Relations with the US: Merkel's answer reveals a central problem

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When the "International Military Studies Meeting" was founded in Munich in 1963, it was intended as a place where the German participants could meet their colleagues from NATO - especially those from the United States.

It was a transatlantic family reunion in a small group of a few dozen politicians, diplomats and military.

Seen in this light, this year's pandemic edition of the event renamed the Munich Security Conference and transformed into a major international event was a return to the roots.

Instead of several hundred participants who otherwise jostle for three days at the Hotel Bayerischer Hof, only a few heads of state and government came together for a virtual conference due to the corona.

And the focus was on the traditional theme: the transatlantic relationship.

It was no surprise that Joe Biden, the first incumbent US President in 58 years, took part in this unusual format: Biden is a regular guest in Munich, attended the conference for the first time almost 40 years ago as a young senator and has now kept his promise of 2019 when in the Bayerischer Hof he vehemently differentiated himself from the “embarrassing” policies of Trump, which NATO called the “most important military alliance in the history of the world” and announced a transatlantic comeback for the USA.

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The offer of his partly very personal speech to fill relations with Europe with new life in order to be able to master the global challenges, was now logical.

"America is back, the transatlantic alliance is back"

As early as 2019, Joe Biden promised: “We will be back” - and he kept his word.

As the first US president, he even takes part in the Munich Security Conference in person.

See his speech here.

Source: BR24

The question of how Europeans react to this was almost more exciting.

The task of answering Biden fell to Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU) and French President Emmanuel Macron.

The German head of government has a more distant relationship to the Munich Conference than Biden, during her term of office she only attended the most important security policy meeting in the world every two years - although it is co-financed by the German government.

But keynote speeches on security policy are not her business, and her response to the US President's speech was accordingly dutiful.

Unlike Biden, who greeted Merkel and Macron with “dear Angela and dear Emmanuel”, she did not address them personally.

Instead, she praised the president's announcements to return to international agreements and organizations, garnished with the flippant remark: "There is nothing good unless you do it."

Germany likes to talk about partnership-based cooperation

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Merkel began by quoting her speech in Munich two years ago, which at least was a plea for multilateralism in line with the topic.

The problem then as now: Germany likes to talk about partnership-based cooperation, but it is not uncommon for it to pursue its interests unilaterally.

This is an example of this

previously unattainable

NATO's two percent target.

In 2014, at the NATO summit in Wales, Merkel renewed the promise made to the allies in 2002 to spend two percent of the gross domestic product on defense.

Now she calculated that in 2014 they spent 1.1 percent, now it's 1.5 percent.

This commitment will be continued, one feels “further committed” to the goal.

How she wants to get to two percent by the target year 2024 remains Merkel's secret.

So far, no money has been deposited in the budget for this, with the foreseeable costs of the corona pandemic, on the contrary, there could still be pressure to save.

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Merkel's listing of the Bundeswehr missions in Afghanistan, Lithuania, Iraq and Mali also seemed uninspired, as Germany’s engagement, at least in the Middle East and the Sahel zone, falls short of the expectations of its partners.

From this point of view, it was a clever move to call on the Americans to work within the framework of the United Nations for a more robust mandate for UN troops in the Sahel region - whereby the question arises as to whose military should implement this mandate.

In terms of Russia policy, the Chancellor openly admitted that she was at the end of her diplomatic Latin.

She proposed a new transatlantic agenda for joint action against Russia.

This is also needed for China, said Merkel - although she did not mention that the EU has just concluded an investment agreement with Beijing under its Council Presidency, although the Biden government had asked to wait a little before a joint vote.

In short: The matter of Merkel's “new chapter in transatlantic relations” will not be that easy, especially since it is not just about the USA and Germany.

French President Macron made it clear in his short speech that he wanted to bring his own ideas in this regard.

It is true that he presented his demand for “European strategic autonomy”, which in Trump's time clearly aimed at a security policy decoupling from the USA, now as a European contribution to a more equitable burden-sharing with the Americans in the alliance. Everything else would be in view of the Americans The skills brought in are also very ambitious.

The United States currently provides 75 percent of all NATO capabilities, 70 percent of helicopters, air refueling planes and satellite communications, almost 100 percent of defense capabilities against ballistic missiles and nuclear deterrence.

Macron's call for a “new security agenda” for NATO, which includes a “political approach” and must focus more on dialogue with Russia than before, remains French in particular.

He presented this after Merkel had stated a few minutes earlier that all attempts at dialogue in the context of the Minsk trial had failed.

France is involved in this process.

"Dialogue with Russia is essential so that we can live in peace"

French President Emmanuel Macron spoke at the Munich Security Conference, among other things, about corona vaccines for poor countries, rules for internet companies and higher EU defense spending.

See his speech here.

Source: BR24

After all, in the field of visionaries, Macron was very close to Biden.

While the US President proposed new joint space activities by Americans and Europeans with reference to the ongoing Mars mission, Macron warned initiatives to preserve “freedom and sovereignty” in space and in cyberspace: “These are the places of future conflicts, there we have to be present. "