Follow us on social

olaf scholz joe biden

Germans uneasy about stationing new US missiles

Their deployment could be used as part of some future deal with Russia but they're creating insecurity in the meantime

Analysis | Europe

Barely noticed in the U.S. — but very much noticed in Germany — was an agreement between Washington and Berlin at the NATO anniversary summit in July.

For the first time since the 1980s, Germany agreed to the stationing of three types of U.S. missiles (under U.S. command) on its territory, starting in 2026: The Tomahawk Block 4 cruise missile, with a range of just over 1,000 miles; the Standard Missile-6 (SM-6), with a range of 230 miles, and intended chiefly for an air-defense role; and a Long-Range Hypersonic Weapon (LRHP) which is still under development, and will have a range of more than 1,800 miles.

Two of these missiles will be able to strike deep into Russia, and both will be able to hit Moscow. They are conventionally armed, but nuclear-capable, though to convert them to this role would require a new agreement. This agreement however said nothing about whether Germany will have any control over the missiles on its soil.

The stationing of the Tomahawks and LRHPs is in violation of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear (INF) Treaty of 1987, which bans the stationing of ground-based missiles with a range of between 500 and 5,000 kilometers (310-3,400 miles). However, the Trump administration withdrew from the INF in 2019, and Russia then suspended its own compliance. The Biden administration has made no attempt to negotiate a return to the treaty.

Both the Trump and Obama administrations alleged that the Russian SRBM Iskander ballistic missile (nuclear-capable but not nuclear-armed), with a declared range of under 500 km (within the INF treaty limit) and stationed in Kaliningrad (the isolated territory on the Baltic Sea, adjacent to Poland and Lithuania and 327 miles from Berlin) in fact had a longer range and thus violated the treaty. But this allegation was never independently confirmed, and, after the Russian seizure of Crimea in 2014, the deterioration of U.S.-Russian relations made it impossible to resolve this question through negotiations.

Rather strangely (in a democracy), the latest German government agreement to station the new missiles was made without any prior discussion in the German parliament, the Bundestag, or any prior national debate. This has contributed to the resulting controversy in Germany. The foreign and security establishment, and most of the political establishment, are firmly in favor. The right-wing Alternative fuer Deutchland (AfD) and left-wing Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW) are strongly opposed.

Meanwhile, the Social Democratic Party of Chancellor Olaf Scholz, the largest party in the ruling coalition, is split on the issue, though the general assumption is that the dissidents will eventually fall in line behind the government.

The German public is divided. According to the latest poll, 49 percent are opposed to the missiles and 45 percent in favor. However, in eastern Germany the percentage opposed to the treaty rises to 74 percent, with only 23 percent in favor. In three state elections in eastern Germany this month, the AfD and BSW, who are both advocates of a compromise peace in Ukraine, saw a tremendous surge in support. This issue is therefore contributing to regional tensions in Germany, and it can be expected that it will play a major role in next year’s national elections.

This controversy recalls in certain respects that in the 1980s over the stationing of U.S. Pershing II medium-range nuclear ballistic missile. Its deployment was made in response to the Soviet development of the RSD-10 Pioneer missile and led to an intense political crisis in Germany. Rather comically, as it now appears, opposition (sometimes violent) to the stationing of the Pershings contributed greatly to the rise of the anti-nuclear German Green Party, which, 40 years later, is now among the strongest advocates for the stationing of the Tomahawks.

It is notable that the Greens suffered crushing defeats in the latest eastern German elections. The Social Democratic Party, which now leads the German government, also opposed the stationing of the Pershings.

The Pershing missiles were, thankfully, never fired; nor indeed was there any chance of them being fired (except by catastrophic accident), since, as documents released after the Soviet collapse revealed, the Soviet leadership had not the slightest intention of attacking NATO and was indeed genuinely afraid that NATO planned to attack the USSR.

Today, the Russian government has neither the intention nor the capability to launch the sort of premeditated conventional attack on NATO that the new missiles are supposed to counter. Russian nuclear “saber-rattling” is intended to deter NATO from intervening directly in Ukraine, and thereby starting a NATO-Russia war. There remains however an acute risk that an unplanned mutual escalation could lead to war. In this case, U.S. missiles firing into Russia from Germany could easily be the tripwire for nuclear catastrophe.

The only sensible purpose of allowing the deployment of Tomahawks and hypersonic missiles in Germany is to offer to give them up again, as part of a new nuclear arms reduction agreement with Russia. That after all was the only positive result of the deployment of Pershing II missiles in West Germany in the 1980s.

Indeed, the decision to deploy the Pershings in 1979 was accompanied by a declaration of a desire to negotiate an agreement. No such declaration has accompanied the latest decision. After former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev came to power, Washington and Moscow in 1989 signed the INF Treaty, under which the Pershings were withdrawn and scrapped in return for Moscow doing the same with its intermediate nuclear missiles.

A similar agreement today, in which the U.S. cancels the planned new missile deployment in Germany in return for Russia withdrawing its missiles based in Kaliningrad and Belarus would be of immense benefit to Germany, Europe and the world. Unfortunately, for the past generation, the entire trajectory of arms control agreements has been in the opposite direction, towards an uncontrolled arms race.

The process of the disintegration of arms control agreements began in 2002, with the George W. Bush administration’s withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty. The German government was unhappy with this decision but could do nothing to stop it. However, Berlin also did not state its objections forcefully in public, or make any public attempt to create a bloc of European states to defend the treaty. This marked one important step in the establishment of a belief in Moscow that Germany never would make any serious move to defend European security interests if it required a public confrontation with Washington.

The U.S. withdrawal from the ABM Treaty was followed by the deployment of U.S. ABM systems in Poland and the Czech Republic, with the blatantly mendacious claim — in which the German government once again acquiesced — that this was directed not against Russia, but rather a hypothetical threat from Iran. (As a friend at a Russian think tank remarked to me at the time, “Do they think that we don’t have maps in Russia?”). Moscow threatened to respond with the deployment of new intermediate missiles, and did so, while claiming to remain (just) within the terms of the INF.

According to Russian sources, Moscow was willing to compromise on intermediate missiles as part of wider talks on NATO limitations demanded by Russia in the run-up to the invasion of Ukraine, but Washington refused to consider seriously negotiating on this basis. The result is that Europe is now altogether without missile limitation agreements at a time when not merely is war raging in Ukraine, but Washington is considering acceding to Ukrainian and British pressure to allow British Storm Shadow cruise missiles (guided by U.S. targeting) to be fired into Russia.

The deployment of U.S. missiles in Germany therefore involves the following propositions: Washington is actively considering helping to fire U.S.-manufactured Ukrainian missiles into Russia; U.S. intermediate missiles in Germany will be able to strike deep into Russia; Russian intermediate missiles can strike Germany but not the U.S.; Germany will have no control over the U.S. missiles on its soil. It is hardly surprising that this combination makes many Germans extremely nervous.

A shorter version of this article was previously published in German by the Berliner Zeitung.


U.S. President Joe Biden holds a joint news conference with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz at the White House in Washington, U.S. February 7, 2022. REUTERS/Leah Millis

Analysis | Europe
POGO The Bunker
Top image credit: Project on Government Oversight

Bombers astray! Washington's priorities go off course

Military Industrial Complex

The Bunker appears originally at the Project on Government Oversight and is republished here with permission.


keep readingShow less
Trump Zelensky
Top photo credit: Joshua Sukoff / Shutterstock.com

Blob exploiting Trump's anger with Putin, risking return to Biden's war

Europe

Donald Trump’s recent outburst against Vladimir Putin — accusing the Russian leader of "throwing a pile of bullsh*t at us" and threatening devastating new sanctions — might be just another Trumpian tantrum.

The president is known for abrupt reversals. Or it could be a bargaining tactic ahead of potential Ukraine peace talks. But there’s a third, more troubling possibility: establishment Republican hawks and neoconservatives, who have been maneuvering to hijack Trump’s “America First” agenda since his return to office, may be exploiting his frustration with Putin to push for a prolonged confrontation with Russia.

Trump’s irritation is understandable. Ukraine has accepted his proposed ceasefire, but Putin has refused, making him, in Trump’s eyes, the main obstacle to ending the war.

Putin’s calculus is clear. As Ted Snider notes in the American Conservative, Russia is winning on the battlefield. In June, it captured more Ukrainian territory and now threatens critical Kyiv’s supply lines. Moscow also seized a key lithium deposit critical to securing Trump’s support for Ukraine. Meanwhile, Russian missile and drone strikes have intensified.

Putin seems convinced his key demands — Ukraine’s neutrality, territorial concessions in the Donbas and Crimea, and a downsized Ukrainian military — are more achievable through war than diplomacy.

Yet his strategy empowers the transatlantic “forever war” faction: leaders in Britain, France, Germany, and the EU, along with hawks in both main U.S. parties. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz claims that diplomacy with Russia is “exhausted.” Europe’s war party, convinced a Russian victory would inevitably lead to an attack on NATO (a suicidal prospect for Moscow), is willing to fight “to the last Ukrainian.” Meanwhile, U.S. hawks, including liberal interventionist Democrats, stoke Trump’s ego, framing failure to stand up to Putin’s defiance as a sign of weakness or appeasement.

Trump long resisted this pressure. Pragmatism told him Ukraine couldn’t win, and calling it “Biden’s war” was his way of distancing himself, seeking a quick exit to refocus on China, which he has depicted as Washington’s greater foreign threat. At least as important, U.S. involvement in the war in Ukraine has been unpopular with his MAGA base.

But his June strikes on Iran may signal a hawkish shift. By touting them as a decisive blow to Iran’s nuclear program (despite Tehran’s refusal so far to abandon uranium enrichment), Trump may be embracing a new approach to dealing with recalcitrant foreign powers: offer a deal, set a deadline, then unleash overwhelming force if rejected. The optics of “success” could tempt him to try something similar with Russia.

This pivot coincides with a media campaign against restraint advocates within the administration like Elbridge Colby, the Pentagon policy chief who has prioritized China over Ukraine and also provoked the opposition of pro-Israel neoconservatives by warning against war with Iran. POLITICO quoted unnamed officials attacking Colby for wanting the U.S. to “do less in the world.” Meanwhile, the conventional Republican hawk Marco Rubio’s influence grows as he combines the jobs of both secretary of state and national security adviser.

What Can Trump Actually Do to Russia?
 

Nuclear deterrence rules out direct military action — even Biden, far more invested in Ukraine than Trump, avoided that risk. Instead, Trump ally Sen.Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), another establishment Republican hawk, is pushing a 500% tariff on nations buying Russian hydrocarbons, aiming to sever Moscow from the global economy. Trump seems supportive, although the move’s feasibility and impact are doubtful.

China and India are key buyers of Russian oil. China alone imports 12.5 million barrels daily. Russia exports seven million barrels daily. China could absorb Russia’s entire output. Beijing has bluntly stated it “cannot afford” a Russian defeat, ensuring Moscow’s economic lifeline remains open.

The U.S., meanwhile, is ill-prepared for a tariff war with China. When Trump imposed 145% tariffs, Beijing retaliated by cutting off rare earth metals exports, vital to U.S. industry and defense. Trump backed down.

At the G-7 summit in Canada last month, the EU proposed lowering price caps on Russian oil from $60 a barrel to $45 a barrel as part of its 18th sanctions package against Russia. Trump rejected the proposal at the time but may be tempted to reconsider, given his suggestion that more sanctions may be needed. Even if Washington backs the measure now, however, it is unlikely to cripple Russia’s war machine.

Another strategy may involve isolating Russia by peeling away Moscow’s traditionally friendly neighbors. Here, Western mediation between Armenia and Azerbaijan isn’t about peace — if it were, pressure would target Baku, which has stalled agreements and threatened renewed war against Armenia. The real goal is to eject Russia from the South Caucasus and create a NATO-aligned energy corridor linking Turkey to Central Asia, bypassing both Russia and Iran to their detriment.

Central Asia itself is itself emerging as a new battleground. In May 2025, the EU has celebrated its first summit with Central Asian nations in Uzbekistan, with a heavy focus on developing the Middle Corridor, a route for transportation of energy and critical raw materials that would bypass Russia. In that context, the EU has committed €10 billion in support of the Trans-Caspian International Transport Route.

keep readingShow less
Syria sanctions
Top image credit: People line up to buy bread, after Syria's Bashar al-Assad was ousted, in Douma, on the outskirts of Damascus, Syria December 23, 2024. REUTERS/Zohra Bensemra

Lifting sanctions on Syria exposes their cruel intent

Middle East

On June 30, President Trump signed an executive order terminating the majority of U.S. sanctions on Syria. The move, which would have been unthinkable mere months ago, fulfilled a promise he made at an investment forum in Riyadh in May.“The sanctions were brutal and crippling,” he had declared to an audience of primarily Saudi businessmen. Lifting them, he said, will “give Syria a chance at greatness.”

The significance of this statement lies not solely in the relief that it will bring to the Syrian people. His remarks revealed an implicit but rarely admitted truth: sanctions — often presented as a peaceful alternative to war — have been harming the Syrian people all along.

keep readingShow less

LATEST

QIOSK

Newsletter

Subscribe now to our weekly round-up and don't miss a beat with your favorite RS contributors and reporters, as well as staff analysis, opinion, and news promoting a positive, non-partisan vision of U.S. foreign policy.