Remilitarized Germany: Troops And Arms “Encompass Entire Globe”

Stars and Stripes
January 6, 2012

Decades of German pacifism yield to bigger military role

====

BERLIN: When Chancellor Angela Merkel hosted a recent reception for military families, she greeted parents, wives and children whose loved ones were spending their holidays in Afghanistan, Lebanon, Kosovo and off the Horn of Africa. German deployments overseas, Ms. Merkel said, “will soon encompass the entire globe.”

New York Times
January 5, 2013

====

German snipers in NATO’s International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan

BERLIN: Germany’s military business is the world’s third-biggest arms exporter behind the United States and Russia, and the European nation is gearing up to increase the number of troops deployed around the world, The New York Times reported.

Already, German troops are deployed to countries including Afghanistan, Lebanon, Kosovo and off the Horn of Africa.

Germany is sending weapons not only to NATO members and allies like Israel, the Times reported, but increasingly to the Middle East and other parts of the globe.

Recently, members of Parliament debated whether to add to the nearly 6,000 war across the border in Syria [other troops in Afghanistan, the Balkans and elsewhere?], the Times reported, by sending up to 400 soldiers to Turkey, where NATO forces would operate two Patriot missile batteries to help protect from a potential escalation of the civil war in Syria.

“For decades, we Germans have benefited from the fact that our partners gave us the feeling of reliable security,” the Times quoted Thomas de Maizière, Germany’s defense minister, as saying during a parliamentary debate last month. “Now we are in a position and have the duty, even, to make our impact felt.”