Autoland is burnt to the ground
Germany's largest industrial group is faltering. Even though the group as a whole continues to generate fabulous profits, the profitability of the core VW brand has literally eroded in recent years. Now, for the first time in the group's history, plant closures in Germany and layoffs at German locations are planned. Even if management mistakes are one reason for the crisis, it was mainly political decisions in Berlin and Brussels that put the carmaker under sustained pressure. But VW is not the only carmaker with massive problems. The automotive sector, once a driving force of the German economy, is at risk of going out of business in Germany. The country's deindustrialization is picking up speed. By Jens Berger.
If you are looking for a single reason why the once highly profitable carmaker VW can no longer achieve its profitability targets, you will search in vain. The reasons for the decline of the old business model are complex and largely the direct and indirect consequences of bad political decisions. Let's take a look at three key factors that play an important role in the crisis on both the supply and the demand side.
Factor 1: E-mobility
Probably the biggest problem currently facing German carmakers is e-mobility. According
to EU regulations, the last combustion engine is to roll off the
production line in 2034, and from 2035 only cars that are
climate-neutral when in operation may be sold in the EU. This would be
possible – at least in theory – with alternative fuels used in modified
combustion engines. In addition to hydrogen (fuel cells), these also
include so-called e-fuels, i.e. synthetic fuels produced with
electricity. The
problem is that these alternative fuels are significantly less
efficient than cars that run directly on electricity and will probably
not be market-ready by 2035. However, there are also advantages, as
alternative fuels could be distributed through the traditional gas
station network and are superior to the mass use of batteries in purely
electric cars in terms of raw material security and supply chains. But
this is not the place to get into this very complex debate with
numerous pros and cons. The European Commission's current guidelines,
including their deadlines, leave carmakers with no alternative but to
focus fully on the imminent phasing out of their combustion engines and
the switch to electric drives with battery storage. And that is a big
problem for German manufacturers in particular.
The
unique selling point of German manufacturers has always been their
extensive expertise in drive technology. It would be difficult or even
impossible for competitors from countries such as China to catch up with
the technical advantage in a short period of time. However, the
situation is different for e-cars. Here,
the competition from China is already ahead of German suppliers in many
areas – especially in the lower price segment. One could say that it
was a strategic mistake on the part of the management of German
carmakers to focus on e-mobility too late and too half-heartedly. But
that would be too short-sighted. In
German politics, there has been an unconditional will to change the way
we get around, at least since the Greens joined the government.
However, the necessary infrastructure changes have not been made.
Wherever you look, there is a lack of charging stations, and in both
urban and rural areas, the power grid is not capable of providing the
necessary capacity for the widespread operation of fast-charging
stations with a charging capacity of at least 300 kW. As a reminder, the relevant DIN standard
provides for a power output of 14.5 or 34 kW for household connections,
and a few quick-charging stations in one or two supermarket parking
lots are not enough if the whole country is to switch to e-mobility.
The lack of infrastructure and the higher prices due to the type of construction are also the reasons why e-cars are selling so slowly in Germany. Despite high discounts, only 30,762 e-cars were sold in Germany in July – more than a third less than in the same month last year. In August, the decline was even 69 percent, as it was just reported. By comparison, 43,107 diesel-powered vehicles, 79,870 hybrid-powered vehicles and 83,405 gasoline-powered vehicles were registered in July.
However, companies like VW have invested many billions of euros in e-mobility. Since the resulting products are hardly selling at all – and if they do, it is only with very high discounts – they naturally put pressure on the overall margins and the group's earnings. The fact that VW is achieving comparatively poor results is also – and above all – due to the sluggish pace of the mobility transition, and the fact that the mobility transition is progressing so slowly is also – and above all – the fault of politics.
Factor 2: Energy costs
Another core problem for German car manufacturers is rising costs. German cars have always been somewhat more expensive to manufacture than competing products from other countries, but the “German premium” was still within reason. This has changed in recent years. Energy costs have risen massively due to the sanctions against Russia. Above all, the industrial electricity price plays a decisive role here. Before the sanctions, it was still between 15 and 18 cents per kWh, but it exploded to 43.20 cents in 2022 and was 24.46 cents per kWh last year. Incidentally, this year the price is back to pre-war levels – but only because it is currently being massively subsidized by the elimination of the EEG levy and the electricity tax. But these subsidies will eventually expire. High energy prices have a twofold impact on the operating results of automobile manufacturers: directly, through higher costs in their own production, and indirectly, since they are a component of the price of purchased parts from suppliers.
This has made Germany even more expensive as a business location, and it is becoming increasingly attractive to relocate one's own production and that of suppliers to countries where energy costs are lower. The “Germany surcharge” has increased significantly due to the sanctions and is becoming increasingly difficult to recoup through the selling price on the market. This particularly affects the mass-market manufacturer VW, which still produces a very high proportion of its products in Germany and also operates in a market environment where competition from manufacturers that produce in countries with lower energy prices is particularly fierce. It is therefore no wonder that the core VW brand is particularly weak in terms of earnings in the group as a whole.
Factor 3: Sales markets
All
these problems would be annoying, but not existentially threatening, if
VW could raise its prices and thus maintain margins. But that is not
the case. In
the domestic market, customers simply don't have the necessary money.
Inflation – mainly due to rising energy costs as a result of the
sanctions – and also the increased interest rates – a wrong decision by
the ECB due to rising energy costs – simply do not give many customers
the financial leeway to buy an expensive new VW car. They turn to
cheaper competitors or postpone the investment and just drive their old
car longer. And
when VW does sell cars, the dealers usually have to offer high
discounts. We are dealing with overcapacity in the market, and that
inevitably leads to lower margins. That's not surprising.
For VW in particular, the situation is exacerbated by the fact that many of its traditional sales markets abroad are also weakening. Purchasing power has declined throughout the EU and in the US, and China, which used to be a savior in terms of sales and margins, is also weakening. To make matters worse, VW is falling further and further behind its Chinese competitors, especially in the mid-priced e-cars segment, which is the core of the VW Group's portfolio. Brands in the high-price segment have an easier time of it, since the wealthy in Germany and other markets are quite willing and able to secure the manufacturers' margins. So it is no wonder that the VW Group's Porsche brand is the one with the highest margins and profits. But that is of little use to the workers in the German VW plants, since the group as a whole takes a critical view of cross-financing and would also like to see the core VW brand return to higher profit levels.
Politicians are once again intervening on exactly the wrong side
VW's
crisis is a political issue. The group is not only Germany's largest
industrial group, but also the flagship of the country. In addition, the
state of Lower Saxony is VW's largest single shareholder with 20
percent, and in Lower Saxony in particular, the economic competence of
the state government is also and above all measured by how VW and the
many suppliers in the group's environment are doing. Politicians could provide lasting support for VW by addressing the three problems mentioned above. They
could mitigate the mobility transition, including the ban on combustion
engines, or define a more realistic time frame that allows for the
market maturity of alternative fuels and drive concepts as an
alternative to pure e-mobility. This will happen anyway, as 2035 is a
much too ambitious goal, and the unresolved problems with infrastructure
and supply chains make a postponement very likely.
Politicians
could also help on the cost side by ensuring that energy costs fall.
This would be easily possible if the sanctions against Russia were
lifted and cheap natural gas were imported again, which would also
significantly reduce the price of electricity. This would have the
pleasant side effect – also for VW – that it would also improve the
budget of potential buyers and more cars could be sold with lower
discounts.
But these solutions – as simple and logical as they are – are of course not on the agenda of the traffic light. Instead, the German government will decide today to distribute tax benefits of more than 600 million euros as subsidies to companies that use e-cars as company cars. In addition, the price cap for company car taxation for e-cars will be raised – the old list price will be raised from 70,000 to 95,000 euros. This means that managers and executives will now also be able to benefit from tax breaks if their employer buys them an expensive e-car. These subsidies will be paid for by taxpayers. The laborer with his old diesel pays, the manager with his Tesla collects – that's what it looks like when the Greens and FDP come to a compromise.
Black clouds on the horizon
VW
will not be the last German carmaker to close plants and lay off
workers. Despite (still) good business results, the skies over Germany
as an automotive location have been closing for some time. In
addition to BMW and Mercedes, practically all carmakers are struggling
with falling sales and even sharper declines in margins. So far, they
have been able to pass on at least part of the blame to the suppliers,
who in turn have been sliding into a crisis that threatens their very
existence for years. Continental and ZF have already announced plans to
close plants in Germany, and they will not be the last. Autoland is
burnt out.
However,
this development is not surprising. In the general deindustrialization,
the carmakers were probably the last dinosaurs of the “old Germany”.
Their products are popular with customers, but they are also very
expensive and are increasingly being frowned upon, especially by the
financially strong clientele who could afford such products but also,
purely statistically, disproportionately often vote for the Green Party.
Yes,
they still exist – the “soccer moms” from Prenzlauer Berg who vote
green and take their children to school in the E-SUV. However, the days
when high earners could show off their high-priced and even
higher-powered vehicles to their peer group are over. And the common
people, who still like to show off their economic status with fancy
cars, increasingly lack the money. Heat
pumps and high energy prices often leave no room for new cars made in
Germany. Times are getting tough for VW and Co. The plant closures that
have now been announced will certainly not be the last.
The future is bleak. When the car was invented, horses were the number one means of transportation – for the elite and the common people. Horses are still bred and sold today; but not as a means of transportation and certainly not for the common people, but as an expensive hobby for mostly wealthy people. The combustion engine will probably meet a similar fate.
[This
article posted on 9/1/2024 is translated from the German on the
Internet, https://www.ossietzky.net/artikel/aufstand-fuer-den-frieden/.]
“In
the early 1980s, the media and thus the published opinion were
decisively influenced by the peace movement, and public opinion became a
peaceful published opinion. This was a decisive step for the success of
the peace movement at that time. This is not to be expected at present”
(Ulrich Sander/Ulrich Schneider in ‘A rebellion for peace’, Ossietzky 23/2021). Now it could turn out the other way round.
The government tried to sweep the missile deployment agreement with the US under the rug for the time being. But soon the Süddeutsche Zeitung
and the Funke Group were calling on the peace movement to finally step
up powerfully again. There are good reasons for this. “The nuclear
threat is back – and so is the concern?”
The German peace movement is suffering from an “ability gap.” “It's quiet. It's dead quiet. Tomahawk cruise missiles, SM-6 missiles and hypersonic missiles are being deployed in Germany – and the country remains silent. No loud protest, no outcry, no demonstrations. Germany is the only country in Europe where these US weapons systems are being stationed. They are directed against Russia. Why is it so quiet?” This is the title of a column by Heribert Prantl in the SZ on July 19, 2024. The deployment is scheduled to begin as early as 2026.
And then there is the Westdeutsche Allgemeine from the Funke Group. ”Fear of an arms race is back. NATO's
missile plans are awakening memories of the demonstrations against the
'double-track decision' at the beginning of the 1980s,” the paper
headlined in mid-July. The double stood for nuclear armament with a
simultaneous offer of a disarmament agreement. ‘In West Germany, more
and more citizens, especially younger ones, are wondering whether this
arms spiral will continue forever.’ Readers are surveyed. Of
seven responses, only one approves of the US military's plans, because
it is, after all, against the dangerous Putin. The others are not
exactly reviving the slogan “Ami go home” either, but they are
expressing fear. There are already numerous US nuclear weapons on German
soil, they reply, and one person points out: “Missiles are magnets”. There
is a threat of an arms spiral that no one will be able to contain in
the end; “That's why I am clearly against armament and the deployment of
US long-range missiles.” I'm more scared of that, it is said, and the
state director of the German Peace Society / DFG-VK, Joachim Schramm,
speaks out in favor of new, strong protests.
The development of the debate in the SPD is recalled. It was only after the constructive vote of no confidence in the fall of 1982 and the 1983 federal elections, in which the SPD finally lost its power to govern, that a rethink began in the party. It is also recalled that the Greens owe their existence to the party's involvement in the peace movement. Today, the peace movement has been weakened, mainly because the Greens and the SPD, who were on the side of the peace movement in 1983, have become war parties. However, there is opposition in both parties to the latest US plans. Many Greens see their poor performance in the EU elections as a result of their rejection of peace policy. This in turn triggered almost agitated reactions from Baerbock, Habeck and Hofreiter: under no circumstances criticize the deployment of the Tomahawks. And Chancellor Scholz calls the decision on the US missile deployment a “very good decision”.
It is not! SPD faction leader Mützenich disagrees with the chancellor and warns of a new arms race. The
Tomahawks, which are now to be deployed, are far more precise than the
Pershings were at the time. Moscow can be attacked and hit with nuclear
weapons without any warning. And while in the 1980s the USSR still gave
assurances that it would never be the first to use the bomb, Russia,
like the USA, no longer rules out a first strike. Moreover, the plan of
the dual-track decision was linked at the time to the offer of
negotiations; such an offer is missing today.
Negotiations,
disarmament – these are foreign words today. In 1987, a disarmament
treaty called INF was signed, which was terminated by the USA under
President Trump in 2019. And now this Trump is threatening to become US
president again, the same one who once said: What do we have nuclear
weapons for if we never use them?
As recently as 2010, the Bundestag decided by a large majority that the Merkel government should “vigorously” advocate for the withdrawal of all US nuclear weapons from Germany. This must now be remembered. And with broad mass protest on the streets, but also with door-to-door talks. Joachim Schramm recalled: “We rang doorbells back then and asked for permission to symbolically declare a street an ‘atomic weapons-free zone’.”
The DFG is currently calling for action and emphasizes: ”The German Peace Society - United Conscientious Objectors (DFG-VK) expresses sharp criticism of the recently announced decision to station US medium-range missiles in Germany from 2026. This armament poses a significant threat to security in Europe and could lead to a further escalation of tensions with Russia.” Now the arms race that the peace organization has warned against is getting underway. ”It will make Germany a potential target of an enemy strike and drastically increase the risk of war. After all, medium-range missiles can be fired with virtually no warning and reach their target within minutes – making a political response almost impossible. In addition, nuclear and conventional warheads cannot be distinguished during the approach. The DFG-VK calls on the German government to take decisive action against this dangerous development and not to allow medium-range missiles on German soil. Instead, Germany should actively promote new arms control and disarmament treaties to ensure peace and security in Europe.”
The SPD leadership, which for four weeks did everything to avoid a public debate on the deployment, finally came up with a breathtaking statement on August 12: “As the SPD, we take responsibility for ensuring that no child born in Germany today will have to experience war again. The agreement between the SPD-led federal government and the US administration to deploy US missiles with a longer range in Germany from 2026 is an important building block for this.”
___________________________________________________________Politics in the Wild West
[This article posted on 9/1/2024 is translated from the German on the Internet, https://www.ossietzky.net/artikel/politik-im-wildweststil/.]
Showdowns
are the highlight of classic Wild West films. Two opponents draw their
Colts and finally clear the air. Such a showdown, at least its
preparation, is being forced upon us again as a “defense” – again, after
millions worldwide protested against it in the 1980s, especially (deep
in the past, it seems) the Greens.
It's the same old story: Russia has deployed missiles that can reach Berlin or Wiesbaden. In a knee-jerk reaction, “we” (that is, the US, acting through NATO) are also deploying missiles, as a matter of course. Annalena Baerbock informs us that this will “protect” us: “What protects us now is that we are investing in our own security and strength – in the EU, in NATO and in Germany. And that includes the decision to deploy long-range American weapons systems.”
Without
going into the details of the weapons systems in question, this
“protection” means the following: East and West are once again standing
face to face in Europe. Each is pointing offensive weapons at the heart
of the other. The
missiles would race towards each other at several times the speed of
sound and hit the enemy after a few minutes. It remains unclear whether
they are nuclear-tipped or not. These so-called dual-use missiles can
carry conventional or even nuclear warheads. The early warning systems
do not distinguish between the two. For them, “to be on the safe side,”
everything is a nuclear attack.
Question for Ms. Baerbock: What would you do if your neighbor pointed a gun at you? Would you now also step close to him and point your own weapon at his head? “Of course,” she would say, “that's what protects me!”
But isn't that pretty crazy? Almost abnormal? How is mutual endangerment supposed to result in security on balance? How
much intelligence is needed to understand that the opposite is much
more likely? Two gunslingers get their weapons in position so that they
can kill the other on the spot. Everything depends on each of them
reacting immediately as soon as the other makes any move. So, for
example, if an eyelash twitches or a finger twitches. It means firing on
sight.
To put it another way: mutual threat with nuclear weapons, and at close range at that, is anything but protection. It is a self-ignition mechanism. And in a situation that provokes and possibly forces a pre-emptive strike. Pre-emptive strikes with or without nuclear warheads are intended to destroy the enemy's offensive potential before it is used. There are early warning systems to detect pre-emptive strikes by the enemy. And that's exactly where the problem lies.
Even
early warning systems are not able to reliably determine within a few
minutes whether the enemy has “pulled the trigger” or not. The German
Informatics Society pointed this out in an open letter to the German
government in 2022. An accidental nuclear war is virtually inevitable.
So it's self-igniting.
“Neither
humans nor machines can make error-free decisions in such a short time
when it comes to alarm messages in early warning systems, because the
data basis is uncertain, vague and incomplete, and human review is not
possible in the short time available,” said computer scientists Karl
Hans Bläsius and Jörg Siekmann. Both are proven AI specialists and have
long been concerned with the increasing danger of accidental nuclear
war. The
website under this title illustrates what could happen to us if we
continue to pursue “security policy” in the Wild West style.
But
surely we need deterrence? Defense Minister Pistorius says deterrence
is “our life insurance.” He still believes that on the other side there
is someone who can be deterred. But there is no one there. Deterrence is
a psychological concept and assumes that people can be dissuaded from
undesirable actions if you scare them enough.
But
machines? Nobody has ever claimed that machines feel fear. Our “life
insurance” is addressed to machines that decide quite autonomously
whether to launch nuclear missiles and cause the greatest catastrophe to
date in their wake. Because
when advance warning is reduced to minutes, when the logic of
pre-emptive strikes rules and the only thing that matters is an
instantaneous reaction, then people are reduced to mere spectators. With
fathomless stupidity, they mistake “security” for automatic suicide.
Thank you, Mr. Pistorius!
What
does this mean for us? I mean for us citizens, whose first need is to
want to live? Above all, this: we are the hostages, the prisoners of
this insane constellation. Without ever having agreed, our lives are
linked to devices that no one has control over. If they become
independent, it's over for us. If the showdown goes wrong, we can pack
up.
However,
there are differences. Some of us will be dead immediately, others will
linger for some time. When it was still known how dangerous such
“deterrence” is, it was said that the living will envy the dead. That's
about right.
All those living in the area where the Russian missiles directly hit will be killed instantly. In other words, the places that, from Russia's point of view, must be flattened as quickly as possible in the showdown. I'll list them:
- Wiesbaden, as the future NATO headquarters for the operation in Ukraine,
- then Stuttgart, as the seat of the United States European Command, and finally
- Bremerhaven, the hub for US troop transports to NATO's eastern border. Perhaps also
- Grafenwöhr, a military training area for the training of Ukrainian armed forces, but above all
- Büchel with its nuclear weapons storage for “nuclear sharing” and, of course,
- Ramstein in the Palatinate, the central module for global US combat drone missions.
The
reader can see for themselves which major metropolitan areas are
located in the vicinity of these main targets, which would be destroyed
by Russia if it were to “defend” itself just as foolishly as we Germans
plan to.
Russian
missiles would rain down on these targets. So one thing is definitely
certain: no one would have to suffer, everyone would be pulverized
instantly – actually vaporized, because nuclear death at the center of
the event is a death by vaporization. The rest of Germany would be a
hell compared to which Stalingrad was an idyll.
“We
deny the government the right to continue to act in our name and to
endanger all life with its alleged security policy!” What the co-founder
of the Green Party, Petra Kelly, proclaimed in the German Bundestag in
1983 would be more than timely at the moment. You have no right to risk
all our lives!
Isn't it crazy that the Greens once rebelled in exactly this way and today are among those who would have to be swept away by a rebellion? The (co-)creators of a deadly policy in the Wild West style!
___________________________________________________________________NATO: No real life in the wrong one
[This
article posted on 9/1/2024 is translated from the German on the
Internet,
https://www.ossietzky.net/artikel/nato-kein-richtiges-leben-im-falschen/.]
On
the website of the Foreign Ministry, Federal Foreign Minister Baerbock
stated on the occasion of the then upcoming celebrations of 75 years of
NATO: “the most successful defense alliance in the world, an alliance
that, as President Truman said at its founding in 1949, is united in the
‘peaceful way of life’ - for 75 years - to protect democracy, freedom
and the rule of law.”
This
statement calls for an evidence-based review, and this must span the
entire period covered by Annalena Baerbock's account, from 1949 to the
present.
In
1949, Portugal was a dictatorship among the founding members of NATO,
which, until the so-called Carnation Revolution of left-wing military
officers in April 1974, carried out massacres, torture and rape in the
colonies, including Angola, Mozambique and Guinea-Bissau. Greece, which joined NATO in 1952, was a fascist dictatorship from 1967 to 1974 with covert US support. As recently as 2017, Spiegel was still quoting a CIA memorandum from January 19, 1968: “Political cleansing remains the junta's primary goal. (…)
The junta (…) banned all political activity; communists, left-wing
sympathizers and even previously 'respectable' conservative politicians
were imprisoned or placed under house arrest.” The Spiegel continues: ”Suspicions that the CIA itself was involved in the coup are still circulating today.”
With
such a leading nation, NATO cannot be a “defense alliance of
democracy,” as Baerbock and the entire NATO lobby present it. NATO was
obviously never really concerned with values such as democracy, freedom
or human rights. Geopolitical
power interests, especially of the NATO leading state USA, have always
been the guiding motive for decisions. Geopolitics is also the
background that leads the USA to operate approximately 800 military
bases worldwide, some of which are also NATO bases. Even Ukraine is a
country where, according to the Pentagon website, US soldiers have a
base.
Since
1949, NATO's strategy has been shaped by the geopolitical power
politics of the United States in particular. The first Secretary
General, Lt. Hastings Ismay, explained the motives that linked the
United States to NATO's founding in Europe: “Keep the Soviet Union out,
the Americans in, and the Germans down.”
The
US strategists justified this confrontational US strategy by claiming
that the Soviet Union had unilaterally caused conflicts, including the
Berlin crisis: “The Soviet Union, which at that time blockaded West
Berlin and a year earlier supported the communist coup in
Czechoslovakia, should know that it will pay a high price for further
expansion attempts.”
The
later US ambassador to Moscow and Belgrade, the US strategist George F.
Kennan, knew better: “The men who ruled in the Kremlin (...) wanted to
win the battle for Germany - and all of Europe - but not through
military action.” The
background to George F. Kennan's assessment was revealed by a US
intelligence study that presented the unadulterated truth for internal
consultation: the Soviet leadership was “aware of its tremendous
weakness due to the large losses of human life – over 20 million dead
(...) – and of production potential in the post-war period” (Joint
Intelligence Staff, quoted by Uli Cremer in: Neue NATO: die ersten Kriege, Hamburg 2009, p. 18).
The
Soviet Union's blockade of West Berlin, which NATO portrayed as an
imperial power strategy by the Soviet Union, occurred in response to the
Western victorious powers' separation of the Western zones and the
Western sectors of Berlin economically from the Eastern part of the
country by introducing the Deutschmark in occupied Germany. The Soviet
Union, on the other hand, had insisted on agreements for a neutral
unified Germany.
In
the 1950s, the USA intervened violently – with the help of the secret
organization CIA – in Guatemala, Iran, Indonesia, among other places; in
the process, the Iranian Prime Minister Mossadegh was murdered, along
with many other victims of violence. In the 1960s, the USA tried to
eliminate Fidel Castro's socialist government with its failed invasion
of the Cuban Bay of Pigs government
of Fidel Castro, they entered the Vietnam War with the theory that the
country must not fall prey to communism, otherwise further states would
be lost with the logic of dominoes. In the Congo, a US intervention led
to the death of Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba, and in the wake of the
Vietnam War, the CIA and other US military forces operated in Laos and
Cambodia. With
US support, dictators ruled in South and Latin America at the time. A
particularly brutal coup was the CIA-backed coup in September 1973
against the government of Allende in Chile, with the participation of US
corporations such as ITT and the copper industrialists.
This
chain did not break with the end of the Cold War. In 1999, NATO bombed
Belgrade, a European capital, for 78 days without a UN mandate. Among
other things, a video recording of scenes of civil war, which NATO,
including German Defense Minister Scharping, presented as a massacre,
served as legitimation. A WDR team reported on this in the article “It started with a lie.”
In
the following years, the US government broke international law with the
unprovoked war of aggression against Iraq and lied to the world public
with the legitimizing narrative that Iraq was in possession of weapons
of mass destruction. After
that, NATO countries abused the UN mandate for “protection forces in
Afghanistan” and expanded the war in the country, the USA mixed it with
the anti-terrorism war after the attacks on the Twin Towers in New York
on September 11, 2021 and justified the war against the state of
Afghanistan with a right to self-defense without evidence of the
responsibility of the attacked for the attack. Chancellor
Schröder declared that he would not make a UN mandate a condition for
the participation of the Bundeswehr in the hostilities in Afghanistan.
In other words: the head of the NATO state of Germany is ignoring
international law.
In
2002, the United States unilaterally terminated the ABM Treaty, which
prohibited nationwide missile defense systems. The number of permitted
ABM sites was limited to one ABM base per country by an additional
agreement in 1974. In 2011, an alliance of NATO countries overreached a
UN mandate to protect the Libyan population to such an extent that it
became a regime change operation. The Süddeutsche Zeitung
wrote at the time under the headline “Using force to succeed”:
“Officially, it was never the goal of the NATO mission in Libya to
eliminate Muammar Gaddafi. But behind the scenes, those in charge knew
that only when the dictator was dead or arrested would his supporters
give up.”
Three
years later, the US administration provided official funding of five
billion US dollars for the violent coup d'état in Ukraine against the
neutrality-oriented head of government, Viktor Yanukovych, as Victoria
Nuland explained in a leaked phone call. After that, the conflicts in
Ukraine escalated further and further – to this day. And NATO propaganda
knew how to divert attention from this and declare Russia solely
responsible. They
also practice double standards when it comes to the use of weapons from
NATO stocks that are used against Russia in Ukraine, which is contrary
to their entire human rights propaganda: The ARD magazine Panorama reported on July 25, 2024: “What they are firing here is US-type cluster munitions M864 and M483A1. The USA supplied them.” At
the Munich Security Conference in February 2024, former NATO Secretary
General Rasmussen stated that war is cruel, “but if we don't give the
Ukrainians cluster munitions, we are inadvertently giving the Russians
an advantage.” Vitali Klitschko, the mayor of Kiev, also justified
Ukraine's use of cluster munitions: “Don't forget: we are defending
Europe, we are defending all of you!” Anyone who uses an outlawed weapon and then justifies it in the face of criticism loses their credibility and becomes a cynic.
This
incomplete chain of power politics, duplicity and manipulation reveals
how massively NATO and its lobby deceive the population in the political
West. It turns many facts upside down and sells its policy of
escalation as the opposite of what it is. It makes even nuclear war more
likely, and its rearmament and global military power politics are
bringing humanity ever closer to the collapse of its livelihoods at an
ever-increasing pace.
The
“warlikeness” propagated by leading military and their lobby in a
highly industrialized phase of history on a planet with highly
failure-prone and partly highly toxic industrial technology is a renewed
expression of the danger to life that NATO poses. The
approximately 440 nuclear reactors worldwide, which have to be cooled
continuously, or the countless chemical plants that work with dioxins,
chlorides and other deadly substances, require an alternative to the
machinery of destruction.
According to the representative of critical theory Theodor W. Adorno, there is no right life in the wrong. In our context, this means that NATO propaganda makes those who follow it unable to solve the problems of our time. Ultimately, this increases the threat posed by the problems. The only responsible answer to the problems of our time is a comprehensive combination of diplomacy, disarmament and international cooperation to avert global threats to the future. The path towards this begins with a clever, flexible and sustainable combination of education, peace advocacy, ecology, education and development, as well as an infrastructure of sustainability with the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals.
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