German and Czech soldiers are carrying
out a military exercise In Lithuania. The potential enemy: Russia. Their mission: deterrence and a show
of strength on NATO’s eastern flank. We will deter the enemy with
all the means at our disposal. The world is growing less
secure and more confusing. A renewed arms race with nuclear and
conventional weapons is imminent. Existing alliances are crumbling. We need to be firm, we
need to be strong to deter any potential aggressor from
attacking us to preserve the peace. Germany and its neighbors could
again be caught in the middle between the superpowers. Russia is laying claim to territory and
for the first time since World War Two a country is taking that
territory by force. This is a potential threat
of the highest order. And anyone who opposes a rearmament
debate is not just naive. That’s incredibly dangerous. Can the German military, the
Bundeswehr, meet the new challenges? I do believe that the German military
is in a very dire and critical state. The number of ships that can’t sail,
the number of planes that can’t fly. Can the western alliance system
still guarantee security? What role does Germany play
in NATO and in the world? When NATO sounds the alarm,
the order reaches the 9th Armoured Demonstration Brigade
in Munster in northwestern Germany. This time the mail is about an exercise. But the entire apparatus responds
as it would in a genuine emergency. The brigade provides part of
the ground troops for NATO’s Very High Readiness Joint
Task Force, the VJTF. It was established in 2014 in response
to Russia’s annexation of Crimea. I’ve received the alarm
order, now I evaluate it. And then I decipher the letter
combinations in the order to find out which alarm measures have
actually been triggered. For that I consult the
Bundeswehr crisis response plan, so I can see which alarm measures are
behind the combinations of letters. I’ll check which measures are
important for the VJTF brigade and then I’ll inform the chief and
the brigade leadership accordingly. Rapid response units are central
to NATO‘s new threat scenarios. In this instance an emergency
situation that involves fighting off an enemy attack will be rehearsed
in a maneuver in Poland. Within three days at the most, 2,300 soldiers from three countries
have to be ready to move. All the strands come together here in
a high security area at headquarters. It’s a logistical challenge
to coordinate the troops from Germany, Norway, and The Netherlands. We have to establish
communication with the First German Armored Division and
the German-Netherlands Corps. I want the initial
results in 90 minutes. The clock is also ticking
for Major Marja Alm. Nothing unususal to
report in the area. Very good. The major heads a company
of around 250 soldiers. The biggest challenge for us is to
be ready to move within 48 hours. My soldiers have to load all the trucks, the trucks have to be
organized in convoys. My heavy vehicles have to be
prepared for rail transport. 48 hours is not a lot of time. Major Alm is an experienced
soldier who has served on foreign missions
in Mali and Kosovo. Now she has to ensure that
the command in Poland will have a fully
equipped workplace. Around 600 vehicles — including 70 tanks — are setting off from garrisons
around Germany to head for Poland. The rapid response force is more
important to NATO than ever. But today, at a time when Europe
again has to worry about security, how united are the
partners in the alliance? Washington, April 2019. NATO celebrated the 70th
anniversary of its founding. For seven decades the North Atlantic
Treaty Organization has used its deterrence capability to protect
peace, freedom and prosperity on both sides of the Atlantic. A day before the ceremony, the west’s leading defense and foreign
policy officials gathered at a meeting. It was supposed to be a celebration of 70
years of NATO and transatlantic relations. But then, US Vice President Mike Pence
took to the podium to issue a rebuke. More of our allies are now
meeting their commitments. But still too many others
are falling short. And as we all acknowledge,
Germany is chief among them. Germany is Europe’s largest
and healthiest economy. It’s a leading global exporter
and it’s benefited from US protection of Europe
for generations. Germany must do more. A not-so diplomatic attack on the
alliance partner that has not invested the agreed two percent
of its GDP in defense. The German foreign minister had to try
to explain why his wealthy country wasn’t prepared to spend
more on European security. I know that our budgetary
process is sometimes difficult for outsiders to understand, and
believe me not just for them. However, we made a firm commitment
to invest more money in defense. And we intend to keep our word. We in Europe know that we cannot
take our security for granted. A rather modest show of strength
from the foreign minister. Heiko Maas left the meeting by the
back door to avoid unwanted questions. A fitting image of Germany’s
appearance at the NATO summit. Germany has already promised
its allies at three summits to raise military
spending as agreed. The Defense Ministry would
like to see a hefty rise — to 54.7 billion euros a year. But the Finance Ministry
has other plans. It even wants spending to drop in
the coming years — to 44.2 Billion. That corresponds to
1.23 percent of GDP— so even further below
NATO’s two percent target. Julianne Smith was a security advisor
in the Obama administration, and is a prominent expert on
German-American relations. I do think the NATO alliance
has a Germany problem because now one of its largest allies
is unwilling or unable to meet a commitment that essentially
all allies made in 2014. This is not a situation where
the Trump administration is fired up and frustrated
with the German government. We're now facing a situation where
Democrats and Republicans alike are quite critical of Berlin and
its failure to meet that target. I understand that almost all politicians
would like to spend money on something else than defense — on health, on education, on infrastructure. At the same time, we expect
Germany to invest more in defense because we all promised
to do so back in 2014. But Germany’s governing coalition of
conservatives and Social Democrats has a different take on the numbers: they say Germany has invested more than
30 billion euros in NATO since 2014, provided the second largest
contingent of troops in Afghanistan, and taken part in many
missions around the world. The Social Democrats in particular oppose
a sudden rise in the defense budget. Foreign and defense policy
expert Rolf Mützenich explains. We provide suitable personnel to NATO. We try to coordinate with our alliance
partners and are guided by quality. And back when the German government
accepted this two-percent target, we in Parliament said,
‘Ultimately we — the lawmakers — are the ones who will decide what
will be in the annual budget.’ Carlo Masala, a professor at the
Bundeswehr University in Munich, advises the government
on security issues. He says economizing on military
spending would be disastrous. It’s not just grossly naive,
it’s negligent and risky. Here in Europe we are currently
in a situation where the Russian Federation with its
armament efforts has an advantage in strategic escalation that we
currently can’t compete with. Vladimir Putin’s Russia has changed the
world in terms of security policy. When the Cold War ended,
it seemed unthinkable, but the world is now once again
in the middle of an arms race. And Putin has been testng the
limits of the NATO alliance with the conflict in eastern Ukraine,
the Russian annexation of Crimea. Russia on the other hand feels provoked
by NATO‘s eastern enlargement plans. In April 2016, over the Baltic Sea,
130 kilometers from Kaliningrad. Two Russian fighter jets carried out
20 mock attacks on a US warship. And the number of
provocations is increasing. There are threats that we have to address
or challenges we have to address in the North Atlantic with increased
Russian submarine activity and our lack of sensors up there
to understand what's going on. There's definitely a threat
stemming from Russia. NATO takes that threat very seriously. Its response has been, for
example, the exercise in Poland with the brigades from Germany,
Norway and the Netherlands. Four days after the raising
of the alarm in Munster, the VJTF rapid response troops are on
their way to the Noble Jump exercise. The more than 2,300 soldiers are being
trained to ensure Europe’s security — under German leadership. Noble Jump is basically all about
NATO‘s rapid response troop. The task is deterrence
through a show of strength. But if, at the end of the day, that
doesn’t help we have to clearly show that we are in a position to defend
the territory of the alliance — and if necessary to restore the
territorial integrity of NATO. It’s just after 4 o‘clock in the morning. The 9th armored demonstration
brigade positions itself. Helge Timm commands
a Leopard 2 tank. It weighs 64 tons and has a
1,500 horsepower engine. We’re here on a Leopard 2 battle tank. We have crew of four men. This is my driver. He steers according to my orders. The gunner is responsible
for the exchange of fire. And the loader is responsible for
all the weapons on the tank — including the machine guns. I’m the commander — I
coordinate everything. Final preparations for the maneuver. Helge Timm and his crew
take up battle position. Okay, sight gunner, swing
the tower to the right. You’ve got woods on the right. Do you recognize. Okay, swing more
to the left. Right there you can see the
observation center of the platoon. The mission here is
to retake a village. Even though no one wants
to say it openly, the rapid response troop is
supposed to deter Russia. Today the enemy only consists of
dummies and decommissioned tanks. Here on our left my
platoon is in position. Next to them is another
platoon in position. Further ahead in the left-hand section there’s also a Norwegian
company in position. They are all ready and waiting
for the shooting to start. Backward march! Helge Timm’s tank platoon is
one of NATO’s elite units. It is a fully-equipped brigade — which makes it quite an
exception in the Bundeswehr. By 2031 the military is supposed to
have eight fully equpped brigades. But at the moment not a single one
is 100 percent ready for action. Even the VJTF troops had to borrow
material from all over Germany. Everyone has realized that the way
the system functions at the moment, that we had to bring material
from throughout the Bundeswehr to Munster or other places
to fulfill our mission, that that is not an
acceptable state of affairs. This is not about buildup
but adequate equipment. Those eight brigades have to
be fully equipped so that they can be just as ready for
action as this brigade is. Fully equipping them will be costly, but Germany has made a
binding commitment to NATO. The army estimates that
the price for a single brigade will amount to five billion euros. But in recent years, there has been practically no
investment in material and equipment. And even with a lot of money it
will be hard to quickly rebuild all the structures that have
been dismantled over the years. Last projectile There are systems in the Bundeswehr
that are older than I am — and we still have the problem that when
we are deployed in major NATO exercises, we can meet our obligations, but it comes at the expense of
operations and exercises back home. We no longer invested in large stockages
of replacement parts nor of ammunition. And now to fill up and
modernize everthing in the existing structures
will take until 2031. We will definitely need that many
years to get to the point where we can meet NATO
and EU demands. Sometimes even a piece
of fencing can stop 60 tons of military
high-tech in its tracks. Tank commaner Helge Timm is
not happy with the situation! Go in there, turn the motor on, give a signal to the front and
then drive backwards a bit. Time is pressing. The tank crew has to get the vehicle back
into position for the NATO exercise. The scenario that is being rehearsed
here is chillingly realistic: The task of lIberating a village symbolizes
the fear of an invasion by enemy troops. Right here. In Poland. In Europe. After five hours the maneuver is
completed for Helge Timm and his crew. The commander is 32, his
comrades are under 30. The Cold War is something they
only know from history books. When I joined up, the Bundeswehr was
already involved in missions abroad. But now the threat is different. We see here that a completely
battle-ready brigade has been formed to engage in high-intensity
combat, if necessary. The idea of defending the
alliance and their country is no longer entirely theoretical. Three-quarters of a century
after the end of World War II that has become an imaginable
scenario for German soldiers. I have been a soldier for 35 years. I saw the Wall fall, I saw
Europe being reunited. I experienced Islamist terrorists
occupying half the Middle East. So at the end of the day
one thing counts for me: It doesn’t matter who you’re against. At the end of the day there’s only one
thing that is lasting and forward-looking, and that’s what you’re for. And we are for peace and freedom. Full stop. Peace and freedom were the
goals in the late 1980s when the US and the Soviet Union
agreed to ban their land-based intermediate-range nuclear missiles. US President Ronald Reagan and Soviet
leader Mikhail Gorbachev signed the INF treaty in December
1987 in Washington. After decades of Cold War, it was a milestone in ending the
arms race between the superpowers. In 2019, after accusing Russia
of violating the treaty, the US formally pulled out of the INF. And the New START, a 2010 nuclear arms
reduction treaty between the US and Russia, may not be extended when
it expires in 2021. Does this herald a new
nuclear arms race? The INF Treaty can’t
be saved because neither of the parties to the agreement
are still interested in saving it. The United States would only want
to rescue it if it is globalized — meaning if China, India,
and Pakistan join. The Chinese have already made it clear
that they see no reason to join it, and the Russians have violated it. In early 2019 Russia publicly
unveiled its SSC-8 nuclear missile. The ground-launched cruise missile
is claimed by US Intelligence to have a range of
over 2,300 kilometers— which puts it in violation
of the INF Treaty. The agreement bans the development and
possession of ground-based missiles with a range of over
500 kilometers. For me it’s also a question
of security for Germany: an end to the Treaty would mean that
we again enter a threat mechanism, that nuclear medium-range
weapons will again threaten areas extending to us
in western Europe. And that has to be
urgently prevented. It’s a crucial test for Europe. For some years, Poland has been
calling for nuclear weapons — if necessary going it
alone with the US. Romania has invested billions of
euros in US missile defense systems to protect it from a
potential Russian threat. Is Putin deliberately exploiting
the current power vacuum and NATO’s weakness to
redefine his own role? He's definitely fanning the flames
in Central and Eastern Europe. So it's not that I lie awake
at night and worry about some sort of conventional
military escalation with Russia. I think that's always a possibility. But that's not what worries me the most. What worries me the most is, his
efforts to divide us and undermine our values and our institutions
that we've spent 70 years building and he's succeeding on that front. Russia is trying to destabilize the
alliance and western democracies. It influences elections and
referendums, launches cyber attacks, and wants to bind individual NATO
partners to it more closely. Does Putin see the end
of the INF Treaty as a way of driving a further
wedge between NATO partners? What is the aim of Russia’s
foreign and defense policy? For years, journalist Alexander Golz
has been observing and analysing the Russian military apparatus
and Kremlin policy. He too finds Putin’s
motivation puzzling. Don't ask me about logical
argumentation for these reasons because this argumentation
doesn't exist. But in Putin's mind and within
the Kremlin's approach, NATO is planning aggression. You can name it paranoia. God knows. Moscow sees itself as a victor of the military
conflicts in Syria and eastern Uraine. The annexation of Crimea also
set a dangerous precedent. Take what you want — you don’t
have to fear consequences. Russia is a purely militaristic state. One of the main features
of a military state is that the state gives a
military answer to any challenge. I think Mr. Putin as well as Mr. Trump are very inspired by the idea to possess this overwhelming force,
this overwhelming nuclear might. If I have this, I can do everything I want. Mediators are urgently needed. German chancellor Angela
Merkel could take on the role. But she is caught in the middle. In Germany there is opposition
to sanctions against Russia while the US is calling for
Berlin to take a tougher stance. Germany can play the role of a negotiator, but we should keep in mind that
according to Mr. Putin’s mentality, Germany is not a
self-confident player. And indeed the governing
coalition has been sending out contradictory messages on
foreign and security policy. What should Germany’s
relationship with Russia be? A partnership? Or a stronger rejection of
the Kremlin’s provocations? We discussed this in
the defense committee before the parliamentary
summer break. We have means of dialogue. We have points of contact between the
Bundeswehr and the Russian military. There are policy talks
on a ministerial level. The contacts are there, but we
also show clearly that we expect the Russian side to abide
by the Minsk II accords. In February 2015, the Minsk II
Accords were signed by leaders of Ukraine, Russia, France, Germany,
and Ukrainian separatists. The aim was to end
armed fighting. It failed to hold. And in the Baltic states, there is concern
about a possible new Ukraine scenario. The narrow corridor between
Poland and Lithuania with borders to the highly militarized
Russian enclave of Kaliningrad and Belarus is NATO’s Achilles heel. If the so-called Suwalki Gap
were to be occupied by Russia, it would cut off the Baltic
states from the rest of the EU. The defenses on Lithuania‘s
border with Belarus have been bolstered with
millions of euros of EU funding. They include 300 cameras along the
over 650 kilometer long border. Lithuanian border police Vadim Solovij
and Ilona Sabel are on patrol. Security on NATO’s outer
borders is a police matter. The military can only approach
within 5 kilometers of the border — so as not to further provoke
the neighboring country. We are seeing if are there border
violations, or signs of smuggling and also illegal immigrants, or
just people who don't know that there is a border and
are just coming here. This is an alarm because we are
close to the surveilance tower. I just mentioned that
they could turn it off. Now they are watching us No move goes unobserved. The two sides watch each
other suspiciously. Border security here is
also security for NATO. The military alliance is less
interested in smugglers and migrants than in provocateurs sent by the
Kremlin who might be entering to prepare or even trigger a conflict. Of course the system helps
in gathering information that could be of interest to our military. Especially when military exercises
take place in a neighboring state. That is definitely on the rise— more uniformed personnel on the
border, and technical innovations. As western frontline states
vis-à-vis their powerful neighbor, the Baltic countries followed
Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014 with a heightened sense of threat
compared to other European countries. Having experienced decades
of Soviet occupation, many Lithuanians have unpleasant
memories of the Cold War era. I served on a submarine
in Murmansk. I know their system. I know how they tick. They would take Ukraine,
Lithuania, everything that was part of the former Soviet Union. Their influence extends to Belarus, which
they can use for their military aims. They are stretching
out to Belarus and Belarus is a country that they can
use for their military advancement. We see what happened to the Ukraine
and we don't want any of that here. We’d rather have tractors than tanks,
to farm the land, to give us bread — to serve the people. Not these tanks. What are they good for? The NATO presence is vital for
us to survive, and actually if we didn't have NATO soldiers,
we would be vulnerable. In the capital Vilnius there is little to be seen
of the 1,000 NATO soldiers. But they are present in people’s minds. And their numbers are set to rise. We have already increased the
readiness of our forces, tripled the size of the
NATO Response Force. We are now implementing a
new readiness initiative. And Germany is part of that and this year is leading the
high readiness force of NATO. This reflects that we are now in a
totally different security environment than we were the years after
the end of the Cold War. But deterrence depends not only
on troops and military equipment but also on the enemy’s
belief that the alliance will stick together in an emergency. The current US President views
international organizations as superfluous at best. His advisors seem to have
difficulty preventing him from fundamentally questioning the Alliance. I would caution Germans against
assuming that it couldn’t happen. I think it could happen. And the fact that we recently
saw a newsbreak that certain members of the Pentagon and
the State Department were tasked with looking into the possibility of giving
Germany a bill for stationing US troops to me indicates that that is
a process that could lead to the United States at
least distancing itself. American troops during an
exercise in the Baltic. But how much longer
will they be there? If the worst comes to the worst would
the Americans withdraw from NATO? And would Europe then hold Berlin
responsible and not Washington? He is basically using
Germany as a whipping boy for the issue of the
burden sharing in NATO. If the US president says out loud that
the US is no longer interested in NATO, that the US will not stand by its
obligations under Article 5, then two parties are responsible — the United States and the
Federal Republic of Germany. Article 5 of the NATO treaty
commits members to consider an armed attack against one member
state to be an attack on all of them. Donald Trump has awakened doubts about
his solidarity with the alliance. And Russia is trying to
divide NATO still further. Turkey orients itself towards Moscow,
and has made an arms deal with Russia. Italy’s government has been flirting
with the west’s greatest rival, China. The giant country doesn’t
need an alliance — China plays its own game. And China sees its
autocratic political model as a blueprint for the
world of tomorrow. The masterplan by the leadership
in Beijing aims to make China the first modern socialist
global power by 2050. China’s New Silk Road project is designed
to revive the ancient trade routes across Central Asia and the
Middle East to Europe. It’s the biggest infrastructure
investment program of all time, including high-speed railway lines, deep-water ports, gigantic tunnel and bridge projects, oil and gas pipelines, electricity
grids, and European harbors — from Greece to Italy to Germany. We must further facilitate and
liberalise trade and investments and reject protectionism outright. China checks all the boxes. I mean obviously there we have military
and security concerns about China. But we also have concerns about
the political model that China is putting forward as an
alternative to what the West has put its faith in for
many many many decades. Economic policy is
also military policy. With the exception of the US, no country in
the world spends as much on arms as China. In 2018 it amounted to
some 142 billion euros. Our military must regard combat
capability as the criterion to meet in all its work and focus on how
to win when it is called on. We will take solid steps to ensure military
preparedness for all strategic directions and make progress in combat
readiness in both traditional and new security fields. The Chinese president said very
clearly at the 19th Party Congress that he wants a world-class military. He doesn’t need a world-class
military if it’s just about Asia, if it’s just about defending
Chinese territory. He needs a world-class military
if the scenario is a possible military escalation
with the United States. China has gone on the offensive. And is flexing its muscle. This martial footage is
part of a promotional video from a Chinese arms manufacturer. It could almost have
been shot in Hollywood. The message is clear: we are big, we are powerful,
we take what we want. Taiwan is a primary focus
of China’s power play. The Chinese leadership wants reunification
with what it sees as a breakaway province. And it’s willing to take on Taiwan’s
protective power, the United States. Now we’re seeing the same
problem with Taiwan that we discussed in reference
to the Baltic states. Look at China — an 800 pound gorilla in Asia — and this tiny little bird—
territorially speaking — that is Taiwan. What is the likelihood that the
United States would go to war with China with the potential
of a nuclear escalation to prevent this little bird from
being taken by an 800 pound gorilla? Very unlikely. So Taiwan could become one of the big
conflicts in Asia in the future. Few experts doubt that
China will try to pursue its plans for reunification with Taiwan. Beijing has not ruled out using
military force to achieve that aim. And China is an increasing threat to the
western alliance in other areas as well. Military aspects are becoming increasingly
important in cyber technology. How great is the
danger for Germany? I think it is clear that China not only
intends to become an economic world power. And of course we are concerned
about this development. In the area of digitalization, we have the question of which
Chinese companies we should allow to build up our infrastructure. I think there’s a lot of
sensitivity on the European and German side when it comes
to dealings with China The US warns of Chinese
companies like Huawei and ZTE. They say their technology can be
used by Beijing for espionage. And in fact the Chinese
government can force companies to take part in espionage operations
and sabotage European networks. The threat in cyberspace: it’s not primarily a
classical military threat, but it is a threat to our critical
infrastructure, as we call it. It’s a threat to everyone in that we
are all exposed to hacker attacks without actually knowing where
the attacks are coming from. It was consequential and challenging in
ways that are hard to imagine today. The Cold War had a whole
host of challenges. But we had essentially
kind of one adversary and we were looking at it through
the lens of state to state conflict and through a conventional military lens. Now we’ve taken that and
we’ve blossomed it. What worries me is that we’re still
operating in government structures and in institutions that were
designed for a very different era. Is NATO ready to meet
the new challenges? Does the western alliance system
still guarantee security? The 70 year old foundation of foreign
policy on both sides of the Atlantic is showing more and more cracks. The one-time promise of shared
values has been watered down. Europe’s governments are trying to
find the least common denominator. We have to make it clear
in the alliance that we have an interest in
approaching Russia, and China with the support
of the US to say, ‘The world will be a safer
place if we agree on a new, comparable arms control system.’ For that we need to have
the US as a partner. As Europeans, we see ourselves as part of
NATO, as part of the western alliance, but as Europeans we also want to make a
stronger contribution to this alliance. To remain transatlantic,
but become more European. But how would that work in practice? French president Emmanuel Macron
dreams of a European army under French-German leadership. Could such a European Army fill the
power vacuum that would result if the US pulled out of NATO? At the moment the EU is — politically and militarily — a small entity on US life support. If Europe starts to go it alone it
will divide Europe from North America. But it will also divide Europe. So to go alone is not good for United
States is not good for Europe. Two world wars, the Cold War,
the fight against terrorism have taught us that we
need to stand together. Honestly, I can’t imagine Europe being
able to guarantee its own security in the forseeable future. We need the US. And when I look around the world,
I can’t see any power that is as close to us culturally and
economically as the United States. That’s why I think it is good
for us to hold on to it. But the fact that we sometimes
wrangle with the Americans, that we sometimes have
different points of view, means that the Europeans
have to get more involved and make a more effective contribution. Only then can we have a say. The new threats don’t permit
Europe to go it alone. NATO is being forced to stick together,
as shown by the rapid reaction force. Tank Commander Helge Timm’s
working day is coming to an end. He and his crew have been involved in
this exercise for several weeks now. But they’re not necessarily
expecting an emergency. Of course shooting
exercises are different, because the cardboard
targets don’t shoot back. But I know my training was so good
that if I were facing a real tank, I’d react just as well. It’s still an exercise. But the world has become more confusing. The old structures are fading. Germany will have to invest more — and not just financially. To be a reliable partner Germany
will have to take responsibility and send soldiers on combat missions. The tasks are growing larger
and beoming more dangerous.
