Rocket roulette
by Wolfgang Schwarz
[This
article posted on 8/12/2024 is translated from the German on the
Internet, https://das-blaettchen.de/2024/08/raketenroulette-69602.html.]
Government expects understanding
As many as 47 percent of Germans
that the US cruise missiles
increase the risk of a conflict with Russia.
Only 17% believe their lives will be safer.
Focus, 30/2024
So far, Scholz's turnaround
has manifested itself in an exorbitant increase in German arms spending
and an accompanying increase in the general militarization of the
country[1],
which follows the motto issued by Federal Defence Minister Pistorius as
early as 2023, sanctioned by the Chancellor and reaffirmed by Pistorius
in the Bundestag on 5 June 2024: “We must be ready for war by 2029."[2] Moreover, the turning point
is manifested in billions of taxpayers' money being squandered on aid
to Ukraine, which appears to be primarily aimed at wearing out Russia's
military and economic resources in the long term rather than ending the
war as quickly as possible.[3]
Recently, the turning point has also been defined as follows: While
the stationing of US medium-range nuclear weapons in Western Europe,
which took place in the early 1980s, not only required a unanimous
decision by the member states of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization,
the so-called NATO Double-Track Decision of December 12, 1979[4], but for Germany, moreover, a separate majority decision by the Bundestag on 22. November
1983 in order to actually begin deployment just days later, this time a
decision by the US government, nodded off by the Chancellor and
announced at a press conference on the fringes of the most recent NATO
summit, which took place in Washington from July 9 to 11, 2024, was
sufficient: Three types of ground-based US long-range weapons are to be stationed in Germany from 2026: Tomahawk
cruise missiles, Standard Missile 6/SM-6 (in the surface-to-surface
missile version) and hypersonic missiles currently still under
development (presumably of the Dark Eagle type).[5]
Vasily Kashin, Director of the Moscow-based Center for Comprehensive
European and International Studies, CCEIS, attributes a range of 3,000
kilometers to the latter.[6] Unit numbers have not yet been mentioned. The
current announcement was not accompanied by a parallel offer to
negotiate with Moscow, as was the case with the NATO Dual-Track
Decision. This time, the other NATO states were left out of the loop, as was the Bundestag.
In contrast to the reporting in some media, which spoke of a merely temporary deployment of the US systems,[7]
the US-German statement reads: “The United States will begin episodic
deployments of its Multi-Domain Task Force long-range fire capabilities
in Germany in 2026 as part of the planning for a permanent deployment of these capabilities in the future (emphasis added - W.S.)”[8].
Former SPD chairman Norbert Walter-Borjans expressed his astonishment on Deutschlandfunk radio
that, despite this far-reaching security policy decision taken
single-handedly by the Federal Chancellor - in a quasi lord of the manor
manner - “there is [...] a frightening silence throughout society”[9]. Walter-Borjans'
perception is certainly correct when it comes to the public, especially
when looking back at the powerful peace movement[10]
that formed at the beginning of the 1980s against the double decision,
but this is precisely what the savvy political professional Scholz may
have soberly calculated: In
a society for which seamlessly merging crises in central areas of life
have been the normal state of affairs for years, tying up and sapping
energy, accompanied by daily reports of war in neighboring regions
(Ukraine, Middle East), the announcement of the deployment of a few more
missiles aimed at Russia will not draw anyone out from behind the
stove. Not
even if a few lonely criers in the wilderness make themselves heard -
once again the SPD parliamentary group leader in the Bundestag, Rolf
Mützenich: “It is not clear to me [...] why Germany alone should deploy
such systems. I have always understood burden-sharing to mean something else."[11]
Others,
however, are not holding back with their unconditional approval of the
planned missile deployment, including once again leading Greens. First and foremost, as the Tagesschau
reported, “Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock [...] has defended the
planned stationing of long-range US missiles in Germany against
criticism”[12]. And “Federal Economics Minister Habeck”, according to Deutschlandfunk radio, “described the decision as necessary, even if he does not take armament lightly.”[13]
The
reaction from Moscow to the current deployment decision was prompt and
made it clear what the most serious consequences of implementing the
decision would be. In
his speech at the naval parade in Saint Petersburg on July 28,
President Putin explained that US systems in Germany would make
important Russian state and military facilities and industrial companies
vulnerable to attack, with the US missiles only needing around ten
minutes to reach their targets in Russia[14].
Putin was obviously referring to the announced Dark Eagle[15] hypersonic weapons, which are supposed to operate at a speed of Mach 5[16] and would thus bring back a situation like the one that already existed in 1983 with the Pershing II deployment: According
to experts, an extremely shortened warning time invites the systems in
question to be pre-emptively switched off in an escalating crisis
situation. The
Erhard-Eppler-Kreis probably had this context in mind when it made its
statement: it was “about nothing less than the question of whether our
densely populated country could become the target of a nuclear first
strike”[17]. Such
an attack would, of course, be highly contrary to international law,
but the question itself would, in retrospect, be of academic importance
for Germany at best. We can therefore only agree with Wolfgang Richter's assessment: The deployment decision “changes Germany's strategic situation”[18].
However, even renowned German security experts are no strangers to the idea of pre-emptive strikes. Just
a few days after the current deployment announcement, Claudia Major
from the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP) -
which claims to be the think tank of the German government and the
Bundestag - made the following statement in a plea published by Handelsblatt
under the apodictic headline “Europe needs the US medium-range
missiles”: “In an emergency, NATO states must also be able to attack
themselves, for example to destroy Russian missile capabilities before
they can attack NATO territory and to destroy Russian military targets,
such as command centers. “[19]
It also seems somewhat strange in this context when Chrismon,
the magazine of the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD), of all places,
has a private lecturer at the Bundeswehr University in Munich warn
against “disinformation slingers”, to which the author of this article
would probably also belong, who “are now [...] unnecessarily persuading
people to fear nuclear death”[20]. On
the other hand - if one takes into account the centuries-long blessing
of weapons and war campaigns by officials of Christian churches ...
Alternatively,
Moscow could largely automate the launch of a counter-attack in the
event of an attack - pre-emptively quasi à la Major with the future US
systems from Germany - and thus ensure that a military response takes
place before the first enemy missiles hit. Such considerations were repeatedly discussed by Western experts during the first Cold War under terms such as launch on warning and launch under attack - including the associated risks. For
example, in the event of an automated counter-strike, there would be
virtually no human intervention options left to prevent a cascading
sequence of events leading to a nuclear apocalypse in the event of a
false alarm - as happened on September 25, 1983 in a combat command
center of the Soviet early warning system at the time[21].
It is obvious that with launch on warning or launch under attack, the risk of a nuclear war between Russia and the West could also increase significantly beyond the current level.
The
fact that Russia will not limit its countermeasures to Germany and
Western Europe was already indicated by the Russian media on July 12,
when they reminded Vasily Kashin that “we should not forget the
statements of the top Russian military leadership” that “if missiles
appear near our borders, we will symmetrically create an additional
pressure point near the United States”[22]. A
remark made by Donald Trump at the Republican Convention held in
Milwaukee from July 15-18, 2024, fits into this context: “Russian
warships and nuclear submarines are operating just 60 miles off the
coast of Cuba. Did you know that?"[23]
This remark apparently referred to the fact that three battleships and a
nuclear-powered submarine from the Russian navy had paid an official
visit to Havana in June. However, they were not carrying nuclear weapons, as Cuban authorities assured.
For his part, Putin emphasized in his aforementioned speech in St. Petersburg, according to RT DE:
“Russia will react in the same way depending on the actions of the US
and ‘its satellites in Europe and other regions of the world’.”[24]
*
Finally, some comments in the debate to date on the US-German deployment announcement:
- Marcus Faber (FDP),
the new Chairman of the Bundestag's Defense Committee since 12 June
2024, took aim at Rolf Mützenich: “I have not yet heard any statement
from Mr Mützenich on Putin's medium-range missiles in Kaliningrad.”[25] This probably refers to the Iskander ballistic missiles, which can be armed both conventionally and with nuclear weapons. The
fact that Mützenich does not comment on this could be related to the
fact that these missiles, although not in the Kaliningrad area, already
existed completely unchallenged at a time when the INF Treaty had not
yet been torpedoed: with their range of up to 500 kilometers, no one
even in the USA would have thought of talking about medium-range
missiles at that time. Such
missiles were only moved to Kaliningrad when American missile defense
systems of the Aegis Ashore type began to take shape in Poland, which
from the Russian point of view were also strategically offensive[26] and could therefore be deactivated in the event of war. -
Finally, politicians and the media in Germany like to repeatedly invoke
the horror scenario that Moscow could use Iskander to launch a nuclear
attack on Berlin. Even
if it is little consolation, the nuclear weapons expert Otfried
Nassauer, who unfortunately died far too early, had already determined
years ago in collaboration with the Danish expert Hans Kristensen,
Director of the Nuclear Information Project at the Federation of
American Scientists, that Iskander missiles could at best reach
Eberswalde even from the south-westernmost tip of Kaliningrad.
- The Berliner Zeitung reported in its print edition of July 29, 2024, citing dpa
in an article entitled “Putin threatens to respond”: “Russian warships
could [...] also be equipped with missiles in response [to the
deployment of US medium-range weapons in Germany - W.S.].” However, the fact is - dpa here, dpa
there - that Russia has had Kalibr sea-based cruise missiles, which can
be equipped with conventional or nuclear weapons, since 2012. In
2015, these weapons were used for the first time - from the Caspian Sea
against targets in Syria, where Moscow's intervention became a decisive
factor in thwarting the attempted coup d'état by the Syrian opposition
against the Assad regime, which was massively supported by the USA and
other NATO states. At the time, Putin praised the “high-tech, high-precision, modern” weapons. The
missiles had flown over a distance of 1500 kilometers and at an
altitude of between 80 and 1300 meters, changing their flight direction
147 times. In
a television interview, the Russian president said: “It is one thing to
know at an expert level that Russia has such weapons, and quite another
to be convinced that, firstly, they actually exist, that they are
manufactured by our arms industry, secondly, that they are of high
quality, thirdly, that there are people who can use them efficiently,
and fourthly, that Russia is also prepared to use them.”[27]
- Claudia Major
and other proponents of the deployment emphasize that the new US
delivery systems, which are to come to Germany from 2026, will not be
nuclear, but (merely?) conventional weapons.[28] Is this supposed to reassure? Unfortunately, there is no reason to do so, at least with regard to the Tomahawks. If
the worst comes to the worst, it would be impossible for Russia to
determine how cruise missiles of this type are armed - conventionally or
with nuclear weapons. It is therefore highly likely that any counter-strike launched before the cruise missiles hit would be a worst-case scenario. However,
Major's speculation that NATO will have “additional options for
escalation management below the nuclear threshold thanks to these
conventional systems” from 2026 could prove to be a suicidal
miscalculation in an emergency.
Moscow had already made it clear a few years ago that such a risk exists when the USA began to replace the large-caliber W76-1 warheads (explosive power: 90 kilotons) on individual strategic delivery systems - sea-based intercontinental ballistic missiles of the Trident type - with tactical W76-2s with comparatively low explosive power (estimated at eight kilotons[29]). [30] (This was first done in 2019 on the USS Tennessee, a nuclear-powered carrier submarine.[31]) Early warning systems could not distinguish whether a strategic carrier system - as an exception, so to speak - was “only” carrying a tactical warhead.[32] - Wolfgang Richter,
a former Bundeswehr colonel who worked for the SWP for several years
and currently at the Geneva Center for Security Policy, has presented
the most profound assessment of the US-German deployment coup to date. It is publicly accessible, so only three of his central statements are reproduced here, which Richter also underpins in detail:
First - The deployment of long-range US medium-range weapons in Germany would have “the potential to alter the strategic balance between the US and Russia, significantly reduce the chances of reviving nuclear arms control and further intensify the political and military confrontation between NATO and Russia.”[33]
Secondly - “With the bilateral deployment notification, Germany is deviating for the first time from its traditional course of not allowing itself to be singularized and sharing the risks of politically sensitive and momentous decisions with other allies.”[34]
Thirdly - “It also remains unclear how the authority to command the deployment of conventional long-range weapons from Germany with strategic effects in Russia is to be regulated in future. Will their deployment remain a purely national decision of the USA, will Germany have a say, or should their deployment only take place in an alliance context and after an alliance vote? Should the former rule apply, Germany would have its fate at the mercy of the strategic interests and decisions of the USA in the event of a conflict."[35]
However, the latter would not be a novelty. Germany
has already been in this situation for decades - through its so-called
nuclear sharing: the provision of German fighter bombers as delivery
systems for US nuclear bombs, the deployment of which is decided solely
in Washington[36].
PS:
Also during the NATO summit in Washington, the defense ministers of
Germany, France, Italy and Poland signed a declaration of intent to
develop weapons that can precisely hit enemy targets at depth. Specifically,
this involves a land-based stand-off weapon with a range of up to 2000
kilometers that can be deployed not least from mobile platforms. This
so-called LCM (Land Cruise Missile System) is to be derived in part
from cruise missiles that have already been developed, such as those
used by France on warships and by Germany using aircraft[37].
[1] - For more detailed information, see Bulletins 4/2024 and 9/2024.
[2] - German Bundestag, Documents 2024 - accessed on 08/08/2024.
[3]
- How else could the peculiarity of the German government's policy be
interpreted, on the one hand contributing the main share of Western aid
to Ukraine alongside the USA and on the other hand financially enabling
tens of thousands of male Ukrainian refugees in this country to evade
their compulsory military service at home?
[4]
- The decision provided for the stationing of new land-based US
medium-range nuclear systems in Western Europe: 464 Tomahawk cruise
missiles (range up to 2500 kilometers) and 108 Pershing II ballistic
missiles (range up to 1800 kilometers). The
cruise missiles were deployed in Belgium, the FRG, Great Britain, Italy
and the Netherlands; the Pershing IIs were intended exclusively for the
FRG.
All systems could reach targets in the former Soviet Union. The
Pershing-II, with its ability to take out Soviet military and political
command and control centers as far as Moscow with a warning time of
well under ten minutes, was not only classified by Moscow as a
first-strike weapon to prevent the USSR from launching a devastating
counter-attack in time in the event of a surprise nuclear attack by the
USA, i.e. to nullify Moscow's previously assured second-strike
capability. At the time, Moscow did not have comparable military capabilities vis-à-vis the USA.
At
the same time, the NATO Double-Track Decision included an offer to the
USSR to enter into arms limitation and disarmament negotiations on
land-based medium-range weapons and, in the event of a treaty agreement,
to re-examine NATO's need for rearmament.
Corresponding Soviet-American negotiations did take place, but were unsuccessful. Deployment began at the end of 1983.
With the Soviet-American INF Treaty of December 8, 1987, a double zero solution was finally agreed: The
land-based medium-range weapons of both sides with a range of 500 to
5000 kilometers were completely disarmed, and corresponding systems were
banned worldwide for both sides.
At that time, however, the USA also had Tomahawk air- and sea-launched nuclear cruise missiles. These were neither the subject of the INF Treaty nor of later Russian-American arms control and disarmament agreements.
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