Germany will once again have American long-range missiles for the first time since the 1990s. Parties on the right and left warn against a Cold War 2.0 climate.
(DW) For the first time since the 1990s, the United States wants to station long-range weapons in Germany.
The agreement, sealed at the last NATO summit in Washington, was justified by Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz as a response to a Russia that has increasingly accumulated “weapons that threaten European territory”. German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said that the measure was a necessary remedy for “a serious gap in our [military] capabilities”.
The end of the Cold War had led the United States to significantly reduce its arsenal of long-range weapons in Europe. The Soviet Union, and then Russia, followed suit. At the time, a sense of peace hung in the air and security seemed assured – until Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 resurrected old hostilities.
Question of range
One of the types of weapons to be stationed in Germany from 2026 are Tomahawk cruise missiles, which have proved their worth over the last 30 years – most recently in clashes with the Houthis in Yemen.
Cruise missiles fly parallel to the ground at low altitudes, unlike missiles that follow elliptical (i.e. slightly oval) trajectories. This makes it more difficult for enemy radars to recognize these weapons and intercept them.
Germany is also due to receive American missiles capable of traveling at much faster than the speed of sound and covering distances of more than 2,750 km. These weapons, however, are still under development.
German-made Taurus cruise missiles can only travel around 500 km and are launched from airplanes. Tomahawks, on the other hand, can be fired from the ground or from ships, and cover a much greater distance, up to 2,500 km – more than enough for the 1,600 km that separate Berlin from Moscow, or the 600 km to the Russian exclave Kaliningrad, on the Baltic Sea, between Poland and Lithuania.
It is from Kaliningrad, moreover, that Pistorius believes the greatest Russian threat emanates. “The suspicion is that Russia stationed these weapons systems there some time ago, which means that they are within range of Germany and other European countries,” the defense minister told German public broadcaster ARD.
Some fear a new arms race
German politics reacted dividedly to the announcement of the deployment of American missiles. Most center parties support the measure, while the extremes reject it. Scholz’s center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD), which has traditionally stood for peace, says the action is necessary. The other two parties in the governing coalition, the Greens and the FDP liberals, as well as the conservative CDU/CSU alliance, the largest opposition bloc, think the same.
The ultra-right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD) and the newly-created left-wing populist Alliance Sahra Wagenknecht (BSW), a splinter party of The Left, said they were worried about a new arms race.
AfD co-leader Tino Chrupalla says that American missiles “make Germany a target” and accuses Scholz of “not acting in Germany’s interests”.
“We can certainly expect a new arms race,” says Tim Thies of the Institute for Peace and Security Policy Research (IFSH) in Hamburg. “Long-range weapons could be an important element of NATO’s strategy. Even so, you have to count on a reaction from Russia.”
NATO’s two-way persuasion bet worked in the Cold War
The situation evokes memories of a NATO decision from the days of the Cold War.
In 1979, the military alliance announced the deployment of medium-range nuclear missiles and cruise missiles to Western European countries in response to the Soviet threat. At the same time, it invited Moscow to the negotiating table. A few years later, several nuclear disarmament treaties would emerge.
NATO’s “two-way action” was extremely controversial in West Germany and sparked huge protests – supported even by an emerging Green Party and the young Social Democrat Olaf Scholz.
Researcher Thies recalls that, in the end, the US and the Soviet Union signed the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (also known as the INF Treaty), and hundreds of American and “many more” Soviet rockets were destroyed. “But the road there was anything but inevitable. And it was prepared mainly because of the extraordinary relationship between [Ronald] Reagan and [Mikhail] Gorbachev,” he says, referring to the American and Soviet leaders.
Germany to manufacture its own missiles
Sending American missiles is apparently only a temporary solution. German Defense Minister Pistorius told DLF radio that the US “very clearly and rightly” expects Germany to invest “in the development and acquisition of such long-range weapons”.
It is possible that the first steps in this direction have already been taken, even during the NATO summit in Washington. Representatives of Germany, France, Italy and Poland signed a declaration of intent to develop ground-launched cruise missiles with a range of 500 km.
Does Trump’s election change anything?
Thies, from the IFSH, says he doesn’t believe that the history of American missiles will fall apart if Republican Donald Trump returns to the White House in 2025. On the contrary: “Many of the missile systems that are now in play were started by Trump. In addition, Pistorius said that Germany is the one who will pay for the missiles. The government seems to be anticipating, almost bowing to, the possible demands of a possible future President Trump.”
Moscow’s explicit reaction to the German-American plans was not expected. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Riabkov said that the country’s security would be jeopardized, and defined the move as “a link in the chain of escalations” by NATO and the US towards Russia.
Thies expects the country to react by deploying and developing more long-range missile systems, “and this time nuclear ones, which could possibly also reach American territory”. This, in the researcher’s view, does not argue against the deployment of American missiles on German soil, but he advises to “reflect on what the way out of the arms spiral that is forming might be”.
Russia threatens to attack European capitals in retaliation
Reacting to the announcement that Germany will receive American long-range missiles, a Kremlin spokesman said the country could make Europe “a target”.
Evoking Cold War tensions, Russia warned on Saturday (13/07) that the deployment of US missiles in Germany could put European capitals in the crosshairs of possible Russian attacks.
“Europe is in the crosshairs of our missiles, our country is in the crosshairs of American missiles in Europe. We have already experienced this. We have enough capacity to contain these missiles, but the potential victims are the capitals of these European countries,” said Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov in a video posted on social media by a reporter from a Russian state broadcaster.
The statement comes after the joint announcement by Germany and the United States last Wednesday (10/07) that Berlin will receive long-range missile bases from 2026 as a way of discouraging possible Russian aggression.
The plan includes Tomahawk long-range missiles, which can hit targets up to 2,500 km away and carry nuclear ammunition, and hypersonic weapons under development, which will significantly increase Europe’s firepower.
Russia “has missiles capable of hitting almost any point in Europe”
Carlo Masala, professor for international politics at the University of the Armed Forces in Munich, told the German newspaper Tagesspiegel that Peskov’s speech is a reminder to the West that Russia, contrary to international agreements, “has missiles capable of reaching practically any point in Europe”.
Ground-launched missiles capable of traveling between 500 km and 5,500 km were banned by a 1988 agreement signed by the US and the former Soviet Union. After accusing Russia of violating the treaty by developing new weapons in 2014, the Americans eventually abandoned the agreement in 2019.
When the announcement about the deployment of US missiles in Germany was made on the sidelines of a North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) summit, German Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz welcomed the initiative in the context of protecting the alliance’s European territory. “This decision has been prepared for a long time and comes as no surprise to anyone involved in security and peace policies.”
ra (Lusa, dpa, ots)