CONFIDENTIAL: VZCZCXYZ0005 OO RUEHWEB DE RUEHRL #1542/01 3191825 ZNY CCCCC ZZH O 141825Z NOV 08 FM AMEMBASSY BERLIN TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE 2636 RUEKJCS/SECDEF WASHINGTON DC IMMEDIATE INFO RUEHZG/NATO EU COLLECTIVE PRIORITY RHMFISS/HQ USEUCOM VAIHINGEN GE PRIORITY RHEFDIA/DIA WASHINGTON DC PRIORITY RUEKJCS/JOINT STAFF WASHINGTON DC PRIORITY C O N F I D E N T I A L BERLIN 001542 SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 11/13/2018 TAGS: PREL MARR PGOV AF RS GG UP GM SUBJECT: GERMANY REMAINS STUBBORN ON MAP AND ADDITIONAL TROOPS FOR AFGHANISTAN Classified By: POLITICAL MINISTER COUNSELOR JEFF RATHKE. REASONS: 1.4 ( B) AND (D). ¶1. (C) SUMMARY. Top German government officials emphasized to visiting USNATO Ambassador Kurt Volker November 10-11 that Germany remains strongly opposed to granting Ukraine and Georgia member action plan (MAP) status at the December 2-3 meeting of NATO Foreign Ministers. While open to giving the applicant countries a “navigation aid” or action plan to help guide their reforms, Germany is not ready at this point to substitute this “navigation aid” for MAP — it wants to keep open the option of still requiring MAP at some later date before membership. Volker warned that adding an additional hurdle to the accession process would give the impression that the Alliance was stepping back from its Bucharest commitment and capitulating to Russian pressure. German officials also stressed that over the next year, they had little political flexibility for increasing the number of German troops in Afghanistan or for expanding their area of deployment beyond what was provided for in the ISAF parliamentary mandate approved last month. In response to MFAs view that the April 2009 NATO Strasbourg/Kehl Summit should be primarily an anniversary meeting and avoid “confrontational issues,” Volker emphasized the need to address key questions like Afghanistan and NATOs relations with Russia and the east. The Germans are disdainful of Medvedevs European security proposal, but they believe they have to “deal with it” and are hopeful that discussing it can “improve the atmosphere” with Russia. While warning against “cornering” Russia in regards to MAP and the conflict with Georgia, Germans have been very critical of Medvedevs announcement about stationing short-range missiles in Kaliningrad. END SUMMARY. INTERLOCUTORS ¶2. (U) During his November 10-11 visit to Berlin, USNATO Ambassador Volker met separately with National Security Advisor Christoph Heusgen, MFA State Secretary Reinhard Silberberg and MOD Parliamentary Secretary Christian Schmidt. He also met with a number of key parliamentarians, including Christian Democratic Union (CDU) foreign policy spokesman Eckart Von Klaeden, Christian Social Union (CSU) Secretary General Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, Social Democratic Party (SPD) defense policy spokesman Rainer Arnold, Greens defense policy spokesman Winfried Nachtwei, Free Democratic Party (FDP) foreign policy spokesman Werner Hoyer and Deputy Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Hans-Ulrich Klose (SPD). MAP FOR GEORGIA/UKRAINE ¶3. (C) Both Heusgen and Silberberg reiterated Germanys strong opposition to granting Ukraine and Georgia Membership Action Plan (MAP) status at the December 2-3 meeting of NATO Foreign Ministers. Silberberg said flatly that “no decision can be taken” in December, making reference to the Bucharest Summit declaration that this should be only a “first review.” Noting that both countries have “lots of deficits,” Heusgen said that Ukraine was “a nightmare” because of ongoing political turmoil and that Georgia lacked a multiparty system and was not truly a pluralistic society. Silberberg said that because of its role in the August conflict with Russia, Germany considered Georgia to be “further from MAP” than it was before. However, both agreed with Volker that the Alliance could not be seen backing away from its Bucharest commitment that both countries would one day become members of NATO. They also conceded that NATO had to avoid giving the perception that Russia, in using force against Georgia, had successfully drawn a new line across Europe and had achieved an unchallenged sphere of influence. They proposed repeating the Bucharest language at the December ministerial and “coming back to this later.” ¶4. (C) Heusgen also favored giving the two applicant countries a “clear idea” of what they needed to do. Heusgen said that when Chancellor Merkel visited Kyiv in July, she had proposed setting up a “navigation aid” or action plan to help guide Ukraine in making the necessary reforms, but had never received a response. Heusgen emphasized, however, that Germany was not ready at this point to substitute this “navigation aid” for MAP — it wanted to keep open the option of still requiring MAP at some later date before membership. He expressed concern that the applicant countries, especially Ukraine, could start clamoring immediately for membership after satisfying the technical requirements in an action plan. Along the same lines, Silberberg said the Alliance had to make clear to the applicants that the final decision on membership was political, not technical, and not automatic based on fulfilling a checklist. Volker welcomed creative thinking on the way forward, but said that adding an additional hurdle to the accession process would give the impression that the Alliance was stepping back from its Bucharest commitment and could allow Russia to claim “victory.” ¶5. (C) In separate meetings with leading parliamentarians from all the major parties, no one expressed support for moving forward with MAP for Georgia and Ukraine. Most had extremely negative opinions of Georgian President Saakashvili, variously describing him as “crazy,” “a hot head,” and “dangerous.” The general opinion was that Saakashvili was as much at fault for the outbreak of the August war as Russia. Volker challenged this view and reminded them that Russias provocative acts and pressure had set the stage for the conflict. The parliamentarians also worried that pursuing MAP would “corner the Russians” and make them less cooperative on important questions like Afghanistan, Iran, energy, etc. AFGHANISTAN ¶6. (C) Every government interlocutor, including Heusgen, Silberberg and Schmidt, emphasized that over the next year, through the Bundestag election in September 2009, Germany had little political flexibility for increasing the number of German troops in Afghanistan or for expanding their area of deployment beyond what was provided for in the ISAF parliamentary mandate approved last month. Silberberg said flatly: “Were in the north and were staying there.” With regard to getting Germany to send combat troops to the south, he advised: “Dont try it. It wont happen.” Heusgen was relaxed about possible U.S. requests to do more, asserting that when Obama visited Berlin in July, he had indicated that he was “perfectly happy” with the German contribution. Silberberg claimed that the SPD-controlled MFA was more receptive than the CDU-controlled MOD about deploying German forces outside the north. He said, for example, that the MFA had pushed for embedded German trainers (OMLTs) to be allowed to deploy outside the north with their assigned Afghan National Army (ANA) units, but that MOD had refused. ¶7. (C) While generally ruling out new military contributions to Afghanistan, Heusgen, Silberberg and Schmidt confirmed that Germany planned to support and participate in the proposed deployment of NATO AWACS aircraft to Afghanistan, which will require the government to seek a stand-alone mandate from the Bundestag. In separate meetings, parliamentarians confirmed that there was broad support for the AWACS mission. Silberberg warned, however, that any connection made between the AWACS and the controversial cross-border operations into Pakistan could be a “problem” in obtaining Bundestag approval. He indicated that he had already passed this concern on to SACEUR GEN Craddock. ¶8. (C) Volker noted that new CENTCOM Commander GEN Patreus was currently conducting a strategic review of the U.S. engagement in Afghanistan. It was possible the review might recommend to the incoming Administration the deployment of significantly more troops and other resources to meet the current challenges. In that event, the U.S. would almost certainly turn to its European Allies to help shoulder the burden and to get behind a single, unified effort. If additional combat troops were out of the question, Volker encouraged German officials to think creatively about what other military contributions Germany could make, such as deploying additional helicopters and MEDEVAC assets on a country-wide basis, or widening its deployment area by erasing the dividing line between regional commands north and west. ¶9. (C) SPD Defense Policy Spokesman Rainer Arnold gave the standard line that Germany had no more armored helicopters to deploy and probably would not have any until the next generation of NH-90 and Tiger helicopters was delivered. Schmidt revealed, however, that Germany had recently launched a program to armor eight additional C-53 helicopters. (Comment: Germany has some 80 CH-53 helicopters, but only 20 of them are armored and suitable for operating in a combat environment. Germany currently has six armored C-53s in Afghanistan and claims that it cannot afford to deploy additional ones until the inventory of armored helicopters is increased. End Comment.) Schmidt also noted that he planned to talk to the Bavarian interior minister about sending Bavarian policemen to Afghanistan to serve as trainers for the Afghan National Police. (Comment: Up to now, Bavaria has been one of the few German states that has declined to let its police officers serve in Afghanistan. End Comment.) ¶10. (C) Parliamentarians generally welcomed the prospect of greater U.S. attention and commitment to Afghanistan and agreed that Germany should increase its own efforts, especially in reconstruction and development and in the training of the Afghan national security forces. However, they echoed the view that there was little political maneuver room for Germany to increase its military contributions to Afghanistan over the next year, given the electoral season and low popular support for the mission. FDP foreign policy spokesman Hoyer pointed out that mistrust between the two Grand Coalition parties complicated matters. He thought Chancellor Merkel (CDU) would be very wary about taking an initiative to increase Germanys military contribution to Afghanistan before the Bundestag election, for fear of playing into the hands of her electoral rival, FM Steinmeier (SPD). SPD defense policy spokesman Arnold argued that deployment of German soldiers to the south and the likely resulting increase in German soldiers “killing and being killed” could put the whole deployment at risk. NATO SUMMIT ¶11. (C) Silberberg said Germany viewed next years Strasbourg/Kehl Summit as primarily a “family” anniversary meeting, largely without partners. There were no plans to invite Russian president Medvedev or to deal with “confrontational issues.” While Volker agreed that the summit offered an excellent opportunity to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the Alliance and to recognize its role in Franco-German reconciliation, it could not just be a celebration. There had to be real substance. Key issues like Afghanistan and NATOs relations with Russia and the east had to be addressed. Silberberg expressed some surprise that Russia would be on the agenda, but took the point. ¶12. (C) Volker also noted that some in Washington remained to be convinced about the wisdom of launching work on a new strategic concept at the summit, believing the exercise could prove divisive and distract the Alliance from more practical cooperation. Silberberg responded that there was too much momentum behind the idea of a new strategic concept to stop it now. He said Germany favored releasing a “short, political” Declaration on Alliance Security at the Summit to launch the strategic concept review. MEDVEDEVS PROPOSAL ON A NEW EUROPEAN SECURITY ARCHITECTURE ¶13. (C) While acknowledging that Medvedevs proposal for a new European security architecture was hypocritical and did nothing to address current problems (like CFE and Georgia), Silberberg said that “we have to deal with it.” He noted that the proposal had come as a surprise to the Russian MFA, which had to scramble after the fact to propose some ideas for fleshing out the concept. He was disdainful of the content, but hopeful that discussing the proposal would “improve the atmosphere” with Russia. He complained that the current EU troika dialogue with Russia, where each side reads prepared statements, was not very useful. He also pressed for resumption of meetings of the NATO-Russia Council (NRC) and for the NRC to be improved as a political forum. He suggested that the Alliance pre-coordinate in advance of NRC meetings and not hold internal political debates in front of the Russians. ¶14. (C) On Medvedevs proposal, Volker said there was already a pan-European security organization (the OSCE), so the Russians had to answer the question: where was the value-added? From the U.S. point of view, the Medvedev proposal appeared to be nothing more than the OSCE minus the Helsinki Accords, the Paris Charter, and the United States. The Russians should be forced to be specific on the substance of their proposal, and the forum for discussing this should be the OSCE in Vienna. Regarding the NRC, Volker noted the original intention had been to treat Russia as an equal partner. Given its aggression against Georgia, the U.S. would have trouble going back to that format for now, but agreed that dialogue with Russia should continue in some form. MISSILE DEFENSE ¶15. (C) Silberberg called Medvedevs November 5 announcement about deploying short-range rockets in Kaliningrad in response to U.S. MD plans as “simply stupid.” He noted that FM Steinmeier had immediately issued a public statement criticizing the announcement. It was clear that the timing, coming right after the U.S. presidential election, was deliberate and not a mistake. Silberberg noted that while his counterparts at the Russian MFA “seem very reasonable” on this issue, they are obviously “very far” from the locus of Russian decision-making. PUBLIC DIPLOMACY ¶16. (U) Volker also participated in several public diplomacy events during his November 10-11 visit. On November 10, on the margins of the opening ceremony of the annual conference of the Atlantic Treaty Association (ATA), he did separate interviews with Germanys two main public broadcasters, ARD and ZDF, responding to questions on NATO enlargement and the NATO mission in Afghanistan. Also on November 10, he participated in an hour-long panel discussion hosted by Deutschland Radio Kultur on the future of U.S. foreign policy following the U.S. elections. The roundtable, which included Luxembourg FM Jean Asselborn and German Deputy Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Hans-Ulrich Klose (SPD), was broadcast live over radio and was recorded for broadcast by Phoenix television on November 15. ¶17. (U) On November 11, Volker participated in a panel discussion on NATO and the challenges of the eastern dimension, hosted by the U.S. Embassy before a audience of ¶180. The panel was one of six held simultaneously in various embassies in Berlin as part of the ATA annual conference. The other panelists included former Polish NATO Ambassador Jerzy Nowak and German foreign policy spokesman Eckart Von Klaeden (CDU). In a press conference in the U.S. Embassy at the conclusion of his visit, Volker took questions from six print journalists on Afghanistan, NATO enlargement, Georgia, and the NATO C-17 strategic airlift consortium. ¶18. (U) Ambassador Volker has reviewed and cleared this cable. TIMKEN JRGERMANY REMAINS STUBBORN ON MAP AND ADDITIONAL