Germany's Mission in Afghanistan: Ex-Defense Officials Skeptical of Success

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Stützle can clearly remember a session of the Bundestag's Foreign Affairs Committee shortly before Christmas 2001. Rudolf Scharping, defense minister at the time, wasn't present, which meant Stützle had to field the parliamentarians' questions. One representative, Volker Rühe of the then opposition Christian Democratic Union (CDU), made things difficult for Stützle, seeming to understand exactly where the Achilles' heel in the plan was.

Stützle and Rühe recently ran into one another at an event hosted by the Körber Foundation and both recalled that memorable committee session. Both the former defense minister from the CDU and the former state secretary from the SPD found it didn't take long for them to agree on Afghanistan now.

During his term as defense minister in the 1990s, Rühe ended the practice of allowing Germany to buy its way out of participation in foreign missions. He put an end to former Chancellor Helmut Kohl's methods, initially against resistance from the chancellor himself. Like Stützle, Rühe finds the topic hasn't released its hold on him, although he has since left government. He's a man with the demeanor of a chancellor, and has never been one to beat around the bush.

"Wrong and dangerous!" Rühe says. "Germany's security is being defended in the Hindu Kush? This rationale is wrong and dangerous!" He then elaborates, "The Taliban have a regional agenda. As odious as they may be, they don't want to attack Hamburg and New York."

But what about back then? Afghanistan was made out to be the cradle of terrorism, the base from which Osama bin Laden coordinated the Sept. 11 attacks. "The operational capabilities for the dreadful 9/11 attacks were not acquired in Afghanistan, but in Hamburg," Rühe replies, "and the ability to fly and hijack airplanes was gained in the US!"

Avoiding Another Vietnam

Rühe favors an orderly withdrawal. "It's wrong to stay there and have 100,000 soldiers on site -- that's effectively delivering the equivalent of a World Trade Center directly to their door."

For Rühe the only thing that speaks against withdrawing now, immediately, is the future of NATO, an alliance that has become mired in a wearying war with a structurally far inferior opponent. Then he drops the V-word. "If we just run away in a disorderly fashion," Rühe says, "if we end up with pictures like those out of Saigon, like those out of Vietnam, that will harm NATO."

Vietnam is America's greatest trauma. It's a war that was eventually continued only for the sake of saving face, a war in which people on both sides continued to die for that reason alone.

The red brick building at the end of this street near Neuruppin, a town in northeastern Germany, could easily be at the end of the world too. This is where Harald Kujat has retired to raise horses. Two mares stand in the stable, foals with clumsy, long legs and scraggly, stubby tails lying in the straw at their feet.

Kujat is the man who advised Chancellor Schröder on matters of war. He was inspector general of the Bundeswehr and later chairman of the NATO Military Committee. Some within the Defense Ministry say Kujat was in such a hurry to send the Bundeswehr everywhere -- especially to Afghanistan -- for his own career reasons.

Kujat was unmoved by this criticism then and he remains unmoved today. Schröder declared full solidarity and "after Schröder announced this and NATO invoked Article 5 for the first time in its history, there was no other alternative," he says impassively. Article 5 states that an attack against one member of the alliance is considered an attack against all.

Following Schröder's verdict, Kujat says, "we had to try to make the best of it. That meant, first and foremost, preventing demands being made that we couldn't fill militarily or didn't want to fill politically."

Shortly after Sept. 11, Kujat flew to meet Tommy Franks, Commander of the United States Central Command at the time, to discuss what Germany could do. The decision included, among other things, sending 100 members of the Special Forces Command, an elite unit of the Bundeswehr, to Afghanistan.

"Really," Kujat says over coffee and rhubarb pie, "the job wasn't so challenging. But the Americans' sense of their mission demanded that democracy be introduced immediately." The nations leading the operation, he says, also failed at civilian and governmental reconstruction in Afghanistan. "In retrospect, a military administration would have been a better idea in the first years."

'A De Facto Stalemate'

His wife comes in from training one of the foals. "Would you like a Trakehner foal?" she asks and Kujat laughs. The little foal, he explains, is a bit stubborn. "A real East Prussian," he smiles. Kujat himself comes from Mielke, in what was once West Prussia.

"What we need," he continues, "is a central institution, similar to what was set up in the Balkans, with the authority to impose civilian and military measures upon the Afghan government. Basically, the UN, NATO and other institutions need to make up for what they missed out on in the beginning with the introduction of a military administration. That would be the only way to save what it's still possible to save."

Kujat's words too sound like the lament of a man who no longer really believes this will end particularly well: "We'll define a final status and then define it as having been reached. It will end up as a de facto stalemate."

Save what is still possible to save, in other words.

Justifying the mission has grown more and more difficult -- so difficult, it has toppled a president here at home and entire governments elsewhere. Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende owes his fall from power to Afghanistan. The Netherlands, along with Canada, plan to withdraw from Afghanistan soon. US President Barack Obama has set 2011 as his deadline, while German Chancellor Angela Merkel speaks of a "responsible hand-off."

Helmut Schmidt, who served in the German Armed Forces during World War II and was later the country's defense minister and then chancellor, gave a historical and highly personal speech at a Bundeswehr swearing-in ceremony in front of the Reichstag two years ago. The speech was one that got under listeners' skin, its high point being when Schmidt, a member of the SPD, declared to the 500 recruits, "You should be aware that your service may entail risks and dangers. But there is one thing that you can rely on: This state will not misuse you." The SPD party leadership has commented lately that now would be a good time for the former chancellor to evoke that statement again, and raise the question of whether the promise he made two years ago can still be kept today.

Crossing the Pain Threshold

This particular journey to meet the old political fighters is drawing to a close. It's been a series of meetings with contemplative men, men who were at odds in the past, and still don't agree today on how sensible this war still is. Belief in the war, though, has disappeared across the board.

And when it comes to the war's victims, even old opponents Kujat and Stützle find themselves reconciled. "God willing," Stützle said in Café Weyers, "God willing, the number of casualties will not increase any more, but the increase is part of the logic of McChrystal's new strategy."

Since that conversation took place, 25 more ISAF soldiers have died in Afghanistan. Struck said at Hotel Berlin, "In these questions, ones of great international import, politicians can't go chasing after public opinion." That's a bold position, but is it possible to maintain?

Kujat in his red brick house at the end of the world said, "Discussions will start when the pain threshold is crossed. The German population wouldn't stand for a number of casualties comparable to what Canada has suffered. That would be politically untenable." Canada has lost 147 soldiers so far and is now calling for a withdrawal. Germany has currently lost 43.

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• Part 1: Ex-Defense Officials Skeptical of Success
• Part 2: Save What Is Still Possible to Save