High-ranking Bundeswehr officers have been intercepted in a confidential communication about a possible delivery of Taurus cruise missiles from Russia. How can that be? And what’s next?
1. Did the Chancellor tell an untruth?
It depends on who you ask and in what context you view the wiretapping case. Even before that, Chancellor Olaf Scholz was accused of telling “obviously untruths”. Theme: Taurus. The Green MP Anton Hofreiter considers Scholz’s representation that Bundeswehr soldiers are needed to operate the Taurus cruise missile to be “obviously wrong”.
However, Scholz seems to be less concerned with the question of usability than with the – in his eyes – problematic target control of the long-range weapon system. The Chancellor apparently does not want to give this up completely, which is why he considers the involvement of German armed forces necessary.
In the confidential telephone conference between high-ranking Bundeswehr officers, which the Russian state broadcaster RT made public on Friday, it was also discussed that the British had “a few people on site” to use their Storm Shadow cruise missiles delivered to Ukraine. Just a few days earlier, Chancellor Scholz had justified his “no” to the Taurus delivery by saying, among other things, that “what the British and French are doing in terms of targeting and accompanying targeting” cannot be done in Germany. Scholz’s suggestion was strongly denied by London, but it underlines his stance that Germany should “in no way and in no place be linked to the goals that this system achieves.”
The temporal coincidence gives rise to speculation, as is currently the case in the eavesdropping affair. Defense Minister Boris Pistorius warns that one should “not fall for Putin” and calls the wiretapping case “part of the information war” that the Russian President is also waging against Germany. Although the Bundeswehr officers do not explicitly oppose Scholz’s argument in the recording, experts assume that the Taurus could also be controlled in a targeted manner without German involvement.
2. How did the leak come about?
This will now be “clarified very carefully, very intensively and very quickly,” promised Chancellor Scholz in Rome on the sidelines of his visit to the Vatican. The Military Counterintelligence Service (MAD) has started an investigation.
The telephone conference of the Bundeswehr officers was held via the encrypted conference tool WebEx (see next point). However, a participant is said to have connected via telephone from his hotel room in Singapore – this could possibly have broken the encryption. Spies could then have recorded the communication, for example, by gaining access to the hotel’s WiFi router.
According to “Spiegel” information, the military intelligence service MAD is investigating whether another, unknown person could have joined the conversation. “There are indications that an insufficiently secure means of communication was used in view of the content that was obviously discussed,” a spokeswoman for the Ministry of Defense told the “Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung”. Clarifying this is “the subject of the investigation”. Another possibility would be that the subscriber was wiretapped in Singapore.
3. How widespread is the WebEx conference tool?
Air Force Inspector Gerhartz and the three other officers are said to have had the conversation via the WebEx platform of the US provider Cisco – although the Ministry of Defense has not yet confirmed this. That wouldn’t be surprising: Since the Corona pandemic, the video telephony platform has been part of the standard repertoire in ministries, the government and also the Bundeswehr.
“During the pandemic, we got into the habit of discussing sensitive things via video calls,” said cybersecurity expert Thomas Rid to “Spiegel”. “This affects everyone, including employees of authorities, intelligence services and the armed forces.” In the Bundeswehr, WebEx is approved up to the classification level “classified information – for official use only”.
WebEx offers the possibility of end-to-end encrypted communication. This means: The content is encrypted on the device and only decrypted again on the other device. Even the provider itself cannot decrypt this content.
4. Who is responsible for the mess?
The leak affects Defense Minister Pistorius’ area. And Scholz’s people are trying to place responsibility exactly there. The ministry is “in the lead,” it is said, and Pistorius in particular must now clear up the matter.
He stepped up his communication gear at the weekend, stood in front of the cameras in his house, outlined quite clearly in a few minutes what he intended to do next, and initially rejected personnel consequences in order not to do Putin any favors. The message: I’m taking the matter seriously and standing up to my generals.
In fact, the case may be more unpleasant for Scholz than for Pistorius because it is emblematic of the Chancellor’s many current problems. He is at odds with France on the question of what should happen next in Ukraine. His Taurus decision is also causing unrest in his own party. Allies are angry with him because he publicly pointed out how the British and French handle training on their cruise missiles. When it comes to security policy, Scholz has his back to the wall, less so the defense minister.
5. And what happens next?
The Military Counterintelligence Service (MAD) is investigating. Defense Minister Pistorius said on Sunday that he expected initial findings on the matter in the next few days. Among other things, the question is whether there are further leaks. The federal government says that at the moment there is no information about any further leaks.
The other question is about the consequences. Only when you know whether safety regulations have been violated can you make a decision, says Pistorius.
The chairman of the Bundestag’s intelligence control committee, Konstantin von Notz (Greens), is clear that there must be consequences from the incident: “We need a real turning point – also and especially with a view to the self-protection of all security-relevant communications from our security authorities and constitutional bodies.”
Opposition politicians are also bringing up a possible committee of inquiry. The Chancellor must explain himself to the Bundestag, demanded CSU regional group leader Alexander Dobrindt. He told “Spiegel”: “In this situation, a committee of inquiry cannot be ruled out.”