achieved with these plans in the coming years, that is already certain. A perspective that is incompatible with a responsible defense policy. Many experts have already criticized this. Christine Lambrecht was not heard about it.
increase production? Preferably with an order!
Unlike many NATO partners, the Ministry of Defense did not order a piece of ammunition from industry in 2022. With a shortage that the Bundeswehr Association estimates at a value of up to 30 billion euros. Anyone who heard that hoped desperately that there was some sophisticated plan behind it that is just not immediately apparent from the outside. Only to then state resignedly: Nothing. There was no reason. You just didn’t do it.
Instead, in November, representatives of the armaments companies were invited to the “munitions summit” in the chancellery to find out how their production could be increased. Common sense finds the same answer to this question as managing directors of armaments companies: it helps enormously to increase the production of a company if you place an order with it.
The ammunition summit, exchange instead of action, is an example of what has been going wrong in the Ministry of Defense for decades, but which has never been as dangerous for Germany as it was in these times. It is believed that the problem can be tackled by talking thoroughly and with everyone. Deciding and implementing are not so important.
Turning this maxim by 180 degrees, getting into the hooves on urgent issues in turbo gear and making it clear in a loud voice that defense capability – for the country and in the alliance – must be the central concern of German politics for the time being – that would be Lambrecht’s job been. She didn’t deliver either.
Loyalty to the chancellor, basically a respectable attitude, stood in the way of this mammoth task. It was the chancellor who announced the turning point in February. But it is also the chancellor who has been holding back the necessary consequences of this – above all arms deliveries that have been planned in good time so that Ukraine can liberate its country from enemy troops – until a decision can no longer be avoided.
The turning point must be implemented against Olaf Scholz
When the chancellor offers the prospect of how economic relations with Russia can be resumed after the war, when he still does not admit that Nord Stream 2 was a mistake, then it becomes clear: who in Germany is the turning point? should prevail, he actually has to do it against the will of Olaf Scholz rather than with him.
The minister lacked courage, vision and, if one hears voices from the troops, then probably also lacking interest to tackle this challenge. Even in Guttenberg’s or von der Leyen’s time, Germany could not actually afford a person at the head of the Ministry of Defense who lacked even one of these attributes. These days, however, not only the troops, but the whole country gets to feel it when things don’t go well in the Bendlerblock. The mammoth task awaits the next candidate.