GERMANY: POST-MORTEM ON KEY ISSUES FOLLOWING THE

C O N F I D E N T I A L BERLIN 001669 SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 10/01/2018 TAGS: PREL MARR NATO RS AF GM SUBJECT: GERMANY: POST-MORTEM ON KEY ISSUES FOLLOWING THE DECEMBER 2-3 NATO FOREIGN MINISTERIAL REF: A. USNATO 0456 ¶B. BERLIN 1604 Classified By: CHARGE D'AFFAIRES JOHN KOENIG. REASONS: 1.4 (B) AND (D). ¶1. (C) SUMMARY: German officials are generally satisfied with the hard-fought compromises on MAP and NATO-Russian relations in the December 2-3 NATO Foreign Ministers communique. On MAP, there is hope that this contentious issue can finally be put to the side for the medium term. While conceding that the NATO-Georgia and NATO-Ukraine commissions could ultimately obviate the need for MAP, Germany still wants for the time being to maintain MAP as an insurance policy against premature accession. On NATO-Russia, FM Steinmeier continues to push for talks to be resumed within the NRC "as soon as possible," but German officials acknowledge privately that even "informal" NRC discussions are not likely to take place until the new year, after the NATO Secretary General re-engages with Russia at the political level. On MD, the Germans ended up accepting much more language than they had intended to, but wonder how energetically the new U.S. Administration will continue pursuing the European-based system, if at all. On Afghanistan, it appears that the overly conservative MOD, in the end, will agree that the expansion of RC-North to incorporate Gormach District can go ahead without a new ISAF mandate from the Bundestag. German officials do not see a need for the North Atlantic Council (NAC) to formally approve the expansion of RC-North, but would like the Chairman of the Military Committee to brief the NAC on the change and for the NAC to formally note it. END SUMMARY. MAP COMPROMISE ¶2. (C) German officials are relatively satisfied with the result reached on the Membership Action Plan (MAP) for Georgia and Ukraine, which they view as a genuine compromise between the original U.S. and German positions. The disingenuous German spin in the press after the first day of the ministerial was that FM Steinmeier had succeeded in maintaining MAP as a mandatory part of the membership process, thereby stopping the U.S. from short-circuiting things and "rushing" Georgia and Ukraine into the Alliance. German officials have since acknowledged that working through the respective commissions does not constitute a short-circuiting of the process, and that the "without prejudice" language in the communique does, in fact, leave open the question whether MAP will still be required for Georgia and Ukraine at some point in future. ¶3. (C) The Director of FM Steinmeier's Ministerial Office, Stephan Steinlein, expressed the hope to the Charge December 11 that achievement of this compromise meant that the MAP issue would not have to be taken up again at the April 2009 NATO Summit. The Charge indicated that while this could very well be the case, this would have to be confirmed by the new U.S. Administration. While welcoming the compromise, Chancellery Deputy Security Affairs Director Detlef Waechter regretted that it took a record 21 communique drafts to get there, which indicated that entirely too much time had been spent arguing about this issue. He hoped that the matter had been truly been resolved for the time being so that the Alliance could concentrate on more substantive matters and any further unnecessary tensions in the bilateral relationship could be avoided. ¶4. (C) MFA NATO Office Director Bernhard Schlagheck conceded that the work the respective commissions will do to help prepare Georgia and Ukraine for NATO membership could, in the end, obviate the need for MAP. Nonetheless, he emphasized that Germany still wanted to keep open the possibility of MAP as a "second threshold" if considered politically necessary to put a brake on premature accession. While positive about the compromise reached, MOD Policy Planning Chief Ulrich Schlie told the Charge that Germany continued to have serious misgivings about the readiness of Ukraine or Georgia to join the Alliance. He was especially critical of Georgia because of, among other things, a lack of trust in President Saakashvili's judgment. NATO-RUSSIA ¶5. (C) German officials have also indicated their general satisfaction with the compromise decision on a gradual resumption of NATO-Russia relations, although the ink was barely dry on the communique when FM Steinmeier strongly advocated in an op-ed that talks within the NRC should be resumed "as soon as possible." MFA's Schlagheck conceded to us privately, however, that even "informal" NRC discussions are not likely to take place until the new year, after the NATO Secretary General re-engages with Russia at the political level. ¶6. (C) Schlagheck said de Hoop Scheffer might do this by traveling to Moscow to meet Russian Ambassador to NATO Rogozin, but Waechter, reflecting the Chancellery's more skeptical view of Russia, thought it would be far better to have such a meeting in Brussels. Having the Secretary General go to Moscow, hat in hand, would make the Alliance look a little too eager. Schlagheck said he understood that an "informal" NRC discussion would mean no decisions or minutes prepared. He thought the first such meeting would focus on issues of mutual interest, like counter-piracy, CT and making the NRC more effective. Both Schlagheck and Waechter agreed that the communique's requirement for the Secretary General to "report back" to ministers before engaging Russia formally in the NRC meant that there would be no formal NRC meetings until after the next NATO foreign ministers meeting in March. MISSILE DEFENSE ¶7. (C) MFA Deputy Political Director Eberhard Pohl told us shortly before the ministerial that he did not see a reason to mention missile defense at all in the communique, claiming that there was nothing new to report since Bucharest. He practically ruled out including any reference to the MD agreements signed with Poland and the Czech Republic. While much of the communique language on MD ended being repeated from Bucharest, it did include the reference to the signed MD agreements and therefore amounted to a significant climb down from Germany's original position. ¶8. (C) Waechter agreed that it had been useful to repeat Bucharest language to demonstrate the continued commitment to what had been agreed at Bucharest. He thought this issue deserved to be prominently mentioned in the declaration for the April 2009 Summit, but wondered what approach the new Obama Administration would take to MD. He guessed that because of the financial crisis and budget deficits that the new President would allow the program to go forward, but with "less energy." Without prejudicing a future decision by the new Administration on the European-based system, post has pointed out to German interlocutors that MD has enjoyed broad bipartisan support over the years and was originally launched under the Clinton Administration. AFGHANISTAN ¶9. (C) A big news item in Germany just before the NATO ministerial was the revelation that the Afghan government planned to transfer Gormach District from RC-West,s Badghis Province to RC-North,s Faryab Province, thereby unilaterally increasing Germany's area of responsibility (AOR) to include a well-known sanctuary for insurgents. Unnamed German parliamentarians were described as outraged at the move, and Defense Minister Jung responded by suggesting publicly that a new Bundestag mandate would be necessary to accommodate this change. Fortunately, cooler heads seem to have prevailed in the last week or so. Schlie at MOD assured the Charge December 10 that the transfer of Gormach (which post understands that President Karzai has already decreed on a temporary basis) will not require a new Bundestag mandate. The MFA's Steinlein, agreed December 11 that the "conservative" MOD will eventually "come around" and back down from its position. ¶10. (C) Schlagheck expressed frustration at Jung's public intervention on this issue, explaining that the Gormach transfer had been foreseen months ago and that the ISAF parliamentary mandate had been amended accordingly during its renewal in October. According to Schlagheck, there is absolutely "no appetite" among most parliamentarians for re-visiting the ISAF mandate this soon after renewal, especially with a possible stand-alone mandate for NATO AWACS in Afghanistan looming on the horizon. Schlagheck said Germany did not see a need for the North Atlantic Council (NAC) to formally approve the expansion of RC-North to include Gormach, but indicated that it would like the Chairman of the Military Committee to brief the NAC on the change and for the NAC to formally note it. While adding Gormach to RC-North primarily affects the Norwegians, since they lead PRT Maimana and are responsible for Faryab Province, Germany would be called upon to assist in any operation there since they provide the troops for RC-North's quick reaction force (QRF) and own the MEDEVAC assets. ¶11. (C) Another example of MOD's conservatism is its apparent willingness to see the proposed Afghan National Army (ANA) Engineer School in Mazar-e-Sharif fail because of a lack of funding (ref B). The MOD itself calculates that the school will cost just 18 million Euros over four years. Schlie agreed that this was a "laughable" amount of money to quibble about when overall German spending on Afghanistan approached a billion Euros a year. Schlie called this "classic Schneiderhan," a reference to the long-serving Inspector General who is Germany's top military officer. Schlie said he found Schneiderhan "impossible" because he was always "fighting to do the minimum." Schlie agreed that this conservative, minimalist mind set pervaded Germany's whole approach to Afghanistan, resulting in every initiative taking an incredibly long time to accomplish. Schlie agreed with the Charge that Germany needed to be bolder in ramping up its contributions to Afghanistan. Koenig