GERMAY: Berlin has adopted new security guidelines that formally roll back the strict post-war limitations on foreign and domestic deployment of German troops.
But the presentation of the new policy document has been overshadowed by the publication in a tabloid newspaper of photos of German soldiers apparently desecrating a human skull in Afghanistan.
Chancellor Angela Merkel described the pictures, reportedly taken near Kabul in 2003, as "shocking and abhorrent" and said the soldiers involved would be punished with all necessary severity. "Such behaviour cannot be excused," she said. Defence minister Franz Josef Jung remarked: "Such soldiers have no place in the Bundeswehr."
Germany's new security policy document formalises the changed international role of the German Bundeswehr, first assumed during the taboo-breaking deployment to Kosovo in 1999.
That mission, the first post-war foreign mission of German troops, was a source of huge controversy at the time and almost lead to the collapse of the government.
But military deployments have quickly become normal, with over 9,000 German troops now stationed around the world, from the Balkans and Afghanistan right up to the recent deployment of marines to patrol the Lebanese coast.
"We have gone from a defence army to the army of unity to an army in action," said Mr Jung, presenting the document yesterday at the defence ministry building, site of the execution of the soldiers who plotted the 1944 assassination attempt on Hitler.
A spokeswoman for the ministry described the paper as "taking stock of where the Bundeswehr is today".
"The transformation of the Bundeswehr already began some years ago.
"This paper is the first since 1994, when foreign deployments seemed a long way off," she said.
The document spells out plans to increase domestic Bundeswehr deployments, next to impossible at present under the post-war constitution, which aimed to prevent a repetition of Hitler's large-scale abuse of the Wehrmacht at home to further his political aims.
Mr Jung argued yesterday that, faced with an increased terrorism threat, "foreign and domestic security can no longer be separated" and announced plans for a constitutional change to allow domestic deployments.
"The central task of the Bundeswehr continues to be national and collective defence in the classical sense," the document states.
"However, the need for protection of the population and of the infrastructure has increased in importance as a result of the growing threat that terrorist attacks pose to German territory."
The paper treads new ground by defining "vital German interests", including free and unhindered access to world markets and raw materials and the control of regional crises and conflicts that could have a negative impact on Germany's national security.
The means to defend these interests include "diplomatic and economic means, development politics means, police and military means . . . including armed deployments".
The changing role of the army comes at a time of drastic budget cutbacks. An extra €1 billion has been earmarked for military spending up to 2010, but that will not cover the fact that Germany military spending as a percentage of the entire budget has shrunk by a third since the 1990s.
The document makes clear that "north Atlantic relations remain the basis of German and European common security".
In an apparent reference to the strains of the Schröder era, it remarks that transatlantic relations require "constant care" through "mutual consultation and agreed action". The document says compulsory military service for young Germans will be retained and stresses that the European Union and Nato are "not in competition".
The cabinet agreed yesterday to extend German deployment in Afghanistan by a further year, but to reduce troop numbers by 1,000 to 1,800.