The German Problem ... is our Problem

Complacency, a self-serving bureaucracy, and a willful forgetfulness of the fundamentals of war is a common thread in most 21st Century defense establishments in the developed world, but these very human conditions are worse in some nations than others.

Germany stands out.

If you want a sobering view of the military situation of our German allies, Der Spiegel has a staggering report that provides a stark view of what small budgets, ill-fitting reforms, and just plain anti-military politicians can do to a nation who is - whether they want it or not - a keystone to NATO's continental defense.

Though it isn't quite fair to use the end of the cold war force levels - everyone's graphs would look nasty with that benchmark - but it is helpful to look at what was in living memory back when your host 'ole Sal was a JO;

Coming to 2023 and recent history, well, what the German political elite did makes what we've done to the American military look like art;

According to a forecast by the German Economic Institute, Germany will fall 10 billion euros short of the 2-percent target by 2026 – and by just short of 40 billion euros the following year.

And it’s not even certain that NATO’s defense spending target will remain at 2 percent. Given the Russian threat, some Eastern European member states are insisting that alliance members raise defense spending to 3 percent of their gross domestic product.

There are a number of indications that NATO is planning this year to turn the 2-percent mark from a target to a minimum. Germany, which sees itself as a leader on security policy, would find itself in a position of having to prove its intent by adequately funding its military.

A boost to the Defense Ministry budget would only be politically palatable, however, if it can be guaranteed that the extra billions for the Bundeswehr would not simply trickle away like water in the desert. And for that, the military would have to be fundamentally reformed, a project that Minister Christine Lambrecht has shown no interest in – even if she bears little responsibility for the predicament in which the Bundeswehr currently finds itself.

This should sound familiar;

The grain-size for sand in shooting ranges is specified, for example, while limits for the exposure to gunshot gas in the combat compartment of infantry fighting vehicles are bickered over so that the threat of "amniotic fluid damage to the female Puma crew" can be strictly ruled out.

Regulators require that gangways on new warships must be as wide as those on civilian ships. Now, you can walk past each other with "two walkers without any problems," as one naval officer scoffs. Meanwhile, though, the Bundeswehr is no more combat ready than it used to be. On the contrary.

The armed forces have lost their core competence over the years as they have become completely bureaucratized: combat. Within the administration, combat isn't even a relevant category – except, that is, when it comes to dealing with the next closest department.

The administration thinks in terms of processes, not results. The most important thing is that decisions be made in accordance with the rules. Every civil servant knows that mistakes can slow down a career and that a project well done doesn't necessarily guarantee further advancement. Instead, risks are eliminated to the degree possible. And time plays no role in the equation.

This combination of regulatory frenzy coupled with risk aversion is stifling the Bundeswehr. Systematically, responsibility has been shifted from the bottom up to anonymous large-scale authorities. In the past, it was up to a battalion to decide who would be promoted to lance corporal. Today it is the Personnel Office of the Bundeswehr that makes that decision.

Are any nations doing this well, or are we all just different degrees of bad?

The German military is in many ways is subject to a distilled version of the challenges the US military has. Large budgets can hide a lot of problems from bad leaderships and worse ideas. Shrink that budget down, and you get a concentrated soup of bad.

The present German government is led by the SDP, a party that simply is not institutionally capable in 2023 of being a serious leader of a serious military. 

Until there is fundamental change at the top where the desires of the German people align with the desires of their NATO allies, then we will have to continue to find work arounds. In the long run, the experience of the last year will set back Germany a few decades from her taking her position on the continent where she belongs. An opportunity for Poland and France, if they want it.

Fullbore Friday

Can two men who on one day are doing their best to kill each other also hold each other not just with respect, but to become friends?

Most American students of WWII know the name Luftwaffe General-Lieutenant Adolph Galland. Though most Brits know him - for Americans, Royal Air Force Group Captain Douglas Bader may not sound all that familiar. 

What a remarkable story about the unexpected friendship between two remarkable men.

Though you should really watch the whole thing, he was brought on to "This is Your Life" and at the 27-min mark, they brought in his friend Adolph ... which is remarkable when you consider who was brought in before him ... all getting along grandly now.

Because we live in an age of miracles and wonders - via YouTube you can watch the entire 1954 movie of Bader;

Fullbore Friday

Last week was the story of the HMS JERVIS BAY and her crew during the Battle of Convoy HX84.

When we finished last week, HMS JERVIS BAY was out of the fight and the convoy was scattered - but she did her job.

By the time they realized that the Jervis Bay had been terribly alone, an hour had been lost. The convoy had been given time enough to break up and begin to flee.

...and so the pocket battleship ADMIRAL SCHEER, unopposed now, closed in.

However, there was a Canadian ship, the SS BEAVERFORD, armed with one 4 inch & one 3 inch gun who turned towards the SHEER and her six 11 inch, eight 5.9 inch guns and eight 21 inch torpedo tubes. What was the BEAVERFORD?

Beaverford was the first of five Beaver class cargo liners in service with the Canadian Pacific Railway’s fleet. The 10,042 ton twin screw, steam turbine merchant ship had her maiden voyage in 1928 ... designed to carry 10,000 tons of cargo and twelve passengers at 15 knots.
...
Although a Canadian Pacific ship, the company chose to register her in the UK, as was the practice at the time. She carried a crew of seventy-seven sailors and ably mastered by 60-year-old Captain Hugh Pettigrew from Coatbridge, Glasgow. He had been sailing with CP since 1910. Most of her crew came from the UK, except for two Canadians.
...
She was one of 18 ships that sailed in HX-1, the first convoy of the war from Halifax to the UK on 16 September 1939; just six days after Canada declared war on Germany. In early 1940, Beaverford had a 4 inch gun installed on her stern and a three inch gun on her bow, for defense against surfaced U-boats.

By the time HX-84 left Halifax on 28 October 1940, Beaverford had already crossed the Atlantic sixteen times in convoy.

JERVIS BAY was lost, and here is where we pick up the story, wonderfully told by Roger Litwiller;

SCHEER then steamed past the sinking JERVIS BAY, now free to engage the merchant ships of the convoy. With only 22 minutes the convoy was still a smorgasbord of targets for the pocket battleships 11 inch guns with a range of over 19 miles; she could pick and choose her targets unimpeded.

In quick succession she sank the freighter Maiden carrying a mixed cargo and military vehicles, all ninety-one sailors killed, then damaged and set on fire the tanker San Demetrio, followed by sinking the freighters Trewellard, carrying steel and 12 aircraft, killing 16 sailors and Kenbane Head, general cargo, with 23 killed.

Captain Pettigrew had heeded the order to disperse, bringing Beaverford to full speed and turning away from the mighty German warship, as he and his crew watched JERVIS BAY engage ADMIRAL SCHEER. Beaverford’s radio operator sent out a continuous update of the action on the ships wireless.

They watched as the ship closest to them, Kenbane Head, suddenly exploded and sink as the massive German rounds found their mark. Pittigrew gave the order to turn Beaverford about and he raced his ship through the smoke towards the mighty ADMIRAL SHEER.

Beaverford’s radio operator sent one last message on the wireless, “It is our turn now. So long. The captain and crew of SS Beaverford.”

Pettigrew ordered the stokers, manning the boilers to make smoke, laying a dense smoke screen to hide the fleeing ships of the convoy.

At 15 knots the Canadian Pacific ship suddenly broke through the smoke close enough for her 4 and 3 inch guns to register a near miss on SCHEER. The pocket battleship checked her fire and concentrated on the new threat, turning her full might on Beaverford.

With the skill of a master mariner and the courage of his crew, Captain Pittigrew battled ADMIRAL SCHEER, playing a deadly game of “cat and mouse” as she ducked in and out of the smoke screen, harassing the enemy warship.

Beaverford’s superior steam turbines allowed the merchant ship to utilize a burst of speed and with Pettigrew’s skill and exceptional seamanship he would wait for SCHEER’s 11 inch guns to fire and then order an increase in speed and change of course, making his ship a difficult target to hit.

Beaverford’s delaying action allowed the Swedish freighter Stureholm to return and pick up the sixty-five survivors from HMS JERVIS BAY.

The battle between Beaverford and ADMIRAL SCHEER continued into the dead of night. The fleeing ships of HX-84 could see the star shells and illumination rockets lighting the night sky, as SCHEER attempted to find her antagonizer. The merchant ship had many opportunities to turn away and escape in the darkness and the smoke, but she continued on with the fight.

Whenever SCHEER would turn towards the direction of the fleeing merchant ships, Beaverford would break through the smoke and darkness and engage the pocket battleship, then disappear again. Beaverford suffered for her actions, SCHEER fired 83 rounds from her 11 inch guns and 71 rounds from her 5.9 inch guns at the Canadian Pacific ship.

The battle had now lasted over five incredible hours, Beaverford was in trouble, and fires were raging in the ship, making her an easier target for the German gunners. She had by now been struck with twelve 11 inch shells and sixteen 5.9 inch shells. We can only imagine the hardship, destruction and carnage faced by her sailors as they attempted to continue the fight.

With her speed slowing as the steam turbines were damaged, SCHEER fired a torpedo. It found its target in Beaverford’s bow at 2245. With a sudden, fierce explosion, Beaverford disappeared in a mass of flames as the ammunition stowed in her bow detonated.

We do not know how many of Beaverford’s brave crew died during the battle or if anyone survived that final devastating moment as their ship erupted into a massive ball of fire. By the time Beaverford was lost, there were no allied ships in the area to search for survivors. All seventy-seven sailors sacrificed their lives so convoy HX-84 could escape.

What can you say of such men? Such leaders? Such Sailors?

Fullbore.

First posted 16NOV2018.

There Must be Consequences for Germany

I lived and worked with Germans for years. In their young years, my children's second language - mostly to help their father shop - was German. I have a great affection for Germany and Germans - but with great affection comes great expectations.

I know that my expectations for Germany is not that out of alignment with many Germans, however those Germans and their view of Germany are not presently holding power. As one does with things one values yet does not meet their potential, honest affection requires one to speak up and if needed take action.

The final part of the Merkle administration was problematic, but under the present SDP government led by Olaf Scholz - the Cold War socialist and Soviet apologist, Germany's irresponsible stance in the face of European and NATO security requirements cannot go without consequences. The present, "Just do enough in security to look like we're doing something, but not too much..." should be called out for exactly what it is.

Germany, even more than France, is the keystone to Europe. Too many nations look to her for leadership culturally, economically, and security. Poland is an emerging leader, but she does not have the population or GDP power to match Germany.

Though Germany's present dysfunction is multi-causal, the core of the problem is that the German people chose the wrong leader at the wrong time.

We're going to go to Foreign Policy and Politico to demonstrate. 

The German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has an essay in FP's Jan/Feb edition. It is a long and winding apologia, but look at this Salamanderesque quote from Scholz;

The world must not let Putin get his way; Russia’s revanchist imperialism must be stopped. The crucial role for Germany at this moment is to step up as one of the main providers of security in Europe by investing in our military, strengthening the European defense industry, beefing up our military presence on NATO’s eastern flank, and training and equipping Ukraine’s armed forces.

Germany’s new role will require a new strategic culture, and the national security strategy that my government will adopt a few months from now will reflect this fact. For the last three decades, decisions regarding Germany’s security and the equipment of the country’s armed forces were taken against the backdrop of a Europe at peace. Now, the guiding question will be which threats we and our allies must confront in Europe, most immediately from Russia. These include potential assaults on allied territory, cyberwarfare, and even the remote chance of a nuclear attack, which Putin has not so subtly threatened.

The transatlantic partnership is and remains vital to confronting these challenges. U.S. President Joe Biden and his administration deserve praise for building and investing in strong partnerships and alliances across the globe. But a balanced and resilient transatlantic partnership also requires that Germany and Europe play active roles. One of the first decisions that my government made in the aftermath of Russia’s attack on Ukraine was to designate a special fund of approximately $100 billion to better equip our armed forces, the Bundeswehr. We even changed our constitution to set up this fund. This decision marks the starkest change in German security policy since the establishment of the Bundeswehr in 1955. Our soldiers will receive the political support, materials, and capabilities they need to defend our country and our allies. The goal is a Bundeswehr that we and our allies can rely on. To achieve it, Germany will invest two percent of our gross domestic product in our defense.

Sounds good, but it is just cover.

Of course, serious nations know 2% is a floor, not a ceiling - but there it is.

Earlier this year there was all sorts of talk about boosting spending and getting that floor reached as soon as practical. His words above seem to signal that.

Really? From Politico on Monday,

Germany on Monday walked back its promise to swiftly raise defense spending to at least 2 percent of its economic output — breaching the key commitment made days after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to become a more serious military force.

Berlin also sought to play down internal warnings about delays to a flagship procurement of new fighter jets.

During a government press conference, Chief Spokesperson Steffen Hebestreit scaled down expectations for Germany’s defense spending, telling journalists that the 2 percent target would be missed not only this year, but also likely next year: “It’s still open whether that [goal] will be achieved” in 2023, Hebestreit said, adding that his “cautious expectation” was that Germany would still meet the target within this legislative period, which ends in 2025.

...

The 2 percent pledge had been a key promise of Scholz’s Zeitenwende speech to the German Parliament in February, just days after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, in which the chancellor said: “We will from now, year after year, invest more than 2 percent of gross domestic product invest in our defense.”

This commitment, which is in line with what all members of the NATO military alliance agreed to in 2014, was reiterated by Scholz in an op-ed in Foreign Affairs on Monday — although he no longer said the commitment would be upheld “from now on.”

Last month, it had already emerged that Germany will likely miss its 2 percent target in 2023 as the regular defense budget of about €50 billion will slightly shrink by about €300 million. Only a comparably small first tranche of a massive €100 billion special military upgrading fund is expected to be paid out.

Scholz is not an honest nor a reliable partner. Besides public shaming, what can be done? As outlined many times, there is Plan Salamander;

In NATO, General and Flag Officer billets are distributed amongst nations in a rather complicated way, but this formula is controlled by NATO – and as such – can be changed.

Entering argument: take the present formula for “fair distribution” and multiply by .75 any nation that spends 1.5% to 1.99% GDP on defense. Multiply by .5 any nation that spends between 1.25% to 1.499%. Multiply by .25 1.0% to 1.240%. If you fall below 1%, you get nothing and your OF5 (Col./Capt) billets are halved. 

1.25x for 2.01%-2.25%. 1.5X for 2.26%-2.75%; 1.75x for 2.76% -3.0%. 2x for +3.01%.

The NATO nations facing Russia directly are smaller and poorer than Germany and are all spending - or soon will spend - responsibly. 

All relationships that are successful and respectful have a common formula; reward positive behavior; punish negative behavior.

Going by to Scholz's article in FP, he reminds everyone what is really driving this. Something going back for decades with him and his cohorts; a thinly disguised dislike of NATO and the Anglo-Saxon influence that comes with it. Like their Western Frankish brothers out of Paris, for a thousand years there is a pull on the German people to control Europe. NATO, be design, will prevent that.

What won't? The EU;

More broadly, the EU must overcome old conflicts and find new solutions. European migration and fiscal policy are cases in point. People will continue to come to Europe, and Europe needs immigrants, so the EU must devise an immigration strategy that is pragmatic and aligns with its values. This means reducing irregular migration and at the same time strengthening legal paths to Europe, in particular for the skilled workers that our labor markets need. On fiscal policy, the union has established a recovery and resilience fund that will also help address the current challenges posed by high energy prices. The union must also do away with selfish blocking tactics in its decision-making processes by eliminating the ability of individual countries to veto certain measures. As the EU expands and becomes a geopolitical actor, quick decision-making will be the key to success. For that reason, Germany has proposed gradually extending the practice of making decisions by majority voting to areas that currently fall under the unanimity rule, such as EU foreign policy and taxation. 

Europe must also continue to assume greater responsibility for its own security and needs a coordinated and integrated approach to building its defense capabilities. For example, the militaries of EU member states operate too many different weapons systems, which creates practical and economic inefficiencies. To address these problems, the EU must change its internal bureaucratic procedures, which will require courageous political decisions; EU member states, including Germany, will have to alter their national policies and regulations on exporting jointly manufactured military systems. 

...

NATO is the ultimate guarantor of Euro-Atlantic security, and its strength will only grow with the addition of two prosperous democracies, Finland and Sweden, as members. But NATO is also made stronger when its European members independently take steps toward greater compatibility between their defense structures, within the framework of the EU.

Enough of coddling Germany and not rewarding responsible security partners. Time for NATO to at least start to make a point, and make it publicly. 

Fullbore Friday

You go to war with what you have or what you can quickly patch together, the end result of the decision of others who will not have to fight, not have to command, not have to die.

There is no time to what-if. There is no time to complain. There is only time to get underway.

Duty. Mission. Training.

If confronted by the enemy, Fegen told his officers when he came aboard, “I shall take you in as close as I possibly can.”

You have what you have, but it is what you do with it that matters.

War is not fair. Your enemy will not wait for you to be ready. Time arrives when it want to.
November 1940.

America is over a year from joining the war. The Blitz is in its 2nd month. Liverpool has been bombed over 200 times already. German U-Boats rule the North Atlantic.

In Halifax, a convoy forms. 37 freighters heading to Britain across a hostile sea. They get one escort.
One.

A converted merchant ship armed with a few late-19th Century manually aimed 6" guns that could fire - with a well trained crew - about 8-rounds per minute with a range of 14,600 yards.

She was the HMS JERVIS BAY, and she had a mission.

In November 1940 the Jervis Bay was the sole escort for Convoy HX84 of thirty-seven freighters moving from Halifax to Britain

An extended quote from the HMS JERVIS BAY website, 

The position of the convoy was known to the Germans. In his book, Kapitän Theodore Krancke certainly makes no secret of expecting to find convoy HX84. ("That was the convoy all right").

As the Jervis Bay repeatedly signalled the challenge "A", the signals officer of the Scheer was commanded to attempt a bluff.

" ... 'She'll give her recognition signal in a moment,' said Krancke. 'Whatever it turns out to be repeat it at once as though we were calling her.'

Krancke was anxious to leave the enemy in doubt as to his real identity for as long as possible in order to get close up to the convoy before opening fire. At the moment the distance between the Scheer and the British auxiliary cruiser was still about fifteen miles.

That is 30,000 yards.

Who was Krancke? The Skipper of the pocket battleship ADMIRAL SCHEER. SHEER was armed with 11" guns with a range of 39,000 yards and a secondary armament of 5.9" guns with a range of 25,000 yards.

The Skipper of the HMS JERVIS BAY, Captain Edward Fegen, VC SGM, Royal Navy, knew this.

The auxiliary cruiser's 'A' was now followed by 'M' - 'A' - 'G' in quick succession. The Signals Officer of the Scheer immediately had the 'M.A.G' signal repeated, but the bluff failed. The Captain of the British auxiliary cruiser was not deceived. In any case, he probably knew quite definitely that no friendly warship could possibly be in that quarter, and now sheafs of red rockets began to hiss up from his decks - clearly the pre-arranged signal for the convoy to scatter. At the same time the auxiliary cruiser and most of the other ships in the convoy began to lay down a smoke screen.

The distance between the two ships was considerably less now and when it was about ten miles the Scheer, which up to then had been racing straight towards the convoy, turned to port to bring her broadside to bear. The guns were trained on their targets now - the big guns had been ordered to concentrate on the British auxiliary cruiser while the medium artillery was to take a tanker not far away from her as its target.

The British auxiliary cruiser, which was ahead of the second line of the convoy, had stopped signalling, and by this time the ships were close enough for the British Captain to have realised what he was faced with, for the outlines of the Scheer were now clearly visible against the evening sky and he could plainly see the guns of her triple turrets trained on him. As unlikely as it might seem, he had encountered a German pocket battleship in mid-Atlantic.

Let's pick up Chuck Lyons story over at WarfareHistoryNetwork;

Made aware of the Rangtiki’s sighting, at about 4:45 Captain Fegen sounded action stations and began accelerating his ship out of her convoy position and toward the Admiral Scheer.

Fegen immediately began firing his 6-inch guns even though he was well out of range of the Scheer. He also ordered smoke canisters deployed to hide the convoy, which made a quick turn away from the German ship and scattered. At a distance of about 10 miles, Captain Krancke swung the Scheer to port, bringing both his triple turrets to bear on the convoy and Jervis Bay. He began firing at the oncoming armed merchantman, the second salvo splashing 50 yards off Jervis Bay’s bow with 150-foot spouts of sea water, soaking the Bay’s forward gun crews.

Sam Patience, a quartermaster aboard Jervis Bay, heard what he later described as a “thunk” and turned to see a member of his gun crew slump to the deck, his head severed from his body. Admiral Scheer’s third salvo hit Jervis Bay’s bridge, knocking out her rangefinder, wireless, and fire-control equipment. Several officers and crewmen were killed by the blast, and Captain Fegen’s left arm was mangled.

As Scheer continued to fire, Jervis Bay was hit repeatedly on her superstructure, and her hull was holed in several places. The port bulkhead of the radio shack was gone and a radio operator and two coders were dead.

The remaining radioman climbed to the remnants of the bridge where he saw Captain Fegen“clutching his arm, blood spilling off his sleeve.”

Fires burned uncontrolled.

Wanting to neutralize the escort ship so he was free to attack the convoy, Scheer’s commander continued to train his big guns on Jervis Bay. Darkness was falling, and he knew he needed to sink Jervis Bay quickly so that he would have time to attack the convoy. Each salvo from the Scheer launched two and a half tons of ordnance at the stricken ship. The forward port side of Jervis caught the brunt of the fire and became a mass of twisted girders, bent and jagged plate, dead and wounded sailors, and flames. A shell somehow loosed Jervis’s anchor, and another knocked the white ensign of the Royal Navy off the top of the main mast. Midshipman Ronald Butler later recalled helping an unnamed seaman climb the mast to nail up a replacement ensign.

Jervis Bay continued steaming at Admiral Scheer and firing her guns until her steering gear was knocked out. The petty officer manning the wheel called into the voice tube that the ship’s steering gear was out of action and heard the captain’s pained voice come back ordering him to “man the aft steering position.”

With his ship aflame and sinking, Captain Fegen continued to maintain the unequal fight and stayed in command despite his shattered arm, consciously buying time for the ships of the convoy to escape.

Up to now, Captain Fegen had stayed on the collapsing bridge, which was under continuous hits from Admiral Scheer’s big guns. Shortly after giving the order to man the aft gear, however, he struggled down the starboard side of the bridge and, aided by a signalman, headed aft, stopping to encourage a gunner along the way and ordering more smoke deployed.

After a blast destroyed the after-control compartment just as he arrived there, the captain headed forward again, with “blood running over the four gold stripes on his sleeve,” Midshipman Butler later said.

Captain Fegen never made it. His body and the body of the signalman who was helping him were later seen on the deck. “[Jervis Bay] did not have a chance, and we all knew it,” said Captain Sven Olander, commander of the Swedish freighter Stureholm, one of the convoy ships. “But she rode like a hero and stayed to the last.”

Meanwhile, exploding cordite bags on Jervis Bay’s poop deck had convinced Captain Krancke that the smaller ship was still firing despite the severe damage she had suffered. He didn’t dare concentrate on the convoy until the threat posed by Jervis Bay was eliminated. Any damage to his ship from a lucky hit could seriously affect her ability to escape any hunt for her launched by the Royal Navy.

Krancke continued focusing his big guns on Jervis Bay, but turned some of his smaller ones against ships in the convoy that were still within his range.

After an hour of the unrelenting German fire and with Captain Fegen dead, Lt. Cmdr. George Roe, now in command, ordered the remaining crew of Jervis Bay to abandon ship. All of Jervis Bay’s life boats had been destroyed but rafts, some of which were damaged, and the ship’s 18-foot “jolly boat” had survived the bombardment and were launched. Most of Jervis Bay’s men simply jumped into the icy, sub-Arctic sea, some making it to the rafts and jolly boat. Others made do with what they could find floating in the water.

Shortly after the order was given to abandon ship, Jervis Bay went down. The white ensign Midshipman Butler had helped raise was the last thing to settle beneath the Atlantic waves.

Of the 254 crewmembers of JERVIS BAY, only 68 survived the battle.

The Skipper of JERVIS BAY, 49-yr old Captain Edward Fegen, was awarded a posthumous Victoria Cross as a result of this action.

"for valour in challenging hopeless odds and giving his life to save the many ships it was his duty to protect. On the 5th of November, 1940, in heavy seas, Captain Fegen, in His Majesty's Armed Merchant Cruiser Jervis Bay, was escorting thirty-eight Merchantmen. Sighting a powerful German warship he at once drew clear of the Convoy, made straight for the Enemy, and brought his ship between the Raider and her prey, so that they might scatter and escape. Crippled, in flames, unable to reply, for nearly an hour the Jervis Bay held the German's fire. So she went down: but of the Merchantmen all but four or five were saved."

The Battle of Convoy HX-84 was far from over even after the loss of JERVIS BAY.

For that, you'll have to wait for next Friday's FbF.

First posted 09NOV2018.

German Clear Voices are There if You Look

"The German Problem" when it comes to their reliance on Russia over the last few decades for their energy needs - a huge strategic error of the first order - has been a regular topic since the start of the Russo-Ukrainian War.

In fits and starts, each passing month makes it harder for the Germans to not change in at least the medium term and hopefully will have a lasting effect on the German view of Russia for at least a few generations. 

I am a believer that eventually things will regress to the mean, and for centuries Russia has not been anything but ... Russia - so humility in the face of history may help the Germans in this regard. How many times must the Germans be reminded that their fantasies in the East are just that; fantasies. This has been true since the The Ottonian Dynasty over a thousand years ago ... we have a dataset.

However, there remains a growing problem with Germany's desire to find some way to make some money off the main global threat to the West, the People's Republic of China.

One of Europe's largest ports, Hamburg has excelled at trade since the Middle Ages. Back then, the city clubbed together with other ports along and beyond the Baltic coast to form the Hanseatic League, which dominated commerce for centuries.

Now the city's port is joining forces with a Chinese shipping giant. The state-owned China Ocean Shipping Co., known as COSCO, is about to buy a stake in a container terminal.

China has been Germany's largest trading partner for much of the past decade. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz pushed the COSCO deal through his cabinet last week, despite opposition from six key ministers. 

It does not matter that a plurality of the German political elite don't want to accept it - but Germany must be a strong advocate for strength and unity in the West. Her government cannot just act like a national Chamber of Commerce, she must value Western ideals and security needs more than her balance sheet.

Why invest so much in making nice with Moscow and Beijing while at the same time seeming to make extra efforts to slow-roll investment in NATO defense and irritate friends in London, Paris, Warsaw, and DC?

Not all of the German elite institutions and leaders feel that way.  I worked with many Germans in and out of uniform who were frustrated they could not do what they need to do as a 21st Century leading medium power - but they are not the dominate voice, at least not yet.

Some are coming out of the shadows and placing markers that are there for people to see. It gives hope. 

This time their security services seem to be signaling to Germany's frustrated friends that, regardless of what the politicians do or do not do - that they are not to blame and they know what time it is.

That is the optimist's take...and I try to be an optimist when it comes to the Germans. So much potential...but so frustrating. That is my bias, so keep that in mind. I'm self-aware, but ... oh, well.

As I always seem to want more from the Germans in the national security arena than the Germans who hold the levers to power want to provide, perhaps I am trying too hard to find an intellectual structure a 21st Century German leadership could build on to make what Germany should be - a full and responsible alliance partner and cornerstone to the foundation of Western society. The stronger the collective West and her auxiliaries are, they can help guide the larger international order in a positive and constructive direction.

It is a direction Germans - and all Westerners - should be proud of promoting. There are no better alternatives out there - even for those non-Western nations who don't want it. 

We in the West may disagree with 20% of what that order should be, but 80% we should be aligned with. We need to leverage that. We can't do it without a responsible Germany.

A large part of that is blunting and pushing back on the regressive vision from Moscow and Beijing.

Germany is not ready right now to be that cornerstone I would like her to be, but I know there is a core waiting for the time to be ripe. At such I enjoyed this article coming from ... well ... the Bundestag's press office;

The annual meeting with the presidents of the Federal Intelligence Service (BND), the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) and the Military Counterintelligence Service (MAD) took place on Monday for the sixth time.

BND President Bruno Kahl called the war of aggression against Ukraine a "watershed," which, however, "didn't really" come as a surprise. What happened was what his agency had warned about for years, that Russian President Vladimir Putin remains willing to use force to achieve his goals and that those goals have not changed. "Unfortunately" it has been common in public discourse over the past few decades to ignore threats and dismiss warnings from the security authorities as scaremongering. The BND's reporting on Putin's tendency to violence was always "rather unreserved", however: "The tendency of politicians and the public to trust in a positive turn is simply there."

...

For the time being, the Kremlin is not interested in a negotiated solution. The war will therefore certainly continue next year. Kahl acknowledged that if conventional warfare continued to fail, Putin might be tempted to use “sub-strategic” nuclear weapons to force Ukraine to the negotiating table and impose a dictated peace. However, there is currently no evidence of this: "We do not see any preparations for the use of strategic or sub-strategic weapons at the moment. There is no need to panic.”

In the long run, a significant threat is to be feared from an “autocratic China that is rising to become a global power,” Kahl warned. Business, society and politics in Germany have also been too trusting in this respect and have become “painfully dependent” on a power that “suddenly no longer seems well-disposed”. Together with the BfV, the BND has been trying for five years to raise awareness of the risks posed by China in business and science. A first success in 2019 was a skeptical statement by the Federation of German Industries (BDI) on economic ties with the Far Eastern superpower. But there is "a lot of trust and naivety in the scientific field" that is not appropriate.

...

Like the BND President, Haldenwang also made it clear that in the long run the far greater threat to German security and German interests would come from China: "Russia is the storm, China is climate change." 

Read it all. Yes, you will have to sift through some boilerplate German bureaucratic belly button picking ... but that is just pro-forma. I like what I pulled above - there is some sound thinking here that hopefully will grow in influence.

The Existential Requirement to Maintain a Broad Defense Industrial Base

With all its inefficiencies, bloat, and error; with all its problematic revolving door issues between government/military and civilian sectors – there is no greater existential requirement for a mature nation than to have its own military-industrial sector.

In peace it is easy to forget that in times of war – times that will always come with our warlike species – the vanities of peace can soon become a bleeding ulcer at war.

While small nations simply cannot sustain the full spectrum of military equipment due to overhead and development costs, medium to large nations have options. You may on occasion have to partner with friendly nations, but what strings come with those partnerships? Regardless of whose insignia is on a certain system, who really controls its use?

At peace when decisions are made in the moment, a greater appreciation of political risk down the road at war is required. A lot of, “what if” type questions need to be asked, and little tolerance should be allowed for the “that will never” or “unlikely given present circumstances” hand-waving away of problematic assumptions that would avoid either investment in significant reserve stockpiles of finished product or raw materials, or in higher per-unit production locally.

A perfect example of this trap can be found in the tracked anti-aircraft gun produced by the Germans, the Gepard (Cheetah), retired over a decade ago but taken out of reserve and handed over to the Ukrainians to great effect. Via Bild;

With its 35mm machine guns, this cheetah alone has already been able to destroy two Russian cruise missiles and a double-digit number of drones, says Max, confirming for the first time that a cheetah can also deal with these targets very well under combat conditions.

"The Shahed drones are very easy to fight when we're within range," says Max. The cheetah's search radar can pick them up well, and the explosive incendiary ammunition then makes short work of the slow drones.

Advantage cheetah: The machine guns can also fight swarms of cheaply produced drones very well. During an operation near Odessa, ten drones were shot down within a short period of time. This countered the tactics of the Iranian kamikaze drones, which are usually sent out in swarms to overwhelm the air defenses.

The ghosts of the peacetime accountants will haunt you at war. Via FT;

Germany wants to send 12,000 Swiss-made 35-milimetre rounds that were bought by Berlin decades ago to restock the 50 Cheetah flak cannons it has pledged to Ukraine.

The Swiss government, as part of the original sales contract with Germany, has a veto over the munitions’ resale or donation. Politicians in the wealthy alpine state believe that sending them to Ukraine would jeopardise its neutrality. Switzerland refused a request from Denmark for the re-export of two dozen Swiss-made “Piranha” armoured personnel carriers to Ukraine in May.

The German government has been struggling to find more shells to send to Kyiv. Brazil, which makes suitable munitions for the Cheetah guns, has also refused to allow their re-export.

…

 “For once, the Swiss government is right,” said Thomas Borer, former Swiss ambassador to Germany and an architect of Switzerland’s current laws on neutrality. “It’s clear that delivering arms of weapons into a conflict would infringe the core principle of what neutrality means for Switzerland. As a friendly neighbour that is aware of our laws and obligations, Germany shouldn’t put Switzerland in this position.”

Lambrecht wrote to her Swiss counterpart Viola Amherd saying the Cheetah munitions were purely defensive. In the letter, she said the weapons were “vital” for the protection of Black Sea grain exports from potential bombardment, according to Ukraine’s military.

Bern has yet to formally respond to Berlin’s renewed request, which has been made in parallel with diplomatic lobbying from Ukrainian officials. The Swiss defence ministry has passed the new German request on to the finance ministry, which handles export licences, a Swiss government spokesperson said, declining to comment further.

A spokesperson for Germany’s defence ministry said: “We are always actively finding ways to support Ukraine through our partners and alliances.” Discussions with Switzerland were part of that process, they added.

Senior German politicians, including members of parties in the governing coalition, have been more forthright, with Germany being Switzerland’s largest arms export market.

As I’ve said often before, were I German I’d be a member of the FDP party. As such, this makes me nod my head a bit smugly; 

“Anyone who does not deliver munition to an attacked state for national defence can no longer be a reliable supplier of ammunition for us either,” Marcus Faber, head of the liberal Free Democratic party’s parliamentary defence group, wrote on Twitter on Sunday. “If Switzerland refuses this to Ukraine . . . then for security reasons, we can no longer get anything from there.”

Like the lessons from the 40-year old Falklands conflict still are of use today – of even more importance to this century are the legion of lessons that are coming out of the Russo-Ukrainian War. Smart people are taking note of the sometimes uncomfortable truths at the tactical, operational, and strategic levels that are emerging clearly with each month – truths that need to be look at with an unblinking eye. Some theories pushed by industry are being found to be garbage – and other proven “old think” as shown as immortal “new think” and the Gods of the Military Copybook Headings are validated once again.

There are also a bountifully supply of lessons in the diplomatic, economic, and informational domains that need attention as well. Military-Industrial policy is one of them.

Add this to the list.

The German Problem isn't Getting Better it Seems

I am self-aware that I have an attitude problem towards the present German government. In the top-5 reasons I am what I am today was a response to the useful idiots of the Soviets in the 1980s.

The whole "Better Red than Dead" people with their stupid papier-mâché puppets trying to make the argument that to be free you have to surrender to tyrants ... four decades later, these people still try my patience.

Sadly, Germany is - again - being led by one.

Yeah ... that guy.

 His judgement was poor then, it is poor now.

...but we have to deal with it. As he waited for the eventual Russian victory back in FEB, he slow rolled so he and his childhood buddy Schroeder could ... hell if I know. Just look at them.

I don't know about you ... but I remember those guys and those like them from the 1980s. Useful idiots for the Soviets then, and useful idiots to the Russians now.

Yes, the SPD government has helped Ukraine some, but not as much as many of the rest of the alliance. Then entire German political class of all parties put themselves in this pinch relative to the Russians - they can't help themselves.

There were hints they may have seen the light over the summer, but alas, without steady pressure, systems will regress to the mean.

The mean for Germany seems to be to sell whatever needs to be sold and buy whatever needs to be bought to and from the worst people.

They are not alone here, but in the last 10-months, they seem to have not learned all that much.

Thought Germany was serious about boosting defense spending to the 2% floor?  Think again;

The federal government is massively cutting the planned equipment offensive for the Bundeswehr . Many projects, especially for the naval and air forces, would have to be called off, the Handelsblatt learned from circles in industry and politics.

The background to this is the rapid rise in inflation, which is making planned purchases more expensive. In addition, the Federal Court of Auditors complained that the projects listed in the business plan for the special fund exceeded the budget of 100 billion euros.

"With many projects running for five to seven years, inflation in the dimension creates a serious financial problem," said a person familiar with the proceedings. Among other things, a third tranche of the K130 corvette, new Eurofighters for electronic warfare, new frigates and new self-propelled howitzers, which should be ordered to replace the systems delivered to Ukraine, are at stake. There are talks between politicians and industry about these projects.

What a lost opportunity for Germany to lead; to join her rightful place as a modern nation defending Western principals. Perhaps I expected too much - but Germany has a great history ... but one that has the wrong leaders at the wrong time leading the German people down the wrong fork in the road.

Not just facing Russia, but the latest on China;

Chinese state-owned firm, COSCO Shipping Corporation Limited (COSCO) has gained a foothold in Hamburg, Germany’s largest seaport.

On Sep 21 it was confirmed that COSCO subsidiary, COSCO Shipping Ports Limited (CSPL), will take a 35 percent stake in Container Terminal Tollerort GmbH (CTT). Antitrust authorities have yet to approve the deal.

Again, Germany is not alone here. Too many critical assets from ports to pork were sold to Chinese interests in the USA ... but it is 2022. No one can see the People's Republic of China as a benign presence on the world stage. They already have enough control of European ports.

The West really needs to have an intervention on itself. We all have some work to do ... but Germany should be first on the list.

Finally, as part of this family intervention, Germany and Germans need to hear more blunt, constructive, and plain talk from her European neighbors like Poland's Radek Sikorski; 

But while we did all that we passed a super law which guaranteed the Polish armed

forces 2% of a growing GDP year in, year out. We insisted that NATO write contingency plans for the defence of Poland and the Baltic States. We bought F-16s and modernized the Leopards that you gave us. We signed the agreement with the United States on building a missile defence site in Poland, so as to give them a bigger stake in Poland’s security.

I cannot tell you how frustrating it was to talk to most Germans about security throughout those years. I will never forget my joint press conference at the conclusion of a successful meeting of the Weimar Triangle with Frank Walter Steinmeier and Laurent Fabius in Weimar in 2014. An unhelpful German journalist directed the last question to me asking whether Poland still demanded the permanent presence of U.S. troops on its territory. ‘Yes, I answered, two heavy brigades would be within the framework of the NATO-Russia Founding Act, which has been our policy for years.’ You should have seen the shocked faces of most of the assembled press corps. I was exposed as a warmonger. And this was after Crimea, in the former DDR, in the country which used to have 15 times as many when you were a frontline state.

The trouble was, of course, that you didn’t consider Poland to be a frontline state because you didn’t consider Russia to be a threat. That’s why there was not even a squeak of concern either among your politicians or in the press when Russia deployed nuclear-capable Iskander missiles in Kaliningrad with the range to reach Berlin. I don’t want to rub it in but let’s recall the spirit of those times: according to Pew opinion polls in those years, up to ⅓ of Germans wanted to be in an alliance with Russia against the U.S.!

So, you didn’t listen to our warnings and you got it wrong. On Russia, we’ve been proved right. I don’t expect you to apologize for 30 years of your patronizing tones, I just expect you to listen to what we say now. And what we say is that this is hopefully Russia’s last colonial war. Think France in Vietnam and Algeria, Britain in Malaya and Cyprus or Portugal in Angola. Think of Donbas as Russia’s Ulster. Except that Donbass and Crimea voted for Ukrainian independence at the time of the breakup of the USSR. As a late colonial wars go, It’s going through all the predictable stages. First, denying the separateness of the colony. (But Algeria is as much a part of France as Provence!) Then astonishment: our peasants, our funny-speaking provincials wanting a state? But they’ll never manage it on their own. Then, anger. How dare they, we’ll teach them a lesson. Then finally, when enough people have died on both sides: all right, you’re not worth the trouble, go your own way. 

We all know at which stage Russia is in Ukraine. The war party still thinks that with one last push they can prevail and bring back control. But Russian dissidents have already understood that the empire has been a millstone around their country’s neck. Another year or two and Russia might realize that, being the largest state on earth, it has no shortage of land on which to develop.

History is moving faster than Western leadership. Wake up everyone...wake up.

SDP Becomes the Salamander Democratic Party?

Well before Trump was even a Republican, here and other places in the natsec arena warned Germany ... hell ... begged Germany to step up.

She needed to take her place on the stage as a responsible partner in the security of Europe - a full partner in the West. We tried to tell her she needed to spend her fair share, to make the alliance stronger ... but she always seemed to want to do just the bare minimum ... and then less.

We were concerned about her weakness, but more we were concerned that she was allowing herself to get too close to Russia, too dependent on Russia ... but her Smartest People in the Room™ convinced their people they knew what was best.

They sneered at the unsophisticated Americans and their complaints. 

Then Trump came along and then they laughed at the very idea that they had anything to worry about. Say what you want about him and his exceptional national security team, but they were right.

That critique was long standing, but other previous  administrations of both parties refused to call Germany on their shortfalls.

Here we are 4-yrs after the laughing German UN delegation ... and with the Russian invasion of Ukraine, now Chancellor Olaf Scholz seems to be going Salamander;

...the condition of our Bundeswehr and civilian defense structures, but also our excessive dependence on Russian energy suggest that we felt a false sense of security after the end of the Cold War. Politics, business and large parts of our society were only too happy to draw far-reaching consequences from the dictum of a former German defense minister, according to which Germany was only surrounded by friends. That was a mistake.

Good. A nice step ... now follow it up.

More help to Ukraine, Poland, the frontline states of NATO who - though smaller and poorer than Germany - are punching way above their weight compared to Germany.

If you really want to keep the Russians at bay, then they have to be defeated in Ukraine. Germany and the West did not pick this moment, but the moment is here.

Good step by Germany. While I have understandable concerns about Germany and France's desire to co-opt the EU towards something it should not be, that is a struggle for another day. In any event, I think especially the Central Europeans and Baltic republics will thwart any effort there down the road. 

Anyway. More.

Getting Our Head Around German National Solipsism

Over at The Tablet, Jeremy Stern has a real meaty article on “our” German problem. I lived in and around Germans for years and still try to get a grasp on what they want and why. As you would expect being that Germans contribute more to America’s DNA than any other group, there is a familiarity to Germans and Germany … but that only get you so far until you find yourself in an “uncanny valley” where you realize that you are not quite in sync with those around you. They are not us, and likewise…and that should be fine and good for everyone.

America’s view of their relationship with Germany and what we think Germany’s relationship with Russia should be is just that – America’s view. People and nations have agency, and what “we” think makes sense for them to do – all clear and logical – may not be what they think makes sense for them to do. It is this paradox that Stern appears to be trying to get his head around. 

…the crimes of national solipsism and wishful self-contradiction remain as German as ever. See, for example, the performance of Chancellor Olaf Scholz over the last two weeks, during which he helped lead a pledge for Ukraine’s candidate status as a future member of the European Union, then dispatched his foreign policy adviser to clarify that Ukraine shouldn’t expect EU membership “just because you’re attacked,” then made an obviously unrealistic demand for more German voting weight in the European Council and greater representation in the European Parliament as a condition of Ukrainian membership. In other words, Germany supports Ukrainian accession to the EU, and the reason it probably won’t happen is that Germany will block it—a by-now familiar maneuver that has left many of the states stuck between Germany and Russia rubbing their eyes in disbelief.

When Germans want something to happen, it happens fast and is done well. When they don’t want something to happen, the reaction is equally stark. When they are wallowing in self-doubt, like we have seen with the slow rolling of promised support to Ukraine and self-contradictory statements – that is a signal that the Germans are in a quandary between what they want to do and what they want to be. There are Germans who want their nation to be more involved as the Czechs are, but they are not the Germans in power.

It is more than the fact that Germany is being led by the SDP. We’ve already covered the SDP’s compromised leadership with regard to the Soviets and now Russians – if you are not up to speed then do a bit of reading on the topic. Even though a war wages just a few hours east of Berlin, as we often see here as well, the left has old habits and beliefs it cannot let go of.

Under Merkel, the previous CDU/CSU/SDP coalition government was more Russophilic than the center of the German center-right – and now it is firmly in the left. 

Scholz still refuses to say whether he would like Ukraine to win the war, and frequently calls for a “cease-fire” rather than a Russian withdrawal.

There is, moreover, an undeniable Sprockets-like undertone to these policy gyrations, as difficult as they can be to follow day-to-day or month-to-month. On the same day that the strategic Lyman railway hub fell to Russian forces, Scholz tweeted airily from a convention of Catholic pacifists (who were apparently debating whether Jesus was trans), “Can violence be fought with violence? Can you only create peace without weapons?” Indeed, Herr Chancellor.

Don’t forget, Scholz was – not making this up – part of the group of SDP youth in the 80s who danced with their GDR counterparts and played the useful idiots protesting NATO etc. I know these guys; I couldn’t stand them in the 80s and my opinion has not changed that much since.

Even though there are philosophical reasons for their externalized self-loathing, make no mistake, they are very much capitalists. Schroder’s millions for being a toy of Putin is just one example, but there is big money to be made in the east – a common theme for all of Germany history.

There is no sense in pretending that Putin could never afford a gas embargo, German officials have come to believe, given the experience of sanctions. After the imposition of Western sanctions in March, Russian exports increased by 8% in April. The explosion in the value of Russian commodity exports means Putin’s current account surplus this year may double from last year, making the loss of his foreign exchange assets irrelevant. The West’s arrogant miscalculation about the size and importance of Russia’s economy contributed directly to ruinous dynamics that routinely convulse Western democracies: spiraling inflation, cost of living crises, a looming rise in immigration and refugee flows as supplies continue to fall. The consequences of the anti-Russia sanctions have been worse, Germans argue, than if we had imposed no sanctions at all.

While Olaf Scholz may have multiple fraud scandals in his past and all the political charisma of a former mayor of Hamburg, a more credible explanation for the gap between German rhetoric and policy with regard to Ukraine is that Berlin simply believes Moscow was right—right that the sanctions regime was doomed to fail, that Western financial and military support for Ukraine is unsustainable, that trans-Atlantic unity will fray, and that Russia will eventually win, no matter what kinds of weapons Germany provides or where it buys its gas. If Germany has a “special responsibility” to “remember history,” many German officials believe, it probably shouldn’t risk an economic catastrophe for the sake of the Donbas.

Never underestimate the ability of money to steer nations away from the right thing. This is a German problem. The Poles, Lithuanians, Latvians, and Estonians have even more reasons to use the excuses the Germans are using, but they are not. Though I do not accept this excuse, some do – it has to do with WWII;

The first thing Americans tend to forget about the war and the occupation period is that Germans experienced it very differently than Americans did. When Franklin Roosevelt announced a war policy of “unconditional surrender” in Casablanca in 1943, various U.S. officials opposed it for a number of reasons—but whatever its efficacy, there’s no doubt about how the policy was implemented. Allied strategic bombing campaigns killed approximately 400,000 civilians in Germany, wounded 800,000 more, and rendered 7.5 million homeless. The bombing of Hamburg killed 37,000 people in one week; the firebombing of Dresden killed 25,000 people in three days. Civilians, of course, were not collateral damage, but often deliberate targets of the Allied air raids.

Stern goes in to more details, but yes – this is always in the background and feeds a subtle anti-Americanism amongst Germans that everyone encounters. It is understandable from an objective point of view. Not a majority opinion I don’t think, but not insignificant.

The way the Cold War ended suggests the democracy promotion myth was both effective and justified. From a distance of 75 years, it is also clear how it warped and in some cases deranged Americans’ understanding of a defining moment in their own history. Four generations of Americans have now grown up under the assumption that a primary legacy of “The Good War” is that the United States brought freedom and democracy to people and places where it had never existed before. In the case of Germany (among others) this isn’t exactly true—Germany before 1913 had a parliament, freedom of the press, and intellectual freedom, in some cases more robust than in the United States at the time.

In reality, the eventual West German growth miracle owed more to German corporatist economic principles, and to the establishment of the European Coal and Steel Community, than it did to any free-market values introduced by the United States. It would likewise take a special kind of self-deception to mistake Germany’s greatest postwar achievement—one of the world’s most effective and admirable welfare states, which harks back to Bismarck’s social bargain with the German labor parties—for a postwar American import. Yet it was the example of “democracy promotion” in Germany (and also Japan) that U.S. politicians and statesmen repeatedly invoked in their later misadventures, from Vietnam to Afghanistan and Iraq.

Though in part this seems not to be germane to Ukraine, I think it is. Americans see the world through our experience and tend to forget the experience of others. Yes, America and Germany are both free nations in the West, but we see the responsibilities and possibilities of being in that club differently. 

Today, the United States is once again putting itself at the center of someone else’s story—invoking Lend Lease and the Marshall Plan and the Berlin airlift to conjure the happy ending we’ve already determined is required of the Ukrainian nightmare. Rather than aim for a “dirty, contemptible compromise,” Washington has—rightly or wrongly—made support for an unconditional Ukrainian victory a litmus test for the American democratic ethos, even as American voters have started to lose whatever interest they had in helping the heroic Ukrainians. Convinced of their own centrality to the drama, U.S. leaders can’t or won’t understand that many U.S. allies can’t and won’t stake their futures on whatever the American position happens to be at any particular moment—because according to the internal logic of American partisan warfare, that position will be reversed every few years.

No one fears and loathes this toxic U.S. political dynamic more than our allies in Berlin. For them, Donetsk and Luhansk are simply not worth a Lehman-style contagion in Germany’s energy sector. Neither, for that matter, is Odessa, or Kyiv, or Transnistria, or the Suwalki Gap. And why, they ask, should it be otherwise? There is “our relationship with Russia [in the] future” to consider, as Scholz’s foreign policy adviser reminded Germans last week after the chancellor’s trip to Kyiv. “That is at least as exciting and relevant an issue.”

Americans are entitled to wonder what all this means for Germany’s status as a member of the Western alliance. What we’re no longer entitled to is surprise.

America must do what it and like-minded nations feel they must do to support Ukraine, but we should stop asking Germany to do and be something that it is not. We should acknowledge that reality. By doing so, we may actually get more help out of her than if we stubbornly try to make her something she is not at this stage of the game.

She is trying to stay in the middle of the road by doing as little as possible to stay in good standing with her allies and friends, while not completely burning the bridge to business and cheap energy in Russia. The longer the Russo-Ukrainian War goes on, the thinner the supports of her position will grow. At some point she will have to pick a side.