Germany, Afghanistan, and the Future of NATO

The resurgence of the Taliban in Afghanistan in 2007-08 has meant that NATO and its international security assistance force (ISAF) have had to evolve into a counterinsurgency operation in more and more parts of the country. Its chances of an easy victory are slim. According to official United Nations documents, neither ISAF nor the Afghan authorities have provided sufficiently security, with the result that the political and economic recon- struction process is faltering. The Taliban, related armed groups, and the drug economy represent fundamental threats to still-fragile political, eco- nomic, and social institutions. Despite tactical successes by national and in- ternational military forces, anti- government elements are far from defeated. Thirty- six out of 376 districts, including most districts in the east, southeast, and south, remain largely inaccessible to Afghan officials and aid workers. This hinders the delivery of humanitarian assistance to wide parts of Afghan society.1 Military experts in Kabul suggest that the Afghan capital is about to be surrounded by Taliban- controlled territory.It is obvious that ISAF is currently ill-equipped and inadequately trained to confront the insurgency and that the forces it has are already overstretched. Constrained by a shortage of troops and restrictions to use them appropriately, NATO is able to establish full military control only temporarily in various areas and thus cannot provide security for the population in the long run. The force has had support from the Afghans over the last few years, though this seems to be slowly slipping because of a lack of overall progress. To maintain the current ISAF operation within the existing framework raises difficult questions: what is the operational goal of the mission and what are necessary elements of a successful strategy? What is the point of the mission if member states are not prepared to raise the necessary resources to make success a reasonable prospect? So far the government and parliament have avoided those questions. Instead, Germany has insisted several times on deploying the army only in the north of the country and repeatedly rejected providing additional troops or equipment to the Afghan south, where Canadian troops are based in volatile Kandahar province.Given this situation on the ground and the ambivalent results of the latest NATO summit in Bucharest with regard to allied support for the Canadian ISAF contingent, Germany currently enjoys a prominent place in the mind of many Canadians. One observes almost a German obsession, which has to do exclusively with Afghanistan. Mostly it is expressed as harsh criticism of foreign and security policy.In the fall of 2007, the Globe and Mail devoted two controversial editorial pieces exclusively to the military role in Afghanistan. In September 2007 Marcus Gee was highly critical of Germany, asking are our allies? Where is Germany? He emphasized that Canada and Germany share a commitment to democracy, to the rights of women and minorities, and to the right of oppressed peoples to free from fear; he stated that there would not be a better place than Afghanistan to stand together for those values. Gee concluded the piece by demanding that the Merkel government put its money where its mouth is and step up with a major military contribution to the Afghan south. He reminded Berlin of transatlantic risk- and burdensharing in NATO and ended just short of calling Germany an unreliable ally.2Six weeks later Jeffrey Simpson struck a different tone. He was rather understanding of the position and explained to the Canadian audience why Germany won't be replacing Canada in Afghanistan, pointing to constraints on the government derived from domestic politics. Referring to the parliamentary vote on the renewal of the ISAF mandate in the same month, he noted that the parliament had signed Germany up for more duty in Afghanistan but only in the safer northern part. …

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