In an interview, the Inspector General of the Bundeswehr, Carsten Breuer, warns remarkably directly about a possible “defensive war” in Germany. And in front of Vladimir Putin.
Berlin – Federal Defense Minister Boris Pistorius (SPD) recently spoke publicly about the need for the Bundeswehr to become “war-ready,” which earned him some criticism. Germany’s highest-ranking soldier went one step further in an interview and spoke of the possibility that “we may one day have to wage a defensive war and no longer have the choice whether we want to take part in an operation far away.”
Carsten Breuer: Inspector General of the Bundeswehr speaks of “defensive war”
Society in the Federal Republic needs to get used to this idea, explained Bundeswehr Inspector General Carsten Breuer in an interview with the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ). But that’s not all: the general of the German army warned against the background of the Ukraine war urgently Moscow-Ruler Vladimir Putin.
“That Russia is currently building up, and how Putin is positioning himself worries me. It should concern us all, but most importantly we need to turn those concerns into action now. “We have to become aware of how we can deal with this lasting threat,” Breuer told the daily newspaper: “In the next few years we will not be able to go back to where we were before 2022.”
Because of the threat from Putin’s Russia: Bundeswehr general calls for deterrence
Civil society and the Bundeswehr must “prepare for advances in technology and for even more intensified hybrid warfare. The first step is to become aware of the threat. Not only we soldiers, but society as a whole must recognize the need for even more consistent deterrence,” he explained.
Warworthiness means “thinking in all areas about how to create a defense and deterrent capability. For decades, civil-military cooperation has always been thought of as a one-way street,” said the Inspector General in the FAZ: “When there was an emergency, in a catastrophe or during a pandemic, the Bundeswehr had to move in. That’s okay too. But now we are experiencing the opposite: now we need support from society.”
We must first get used to the idea that we may one day have to wage a defensive war.
The Bundeswehr has recently increased its cooperation with the British Army; several German Eurofighters are stationed on NATO’s eastern flank in Romania for airspace surveillance – directly on the Black Sea. “We should be afraid that Russia will win this war, that Putin will win this war. Because then we will be faced with a completely new security situation in Germany,” Defense Minister Pistorius said on ZDF’s “heute journal” on December 5th. He and Breuer are not the only admonishers.
Vladimir Putin’s Russia: Expert warns of Kremlin autocrat’s imperialism
Dr. Christian Mölling from the German Society for Foreign Policy (DGAP) strongly advised the West to equip the Ukrainians with the conditions for a new offensive in 2024. Otherwise, hesitation could have devastating consequences for Europe in a few years – including for Germany.
“It has to be said relatively clearly that we will probably face the consequences of not helping Ukraine and thus continuing to endanger our own security in five or six years,” explained security policy expert Mölling on November 26th ZDF: “Then it’s not about a nuclear escalation against Kiev, but about a nuclear escalation that may put Berlin at the center.” (pm)