SPIEGEL ONLINE - September 15, 2006, 05:25 PM
URL: http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/spiegel/0,1518,437301,00.html
German Military
Topping up the Arms Budget, Behind Voters' Backs
By Alexander Szandar
Increasing Germany's military budget will be hard to sell to voters. But with German troops involved in a growing number of operations abroad, extra money is needed. What to do? There's always the option of topping up the budget in roundabout ways.
 AP
Supply ships like the "Frankfurt am Main" have been to Indonesia, and now they're needed in the Middle East.
An annual reception held by the German parliament's Military Commissioner tends to be a run-of-the-mill affair in Berlin politics. Year after year, members of parliament, military officials and high-ranking members of the Advisory Council on Military Affairs meet over a few drinks. Military caterers provide a few meatballs, some bratwurst and beer.
But last Thursday the party felt more festive. For the first time in the 50-year history of the German military, or Bundeswehr, the head of state himself made an appearance. Federal President Horst Köhler came "to send a signal," as Military Commissioner Reinhold Robbe from the Social Democrat Party (SPD) put it.
Köhler delighted his audience by complaining about a widespread but "friendly lack of interest" in the German military. He said the government had done a miserable job of explaining Germany's most recent missions -- in Congo and Lebanon -- to the German people. The "reasons for missions abroad" have to be "carefully stated," and in a way that "the general population can understand them," the Köhler told his listeners.
The problems he addressed are real, and Germany's lack of interest in its own military is only aggravated by a recent need to spend more on it. Opposition to defense spending has risen with the need: About 64 percent of Germans are against increasing the military budget, which now hovers around €24 billion ($30 billion).
An increase in military expenditure is also out of the question for German Chancellor Angela Merkel, at least for now. No German leader relishes headlines about a "German Military Buildup."
More missions abroad
Still, Merkel understands that the Bundeswehr can't shoulder new missions indefinitely without an influx of cash. The peacekeeping mission to Lebanon has been cast in terms of a historic duty to protect Israel, and Germany, Merkel says, can't put off more world crises by begging, "No new conflicts please, we can't afford it." She adds that the defense budget "isn't sacrosanct" or untouchable, which seems to mean it might be increased. But Merkel also resists the German arms lobby by making clear she has no new military program "for the 2007-2008 budget."
But German Defense Minister Franz Josef Jung has reason to hope that he'll receive considerably more for 2008-2009. Politicians working on budget and military issues have started a discreet search for more cash, and they're doing it with Merkel's tacit approval.
The idea is not to formally increase the defense budget. Somewhat scurrilous demands from the back rows of the Christian Democrat Party (CDU) -- like paying for the German military's reconstruction work in Afghanistan with funds from the foreign aid budget -- also don't have much of a chance. But any tricks will reportedly be tolerated to hide the fact that German military coffers are fattening.
Even the Minister of Finance is a party to this game. Peer Steinbrück is willing to talk about indirect financial support for the military, as he told party allies from the Social Democrat Party (SPD). But Steinbrück named one condition: Defense Minister Jung and his military officials have to prove to him quickly that they have made use of every savings opportunity and that there is genuinely "no more air in the box."
Providing that proof shouldn't be difficult for Jung and his generals. For example, the budget sum allocated for military operations abroad next year is €640 million ($812 million) -- €30 million ($38 million) less than this year's total. But costs will almost certainly rise.
The new German mission in Lebanon alone -- involving frigates, speedboats and Tornado reconnaissance planes, which Jung has determined will take at least a year -- will cost a good €15 million a month ($19 million), according to preliminary estimates. That adds up to almost €200 million ($254 million) a year. Reducing troop numbers in Afghanistan or the Balkans won't be feasible, and an expansion of the Congo mission is possible.
All of which makes the air in the box pretty thin. So government strategists have come up with a few tricks for implementing their clandestine increase in defense spending.
A little here, a little there
Jung is still allowed to submit "expenses higher than planned" in 2006. He'll receive the extra money from the German government's budget for "general financial administration." That's what he'll do to cover for the German military's peacekeeping mission in Lebanon. In 2007, Steinbrück will tap the same budget again, bringing in millions for the mission in Lebanon. He can also claim "immediate need for operative reasons" in other places like Afghanistan. Jung will also get extra funds to cover rising wages and pensions and to compensate for an increase in sales tax starting January 1.
 DDP
German Chancellor Angela Merkel stands between Defense Minister Franz Josef Jung, left, and Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, as she announces plans for Germany's mission to Lebanon.
There's also an international business deal to be rescinded: According to an agreement reached in July, the construction of two Israeli submarines will be partly financed with funds from the German defense budget. Jung would have to contribute a good €300 million ($380 million). But now there's a plan to cover Berlin's share of the Israeli project with funds from the general budget, where it appears under the bureaucratic label "Specific Plan 60." So Jung can keep his millions and spend them for his own purposes.
People involved in this shifting of funds hope it will yield up to €2 billion ($2,5 billion) for the military.
Coincidence or not, that's almost exactly the sum that Jung's party ally Bernd Siebert has requested for an "investment program" -- to purchase, for example, lightly-armored vehicles to protect German troops in Afghanistan from attacks by the Taliban and by drug barons. And it just so happens that the military has come up with this very sum in calculating the cost of its "minimum need" for 3,500 "protected leading, specific-function and transport vehicles."
In this and in other cases, military officials aren't short on ideas for how to get extra millions. General Wolfgang Schneiderhan, the German Chief of Defense, and the commanders of the German army, air force and navy spent three hours presenting their financial concerns and shopping lists to the German Defense Minister on Tuesday last week.
Wish lists from the army, navy, and air force
Schneiderhan explained that in 2004 -- under Jung's Social Democrat predecessor, Peter Struck -- the defense budget was cut by about €26 billion ($33 billion). But since Struck's own hopes for extra funds didn't come true, more than €8 billion ($10 billion) for projected new purchases were already missing again the following year.
As expected, the German army's top officer, Lieutenant General Hans-Otto Budde, stressed that buying lightly-armored vehicles was the "priority." But he also requested body armor for snipers and even new tank bridges to ensure the "mobility" of active troops.
At no time during the meeting did air force commander Klaus-Peter Stieglitz signal any willingness to compromise on the plan for purchasing 180 expensive Eurofighter jet planes. He was all the more vehement in complaining that the growing costs associated with the "maintenance and use of materials" were forcing the air force to fly less and reduce pilot training hours -- a one-hour flight with a Tornado fighter jet now costs about €30,000 ($38,000). The reduction in training hours has a negative effect on "operational capacity," Stieglitz lamented. He also pointed out that there is a shortage of funds for new, unmanned reconnaissance planes badly needed by his troops.
Vice Admiral Wolfgang Nolting explained that the German navy is "on the edge." He pointed out that the supply ships "Berlin" and "Frankfurt am Main" are frequently needed -- for humanitarian aid after the tsunami in Indonesia, for example, or for the new peacekeeping mission in Lebanon -- and argued that the construction of a third ship of this type, originally projected for 2014, needs to be "rescheduled" for an earlier date.
The Defense Minister was amazed. Even if the backroom negotiations in Berlin scrape together the hoped-for millions, there won't be enough for all the generals' wish lists. What's more, new costs for more military operations are on the horizon.
Sending troops to Darfur, for example, is an adventure Merkel has shelved for as long as German soldiers are still busy in Congo. But as recently as Friday, actor George Clooney ratcheted up pressure for a Darfur mission at the UN by making the sort of humanitarian appeal that has kick-started most of Germany's missions since the Balkan conflict in 1998.
"We were brought up to believe that the UN was formed to ensure that the Holocaust could never happen again," Clooney said in New York. But if the world waits too long, "you won't need the UN (in Darfur). You will simply need men with shovels and bleached white linen and headstones. How you deal with it will be your legacy -- your Rwanda, your Cambodia, your Auschwitz."
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