There was a time when the rest of the world feared Germany. Ditto for England and France. Or, if you want to go back quite a bit in history, Sweden.
These days, Germany would like someone else to provide troops for Ukraine.
German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul said that his country can play an important role in providing security guarantees for Ukraine, but that Berlin likely doesn’t have the capacity to send troops to the embattled country.
“We are the only European troop contributor to station a combat-ready brigade in Lithuania. Doing that and also stationing troops in Ukraine would probably be too much for us,” Wadephul told the Table Today Podcast on Monday, adding that Defense Minister Boris Pistorius will look into the matter.
The Bundeswehr has 183,000 active duty personnel. Does it have any other foreign deployments? None. Lithuania is its first foreign deployment.
If Berlin doesn’t have the capacity to put troops in Ukraine and Lithuania, what is it using those forces for? Doing yardwork?
And if Germany can’t deploy forces in Ukraine, what good are its security guarantees exactly? What would they even secure without troops? Whose troops is Germany offering as security for Ukraine? Do you even have to ask?
“We are now hearing signals from Washington that they are prepared to do so [provide security guarantees], and this must then be worked out together with the Europeans, with Germany naturally having to play an important role,” Wadephul said in the interview, adding Berlin could provide military and technical help, among other things.
Not military help apparently since there are no troops, but as part of its “important role” Berlin will cheer on American soldiers from a distance.
I remember Defense Minister Boris Pistorius saying not long ago that since America will do less, Germany will have to do more.
So much for that.
