Andy Eckardt ("NBC news", Feb. 19, 1998)

 At a Munich conference on security policy this month, German Chancellor Helmut Kohl ended speculation about his country’s stance in the Gulf standoff by promising full support for any U.S. decision to use military force against Iraq. Kohl’s remarks also provided further evidence that the postwar political taboo against German involvement in military actions is fading."IT IS ABSOLUTELY CLEAR that air bases in Germany will be available for the United States", Kohl said and added that "the American friends will have Germany’s full political support." Kohl’s statement surprised many, including his own aides. But the reasons behind it were fairly clear. At the security meeting earlier this month, 10 U.S. senators who accompanied Defense Secretary William Cohen to Munich sent out a strong warning to European governments that support for NATO expansion in the U.S. Congress - an issue the Senate is scheduled to take up later this month - could dry up if E.U. leaders failed to back military actions. The senators also echoed U.S. complaints about Europe’s reliance on the United States to handle the crisis in Bosnia while failing to support the United States and its interests abroad. European nations have been split over the issue so far. While Great Britain is offering the United States full military support, France has so far declined to take part and has been reluctant to support the U.S. threat to use force. Other countries, including Italy, Spain and Portugal, have offered the use of their bases.With France and Britain split to some degree, Germany’s voice mattered more than ever. But German officials are quick to point out that Germany has not been asked to provide the manpower and money it contributed during the Gulf war in 1991, when German minesweepers joined in patrolling the Persian Gulf and the government contributed $11.5 billion to the mission.Immediately after Kohl’s statement, German Defense Minister Volker Ruehe emphasized that German military support was not an issue and that the chancellor’s remarks reflected Germany’s political solidarity only. Lt. Col. Lewis Boone, a spokesman for the U.S. military’s European Command, said the United States would not be required to ask permission to use big American bases like Rhein-Main Air Base in Frankfurt and Ramstein Air Base in southern Germany.

If Germany is less politically sensitive about military matters, it remains a controversial subject to the German public. In a recent poll published by Germany’s "Der Spiegel" magazine, 58 percent of Germans questioned said that the German army should not get involved in the conflict at all while 27 percent said that Germany should provide logistical help. Only 14 percent called for German military participation. "What is required in the present crisis is not a participation of German soldiers, airplanes or weapons, but simply some logistical support for the U.S. forces" Dr. Harald Mueller from the Frankfurt Peace Research Institute said. "This is a form of support that will not arouse great controversy, mass demonstrations and alike in Germany."During the Gulf war of 1990-‘91, hundreds of thousands of Germans took to the streets to protest against a military intervention in Iraq and to show their anger about the failure of diplomacy. Many Germans accused the United States of acting like the "world’s policeman" and deliberately ignoring opposition to a military solution from other nations.Much of that reflected an anti-militaristic ideology that took root after World War II, something which to this say is considered a great success story of the postwar allied occupation of Germany.

Still, since the Gulf war, the political attitude towards German participation in military missions and public opinion have changed.In 1996, a long political debate ended when the German Parliament voted to send troops to Bosnia for NATO’s peacekeeping mission. Only six months later, the Germany army received an international applause when German soldiers executed a spectacular operation to rescue foreigners from Albania. Today, even the leadership of Germany’s opposition Social Democratic Party, which strongly opposed an attack on Iraq in 1991, have emphasized their support for U.S. mission in Iraq. "Germany, with its Nazi history and its pacifistic mood, took quite a while to understand that it had to act as a good citizen in an international community of western states" Mueller says, "so, we are ready, with modest means, to do our share."