Gerold Otten, April 17, 2026, Lebanon’s Sovereignty

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 21/72, pp. 8698-8699. 

Herr President. Ladies and gentlemen. 

With deep concern we look these days at the present developments in the Near East. While the reporting and the diplomatic attention is concentrated primarily on the situation in the Persian Gulf, the tragedy in Lebanon fades more and more from the field of vision. Yet a few days ago my last year’s IPS [International Parliamentary Scholarship] stipendiary wrote to me from the Lebanon – I cite:

"The last weeks in Beirut were simply a daily struggle for survival in war, especially after the 160 simultaneous attacks on the Lebanon last Wednesday. I was today at work, and the atmosphere was apocalyptic - the roar of the onslaught, the ambulances' sirens, the chaos in the streets. It felt as if one were in a very gloomy movie from which there is no escape, since the attacks hit so many of Beirut's civilian areas. This day alone claimed 375 dead and 1,223 wounded!"

Ladies and gentlemen, at this current affairs hour today, it is thus important to again focus on the situation in Lebanon, and certainly when a ten-day ceasefire between Lebanon and Israel was announced. Since the military operations of the U.S.A. and Israel against Iran and its leading persons at the end of February, and the massive escalation by the Hezbollah at the beginning of March, Lebanon is again in flames. The Israeli operation Eternal Darkness has the declared aim of destroying Hezbollah’s military infrastructure and leadership infrastructure in all Lebanon, and to so lastingly weaken this terror organization that it in the long view no longer presents a threat to Israel. 

It is clearly the legitimate obligation and international legal preserve of a sovereign state to protect the physical integrity of its citizens against a permanent terrorist threat. Israel however also reaps hefty criticism for its attacks in the Lebanon. According to international law, indeed as per the fundamental of military necessity in an armed conflict, all military measures are allowed and legitimate for the militarily necessary fight against opposing parties in a conflict, and are not forbidden by humanitarian international law. Yet UN Secretary-general Guterres, among others, is evidently most deeply alarmed over the rising number of civilian victims. We thus demand of all parties to the conflict to observe the precept in humanitarian international law of the minimization of violence and protection of the civilian populace. 

Nevertheless, so as to attain a strategic solution by intervention in the crisis, we need to analyze beyond simple narrative Lebanon’s complex interior structures. In the European debate is often underestimated that the Hezbollah acts as a classic hybrid agent, since it is more than just a terror militia. By means of the construction of para-state structures in education, healthcare and in the economy and finance sector, it has established a power monopoly in Lebanon. It has thereby filled every vacuum which has arisen through decades-long war and the chronic failure of state institutions. There is thus for the Lebanese government a strategic dilemma of existential degree. 

The repeated international demand for a disarmament of Hezbollah – here today again brought forward – impacts a state the regular armed forces of which are far inferior to the highly armed Iranian militia in terms of material, operations and logistics. A forced crackdown in Beirut, as a result of external pressure – often demanded – would nevertheless not lead to the disarmament of Hezbollah. It would on the contrary ultimately destroy the country’s already fragile stability, and massively increase the risk of a new civil war. Ladies and gentlemen, hereby the Lebanese dilemma becomes a geo-political problem; for a permanent regional peace is not imaginable without the complete disarmament of Hezbollah. 

The previous attempts of the United Nations as observer and counselor have nevertheless failed completely. The balance of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon, UNIFIL for short, which will end this year after two decades more or less without result, is thus especially disillusioning. The United Nations presence on the scene could neither prevent the massive armament of Hezbollah, certainly not guarantee the control of ocean transport in the Lebanon, nor strengthen the state sovereignty in southern Lebanon. 

Thus, for the future, forceful consequences need be drawn. A new UN mission, currently in talks, needs to pursue a clear goal to actively strengthen the power structures of the legitimate Lebanese government, and to purposely diminish Hezbollah’s ability to act. These military and security components need be accompanied by compulsory policy. In the current negotiations in Washington, there needs be at the center the linkage of security guarantees for the Lebanon and a robust build-up of the state. 

Security for Israel and the reconstruction of the Lebanese sovereignty are not competing goals. They are two sides of the same coin. Only a sovereign Lebanon, which is in position to exercise the monopoly of force in its entire state territory, can be a reliable guarantor for a stable peace in the region and so also increase Israel’s security. 

Many thanks. 

 

[trans: tem]

Gerold Otten, December 17, 2020, Armed Drones

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 19/202, pp. 25458-25459.

Herr President. Right honorable colleagues.

We have certainly heard an emotional speech. In the past months and years in many forums, the necessity of armed drones was discussed. The conclusion was represented, as has been heard, by a hearing in the Bundestag.

A few days ago however, the SPD notices that the previous debate might be too much confined to the protection of our soldiers. The war in Bergkarabach however now shows that armed drones are able to be used as offensive weapons, according to colleague Heinrich of the SPD.

Ladies and gentlemen, what you there deliver up, that is the SPD’s security policy declaration of poverty. You could exactly so reject tanks, corvettes and combat aircraft; since these also are offensive weapons, if you so desire.

For all that, this acknowledgment includes two remarkable aspects:

First. The Union now completely stumbles over its argument that this weapons system served only the protection of our soldiers on a mission.

            Tobias Pflüger (Linke): Yes, that is the fairytale that they tell the entire time!

Second. The SPD leadership here reveals a frightening degree of ignorance. Or is it cold, political calculation? I know not which is more worthy of scorn.

            Siemtje Möller (SPD): The AfD!

A year ago already in this place I predicted in theory what has occurred in Bergkarabach. Armed drones are effective means for the reconnaissance, surveillance and combating of opposition forces.The Azerbaijanis owe their victory to the ability to identify and precisely attack enemy positions and war equipment, even better than artillery or combat aircraft are able, provided a real air defense is lacking.  

I thus summed this up at that time – and it still goes for today – : Protection for our soldiers results solely by means of a reconnaissance and operations potential on the battlefield. And for that are armed drones naturally the suitable means of air war.

Yet all that shows: In the SPD delegation, there is not only a lack of expertise but every relation to reality has been lost, and that in the party which, with Helmut Schmidt or Georg Leber, presented renowned defense ministers to this country. Shame on you!

The SPD’s contortions can only be designated as schizophrenic. The day before yesterday, you declare yourselves against an arming of drones. Yesterday in the defense committee, you vote against a similar motion of the Linke party. This is surely a security policy wrong-way drive you are on here. Please explain that for once to our soldiers who you with your votes casually send on dangerous foreign missions to Afghanistan or Mali, those to whom you then however deny, according to partisan calculation, the means of defense against enemy attack.  

            Tobias Pflüger (Linke): It is not for that reason! But he does not understand that!

Ladies and gentlemen, the procurement of armed drones is a highly charged social topic. This alone clearly contradicts the thesis of a deficient public debate. The fact is: For more than a decade there has been a widespread campaign against armed drones driven forward by leftists and Greens and their comrades in conviction at the levers of publicized opinion.

The Union and the FDP knew already for more than ten years what is necessary; yet there governs here in the self-described political middle the fear, the fear of no longer being electable by a portion of a society mis-informed by the media and instrumentalized by party politics. For that reason was this decision postponed for more than a decade.

Now into the SPD again breaks the left lane. Mützenich’s and Borjans’s great fear is of being punished by the leftist voter clientele should a procurement of drones be agreed to. It is similarly so with the Greens: They also are victims of their own leftist and unworldly propaganda. And of much amusement, ladies and gentlemen of the Union, with your coming coalition partners.

How does it actually feel to have your heart’s defense project sunk by the SPD? And that, before all, against the background of you having fulfilled the SPD’s every wish in this legislative period, right up to the basic pension.

            Mechthild Rawert (SPD): Unfortunately not.

            Götz Frömming (AfD): Right up to self-abnegation.

Yet all that occurred to the chagrin of the Bundeswehr, its soldiers and the security of our country.

While many of our allied armed forces now operate these weapons systems, the Bundeswehr is now on the way to become a third-class army: Technically obsolete, materially looted, with a hollowed out personnel,

            Henning Otte (CDU/CSU): Yet you now again speak poorly of the Bundeswehr!

without ability to fight, not in a position to defend our home country. For that are you co-responsible.

            Henning Otte (CDU/CSU): You speak poorly of the Bundeswehr!

We therefore demand of the SPD to return to the course of Realpolitik, a course which a Helmut Schmidt would have sailed.

I thank you for your attention.

            Götz Frömming (AfD): A very good speech!

 

 

[trans: tem]

           

 

 

 

Gerold Otten, December 9, 2020, Budget – Defense

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 19/198, pp. 24989-24990.

Herr President. Right honorable colleagues.

Compared to 2013, the Defense budget for 2021 has been increased around 9 billion euros to almost 47 billion euros. The Grand Coalition’s defense politicians will here praise themselves for that. Yet how does the Bundeswehr stand after seven years of the Grand Coalition, and who bears responsibility for today’s condition of the troops?

The Bundeswehr through the years, under the euphemism of a “peace dividend”, has frankly been economized into ruin [kaputtgespart]. It will take decades to rescind this development and modernize the Bundeswehr so that it can again perform its constitutional duty, the defense of Germany.

The Bundeswehr’s 2018 capability profile sought to take this diagnosis into account and to draw up a recovery plan for the armed forces. Allow me to continue with this medical metaphor. A decade and a half of being doctored-around – rather in this case, Merkeled-around – requires at least a decade and a half of healing. It is thus also not difficult to predict that it is not possible that the body of empty structures becomes what is desired. What is today put off, remains and will thus more heavily burden future budgets.    

Yet that no recovery of Patient Bundeswehr is within sight may also therein lie that the doctors  who dispense the medicine are the same who have made him sick. Since it is so – you cannot shirk this responsibility – : CDU/CSU, SPD, FDP and Greens have to answer for the years of the Bundeswehr’s chronic illness.

The fact is: The Bundeswehr, in this state, is not in condition to defend our country. The troops, with your run-down material, are not at all in condition to smoothly organize crisis missions at the same time as basic operations here at home, despite the model and engaged commitment of our soldiers and civilian co-workers, whom and for which we expressly thank. Presently, basic operations moreover are not to be thought of. The troops at this time perform their mission against Covid-19 splendidly; but they have become a stop-gap which must jump in where other state authorities have been overwhelmed or simply refuse.

Symbolic of the Bundeswehr’s chronic illness are the problems occurring on all sides in regards the large procurement projects. For this review, let them appear in five categories. They are, on one side, the dead – failed projects like Pegasus – , then those in a trance, thus those past due like the tactical air defense system, TLVS. Not to be forgotten is the third category: The non-sellers, as for example, the A400M – actually a very capable military transport aircraft which unfortunately is not for sale on the world market. The number of projects not brought to maturity is also large, as for example, the Puma armored personnel carrier, also happily named “banana projects”, since they ripen just in time for sale. And the best for last: European prestige projects like the FCAS [Future Combat Air System] and MGCS [Main Ground Combat System] – both predominantly German-financed for predominantly French interests, political purpose thereby surmounting financial, economic and military use.  

Ladies and gentlemen, as before, a powerful investments backlog prevails in the Bundeswehr, whether it now be in housing, be it the munitions and spare parts supply, be it the preparations of personnel, be it the re-attainment of lost capabilities or the research of future technologies. All of them yield no accounting in the 2021 budget. With regard to the rapidly increasing state debt, the question moreover arises how much of the future budget increases, if they then will be made, are to be available for investment expenditures.

The result of previous armaments projects can thus be overlooked. Parallel to that, for years one reform of the procurement system follows the next. Yet where remain the efficiency increases in the procurement system? The system is imprisoned in formalism, stuck between an inhibiting over-regulation, time-consuming bureaucracy and a chronic lack of workforce. Yet one impression continues to apply: Either the system cannot reform itself, or it does not want to.

The central question is however: The armed forces are actually for what purpose? The answer to this question separates the souls. The central distinction between us, the AfD delegation, and you, the here already long dealing delegations, is very distinct: The AfD thereby pursues a realistic policy course.              

                Tobias Pflügler (Linke): That was good!

I can only say to the colleagues: The trip to Moscow was concerned with Realpolitik. For the Bundeswehr, that means: The core duty is the defense of the country and the defense of the alliance. To make this credible, a will and a capability are required, ultimately to employ lethal military force. A strong Bundeswehr serves at the same time the defense of Germany as it does that of our allies. It makes clear Germany’s credibility as an alliance partner and underpins the foreign policy capability of our country.

Foreign missions in our view are however only justified if a UN mandate is issued and a national interest has been presented. That is the leitmotiv of every reasonable nation on this planet; only in Germany, emphasis of a national interest up to now is disreputable and politically most highly suspect.  

You know all that, yet out of fear of the left-green publicized opinion, you shrink away from clear words and base the existence of the armed forces on meaningless phrases and empty cant like “Germany’s international responsibility”, “crisis management” and “humanitarian aid” or – especially beloved – a “networked approach” [„vernetzter Ansatz“]. The terms however have nothing to do with the core duty of the armed forces and of a defense alliance. This might be comprehensible in regards the self-renunciation of the pacifist portion of the population in our country; in terms of state policy, it is in no way responsible.

According to Carl von Clausewitz, the great Prussian army reformer, a state needs two things to be able to deal as an individual state with foreign countries: A government of assured management and a – I cite – “spirit of the people which gives life and strength of nerve to this whole” [„Geist des Volkes, welcher diesem Ganzen Leben und Nervenkraft gibt“]. As what concerns the Federal government, there is in this regard nothing to expect and as concerns its mental and moral capability, I see black. The one is the material and financial equipment of the armed forces, the other however is the will to fight [Wehrwille] which even to that whole gives life and strength of nerve, as Clausewitz expressed it.

I thank you for your attention. We reject Section 14.

 

[trans: tem]