The following column is the opinion and analysis of the author.
No one would question the extreme importance of NATO to maintain world peace, to resist Russian military influence in the West, and to support all its member countries in equal fashion. Of course, the U.S. dominates this alliance, having the largest military budget in the world, but all partners, including Germany, represent crucial contributors and do their part as best as possible, often in-kind, providing many complex services that do not immediately enter into the military budget but free up thousands of troops in a variety of ways.
The recent article about Donald Trump’s plans to withdraw troops from Germany provides some facts, but leaves out some of the backgrounds and presents a rather simplistic picture. There are about 45,000 U.S. troops stationed in Germany, and most of them serve in a logistical function, allowing the U.S. to operate its military machine on a global level.
Without our troops being stationed in Germany, we would face serious problems, particularly in the Middle East, Africa and Eastern Europe. In reality, there are no plans to withdraw U.S. troops from Europe; the only strategy is to move U.S. troops from Germany maybe to Poland or Romania, at the cost of billions of dollars, without any advantages to the U.S. And, those plans are not plans by the U.S. military or government; they are Trump’s plans because he has an ax to grind with the German government, especially Chancellor Angela Merkel. Allow me to outline some of the backgrounds which are not reported in the papers.
For several years, a new pipeline for natural gas, North Stream 2, has been under construction from Russia through the Baltic Sea to Germany. Poland and Ukraine had strongly protested against it because they were afraid of losing some of the fees for the transfer of gas through their countries. They are not going to lose that money, but there will be an additional pipeline for gas to be distributed across Europe. The Russian gas is cleaner and cheaper than the U.S. gas produced via fracking, which in itself has lots of problems. Trump wants to protect the U.S. fracking industry and use the political angle to cover up his interests in controlling the European market. In order to do so, he has increasingly issued sanctions affecting not only individual companies working on the pipeline, but now also many other contributing companies and even government entities.
When Trump tries to encroach upon the sovereignty of our allies, he destabilizes NATO in a dangerous way. The recent U.S. ambassador to Germany, Richard Grenell, a Trump sycophant, alienated most politicians in Berlin, especially because of his close ties with the extreme right there (AfD) and lack of respect for Germany’s independence, triggering many calls for his removal as ambassador. In 2017, for instance, Grenell tried to “order” German companies to stop doing business with Iran in preparation for the U.S. withdrawal from the international nuclear deal.
In June 2018, Grenell announced on Breitbart News that he intended, as the U.S. ambassador, to build support for extreme conservative leaders across Europe. Chancellor Merkel has now announced that she would not attend the G-7 meeting in the U.S., out of concerns regarding the COVID-19 crisis, which badly hurt Trump’s egocentrism.
Grenell and Trump pursue an agenda of alienation and confrontation and seek ways to punish Germany for its unwillingness to obey Trump’s ill-conceived orders. Bullies operate this way, not adult politicians.
