With less than a year to go before a general election, the question over whether the German army should be equipped with killer drones has bitterly divided German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s coalition government, testing NATO’s patience.
German armed forces have so far only been allowed to use reconnaissance drones as part of military missions in Mali and Afghanistan, leaving it to other international partners to deploy armed drones.
In 2018, Germany signed a contract to lease five new Heron TP drones from Israeli manufacturer IAI with the initial purpose of using them only for surveillance, although they can be equipped with missiles if desired.
Photo: AFP
Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union and its Social Democratic (SPD) coalition partner agreed at the time that parliament would have the final say on arming the drones.
The ruling party has backed arming the remote-controlled drones, along with some SPD members.
The Free Democratic Party and Alternative for Germany opposition parties are also in favor.
The opposition Greens and Die Linke are opposed.
The debate came to a head in the middle of last month, when SPD coleader Norbert Walter-Borjans and the chairman of SPD’s parliamentary group, Rolf Muetzenich, unexpectedly spoke out against the arming of the vehicles.
A parliamentary vote has been postponed indefinitely.
“The line between defending the lives and limbs of our soldiers, and killing with a joystick is very thin,” Walter-Borjans said.
However, the chairman of the annual Munich Security Conference, Wolfgang Ischinger, disagreed.
“What does a pilot [of a fighter plane] do, if not kill by joystick, by pressing a button 50km away, without seeing his target, and firing an air-to-ground missile?” Ischinger said.
Muetzenich said he wants a comprehensive ethical debate on “automated killing” by the Bundeswehr armed forces, which he says half of Germans oppose.
“It disturbs me that almost only the military — those responsible for armaments and defense — have a say, but never doctors or church representatives,” he said.
Andre Wuestner, the head of Germany’s armed forces union, said there had been several years “of discussions on five, I stress, five armed drones.”
The blockage has been criticized even within the SPD.
The party’s defense spokesman, Fritz Felgentreu, resigned in protest at the SPD’s decision.
German Minister of Defense Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer has accused the junior coalition partner of “cowardice.”
“We have drawn up operational principles, which stipulate that armed drones can only be used defensively by the Bundeswehr — to protect its own people,” Kramp-Karrenbauer said.
Others, including CDU defense expert Henning Otte, have accused the SPD of trying to score points with voters in the run-up to the elections.
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg has also waded into the spat.
“These drones can support our troops on the ground and, for example, reduce the number of pilots we put at risk,” Stoltenberg told the Deutsche Presse-Agentur, adding that the technology is used against the Islamic State group in Syria and Iraq.
NATO members France and Turkey are among those already using armed drones.
Armed drones, manufactured by Israel or Turkey, were also deployed by Azerbaijan against Armenia in the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh last year.
Weaponized drones are also a key part of a cross-border project led by France, Germany and Spain, known as the Future Combat Air System, to develop a new air-combat system for European forces by 2026.
In Germany, the issue would not be settled “during this parliamentary term,” Walter-Borjans said, setting the stage for months of discussions between the parties before Germans head to the polls in September.
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