MAXIMIZING GERMANY'S CONTRIBUTION TO THE TRAINING

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 BERLIN 000138 SIPDIS FOR SECRETARY CLINTON E.O. 12958: DECL: 01/29/2020 TAGS: PREL MARR MOPS NATO GM AF SUBJECT: MAXIMIZING GERMANY'S CONTRIBUTION TO THE TRAINING OF AFGHAN NATIONAL SECURITY ... 246466 2010-02-01 10BERLIN138 Embassy Berlin CONFIDENTIAL C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 BERLIN 000138 SIPDIS FOR SECRETARY CLINTON E.O. 12958: DECL: 01/29/2020 TAGS: PREL MARR MOPS NATO GM AF SUBJECT: MAXIMIZING GERMANY'S CONTRIBUTION TO THE TRAINING OF AFGHAN NATIONAL SECURITY FORCES Classified By: AMBASSADOR PHILIP D. MURPHY. REASONS: 1.4 (B) AND (D). Dear Madam Secretary, (SBU) I have just returned from a five-day trip to northern Afghanistan and Kabul at the invitation of the German Armed Forces and wanted to share with you some of my impressions. (C) First and foremost, I came away deeply impressed with the dedication, professionalism and competence of the German soldiers I met in Afghanistan. Without exception, all of them strongly believe in GEN McChrystal's counterinsurgency strategy and see its emphasis on protection of the population and partnering with Afghan security forces as absolutely the right way ahead. While the U.S. and German militaries might have had their differences in the past about the right strategy in Afghanistan, that is no longer the case today. (C) The Bundeswehr will probably never be able to do partnering at the ratio and intensity that U.S. forces do, but as the German commander for Region North assured me, it is ready to deploy beefed-up embedded mentoring teams to operate in the field with the Afghan National Army (ANA). The Bundeswehr has made great strides over the past couple of years, eliminating many of its previous caveats and becoming more offensively-minded. Its command of the quick reaction force (QRF) for the northern region -- a unit which I had the pleasure of inspecting during my trip -- has helped facilitate this process. The current Bundeswehr is a far cry from the static, defensively oriented territorial army of 20 years ago. (C) Chancellor Merkel's January 26 announcement that she would seek only a 500-troop increase in the German contingent (along with an additional 350-troop reserve) was disappointing. The decision to go with a much lower number (Defense Minster zu Guttenberg had recommended an increase of 1,500 troops) was driven by the Chancellor's desire to maintain broad parliamentary support for the ISAF mandate in the face of overwhelming public opposition to the deployment. However, we should not write off the Germans as a military contributor and assume they can only contribute to the new ISAF strategy by providing garrison trainers. We will hold them to their commitment to restructure their forces so that the number of Bundeswehr soldiers training and operating with the ANA in the field will increase from the current 280 to 1,400. The Afghanistan deployment has been a transformational process for the Bundeswehr and we should encourage the continuation of this positive trend. While recognizing the Germans' perceptions of their limitations, we must also be careful not to go too far in the other direction and have overly low expectations of them. (C) During my talks to German soldiers of all ranks, I was struck by their frustration about the unwillingness of German politicians to be honest about the nature of the German military engagement in northern Afghanistan -- i.e., that it does not involve just guarding aid workers and digging wells, but also combat against hard-core insurgents. They complained that while the Bundeswehr and the Afghanistan deployment had evolved over time, the politicians remained stuck in an old mind-set that sees the German public as simply incapable of accepting German soldiers being involved in anything but purely defensive military operations. They thought that support for the mission would actually increase if the German government were more open and honest about what was really going on and what was at stake. They pointed out that while German public opposition to the deployment is high (60-70% favor immediate withdrawal),it is not deeply felt, with other issues like the economy and unemployment ranking much higher on the list of concerns. (C) My own assessment is that the German public is much more resilient on this issue than the politicians give them credit for. Who would have imagined in 2001 that Germany would still be in Afghanistan eight years later despite the loss of 35 soldiers and police officers? Many would have predicted that a tragedy like last fall's German-ordered air strike in Kunduz, in which dozens of innocent Afghan civilians may have been killed, would have led to angry demonstrations in Germany, demanding immediate withdrawal of the Bundeswehr. But in fact, the opposite occurred. Support for the mission BERLIN 00000138 002 OF 002 actually increased temporarily as most Germans rallied around the German commander who took the difficult decision to order the bombing against the two hijacked fuel tankers. While we obviously must defer to the German government on how to handle these issues domestically, we should not take at face value traditional German assertions about the impossibility of Bundeswehr involvement in military operations. (C) I was equally impressed with the German civilian police trainers that I met at the German police training facility in Mazar-e Sharif, which is being expanded to train up to 600 police at a time. They are extremely competent and committed. The good news is that the old debate between Germany and the United States about how to train police is over. Germany has embraced the U.S. Focused District Development (FDD) police training program and has plans to implement it in 50 districts throughout the north by 2012. Part of Merkel's January 26 announcement included a planned increase in civilian police trainers from 123 to 200 for FDD and other bilateral training programs. Unlike military deployments, sending police trainers requires no parliamentary mandate and is not politically controversial. (C) The less good news is that while German police mentoring teams (PMTs) also include military police, Germany views police training overall as a purely civilian government activity that can only be done by active-duty police officers. As a result, German PMTs cannot include contractors, operate in conflict areas or partner with Afghan police in doing operations beyond normal law enforcement. The further German PMTs move away from German bases, the higher the requirements will be for Bundeswehr force protection and medical support, which is already in short supply. Merkel touts that Germany will train 5,000 Afghan police per year, but most of that will be garrison training, not the mentoring and partnering that GEN McChrystal believes is critical to getting Afghan security forces up to speed quickly. Even for garrison training, Germany's ability to send significantly more police officers is limited because there is no excess capacity within either the Federal Police or the 16 state police forces to draw from. The program depends on volunteers who agree to serve even though in most cases it is not career-enhancing. We continue to push here in Berlin for the government to find some way to deploy more police trainers, but this is likely to be a lengthy process. (C) All the German military leaders and officials I met with welcomed the planned deployment of a brigade of U.S. police trainers and a battalion of air assets in the north of Afghanistan, realizing that both are urgently needed to fill long-standing shortfalls. The fact that the U.S. forces will come under the tactical control of the German regional commander has reassured the Germans that the U.S. has no intention of taking over the north. As we go forward, we will want to make sure that all of our actions in the north are fully coordinated so that we do not inadvertently undermine Germany's sense of ownership of the region. This is essential for keeping Germany fully engaged in Afghanistan and the Bundeswehr on its positive trajectory to becoming a fully capable, expeditionary force. (C) Over the next several weeks, in the lead-up to the Bundestag debate and vote on the government's proposal for a troop increase, I will be engaging with government ministers, parliamentarians from all parties and the media to relay the conclusions of my trip and to underscore the importance of Germany stepping up its efforts on the training of Afghan national security forces. As I saw for myself in Afghanistan, there is a compelling case for the U.S. strategy and approach and I am confident that, in the end, we will be able to get a strong and meaningful increase in Germany's contribution to our common mission. Murphy