Experts criticize Merz about Taurus-Zick-Zack course

Security experts criticize the behavior of the new federal government with a view to the possible delivery of Taurus marching aircraft. “You have to state that the new federal government still has external and security policy starting difficulties,” said Christian Mölling from the Brussels Think Tank European Policy Center star.

Chancellor Friedrich Merz was a good attempt to end the debate about the delivery of “individual weapons systems”.

However, this position was “completely undermined” by SPD parliamentary group leader Matthias Miersch. Miersch had again excluded the delivery of Taurus marching aircraft to Ukraine on Tuesday. “We do not want to become a war party and so we always understood the rejection of the taurus delivery and it stays that way,” said Miersch on the sidelines of an SPD parliamentary group meeting. He assumes that the topic will be discussed in the government, “but always under these signs”.

According to the expert Mölling, this definition is “clumsy” and strategically wrong because you make yourself predictable for Russia. “You get into hell -like pulling when you say in detail what you will do or what you won’t do.”

In addition, one of the two, Friedrich Merz or Matthias Miersch, would now have to clear his position in order to find a coalition back into a coherent line.

Before the election, Merz had said several times that he could imagine delivery of taurus rockets to Ukraine. He sounded significantly more reserved on Thursday evening in the program of Maybritt Illner. “It is not due at the moment,” said the CDU boss at the question of the rejection of the SPD again at Taurus deliveries. He also emphasized that he would not lead the debate publicly.

A strategy that security expert Nico Lange thinks is wrong. “Ducking off is always communication,” said Lange, currently Senior Fellow of the Munich Security Conference: “In this respect, complete silence for possible arms deliveries and military support for Ukraine would not make sense, even if the confidentiality of many details is correct.”

Lange, who led the CDU-close Konrad Adenauer Foundation abroad from 2006 to 2012, considers the delivery of Taurus marching flight bodies to be urgently needed: “The military ability of Taurus will continue to be needed to support Ukraine’s defense as well as for long-term protection of a possible ceasefire.”

He expects from the new Chancellor “that he does what he says” and Ukraine Taurus from Germany.

But would Germany not make itself a war party, as SPD parliamentary group leader Miersch argues? The political scientist Mölling thinks this is a sham debate.

Technically, Ukraine can use Taurus independently of Germany, but not politically: “It is very clear that one could reconcile with the Ukrainians what the conditions under which this weapon could be used”. The lever is the other German support for Ukraine.

It is about “putting pressure on Russia overall with all the possibilities you have”. This included further sanctions as well as the delivery of taurus rockets.

In principle, the Federal Government needs a “different mental line -up” in dealing with Russia, “said Mölling. One would have to expect the other side to act against you and be very well prepared. “We still have not arrived mentally. We still have a kind of paternalism towards Russia, mixed with guilt feelings”.