More assertive Germany mulls bigger army before Syria vote

Record ID: 124219

  • Title: More assertive Germany mulls bigger army before Syria vote
  • Date: 3rd December 2015
  • Summary: BERLIN, GERMANY (DECEMBER 3, 2015) (REUTERS - BROADCASTERS, DIGITAL) GERMAN DEFENCE MINISTER URSULA VON DER LEYEN WALKING UP STAIRS TO NEWS CONFERENCE WITH CHIEF OF STAFF OF THE GERMAN MILITARY GENERAL VOLKER WIEKER VON DER LEYEN SPEAKING PHOTOGRAPHERS (SOUNDBITE) (German) GERMAN DEFENCE MINISTER, URSULA VON DER LEYEN, SAYING: "I would not have imagined two years ago what
  • Embargoed: 18th December 2015 12:44
  • Keywords: Syria Germany army military Ursula van der Leyen
  • Location: BERLIN, GERMANY
  • City: BERLIN, GERMANY
  • Country: Germany
  • Topics: Conflicts/War/Peace,Military Conflicts
  • Reuters ID: LVA0013CATQ9Z
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: Germany may need a bigger army to cope with the more assertive role it has adopted in global missions, the defence minister said on Thursday (December 3), a day before parliament votes on joining the campaign against Islamic State in Syria.
    Building on Germany's growing confidence, Ursula von der Leyen has in the last two years shown a readiness to commit troops to foreign missions. The army is now deployed in more than a dozen countries in Europe, Asia and Africa.
    She was last year a leading proponent of arming Iraqi Kurds fighting IS militants, a major departure for Germany.
    With many western partners welcoming the shift in Germany's attitude away from its post-war reluctance to deploy troops, von der Leyen acknowledged that the range of crises posed demands.
    "I would not have imagined two years ago what sort of an abyss we would be staring into," she told reporters at a news conference in Berlin.
    The Bundestag lower house of parliament is expected to back Germany's involvement in Syria in a vote on Friday. It will include sending six Tornado reconnaissance jets, a frigate to help protect a French air craft carrier, refuelling aircraft and 1,200 soldiers.
    Germany will not, however, join U.S., French, Russian and British air strikes.
    But she said the country should consider increasing the size of its army to deal with a growing need.
    "It is already clear to me that if the world makes such big demands of us, we must also be open to adjustments in terms of personnel," said von der Leyen, widely seen as a possible successor to Chancellor Angela Merkel.
    An analysis into staffing levels and the organisation of combat forces is in progress and will report in a couple of months on whether personnel levels are appropriate, she said.
    Since the end of the Cold War, the German army has shrunk.
    The last reform, in 2011, set a required strength of 185,000 soldiers and more than 3,000 soldiers are currently deployed overseas. The Syria mission will lift that by up to 1,200 and von der Leyen also wants to send 650 soldiers to Mali to help the French campaign against Islamists there.
    Germany's first overseas combat mission was in 1999 when a coalition of the Social Democrats and Greens under Gerhard Schroeder agreed to join NATO's intervention in Kosovo.
    Since then, there has been a steady increase in the Bundeswehr's overseas activity but Schroeder's refusal to join the U.S.-led war in Iraq in 2003, was also a defining moment. Merkel supported that war.
    Although a big parliamentary majority for Merkel's coalition with the Social Democrats means the plans are set to pass on Friday, the stakes are high for the chancellor.
    The media have dubbed it as her first war and highlighted the risks of German pilots crashing in Islamic State territory. Polls show a majority of voters oppose a mission against the group.
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