Read Uwe Parpart’s hard-hitting analysis of the German Air Force’s Ukraine blunder from the latest edition of the Global Risk-Reward Monitor — Asia Times’ subscription-only weekly newsletter examining event-driven trends and trading opportunities across world markets. Subscribe now for access at a special price of only $99/year.
Clown show or casus belli? I’d have to say, “both” … as is often the case when a combination of ignorance and arrogance conspire to ignite and cause the outbreak of war. Or in this case, the escalation of a regional war to a global and potentially nuclear confrontation.
This is highlighted by the incredibly stupid non-secure teleconference between Lt. Gen. Ingo Gerhartz, Generalinspekteur der Luftwaffe (Commander of the German Air Force), and three other German air force officers of general’s rank. For 38 fascinating minutes intercepted by Russian Intelligence and made public via the RT Telegram channel, these clowns in soldiers’ garb discussed in a casual and cavalier tone the potential and difficulties of deploying the Taurus long-range cruise missile in Ukraine and, as an example, attacking and destroying the Crimean Bridge (also called Kerch Bridge) and nearby munitions storage facilities.
One of the generals noted that the bridge (at 19 km the longest in Europe) is the size of a major airfield and would require at least 10 to possibly 20 Taurus missiles to fully destroy rather than merely poke a hole in a pillar.
And that’s a problem. Who’s to do this? It might take up to 6 months of training Ukrainian personnel to pull this off. And Germans can’t be seen there. It can’t be done in the “old Luftwaffe style” one speaker remarks. Another remarks, “If we’re asked about delivery methods, I know how the British do this, they do it completely in reach-back [forward-deployed personnel]. They have several people on the ground.”
Well of course, when the Brits and Americans can help, so much the better.
The German Ministry of Defense has confirmed the authenticity of the conversation.
A high-level US intelligence officer who writes daily comments on the Ukraine war concluded in a recent piece:
“As for the German generals, there is no excuse for such an OPSEC
[operational security] clown show and everyone who took part in it should be fired.”
I wrote back to him: “As a former German military officer, I am ashamed of this dangerous clown show for which there is zero excuse. If the Kerch Bridge at any future time is taken down, Putin rightly will hold Germany responsible and consider it an act of war by Germany against Russia, a classic casus belli. Putin and his generals will consider what equivalent structures in Germany to take down. [There is no bridge anywhere near that size in Germany]. Perhaps the Elbe River bridges at Dresden, across which much of the war materials supplies into Poland and Ukraine travel. — Firing those dudes is not enough. They should be court-martialed and rapidly convicted. Unfortunately, there’s no military justice system in Germany. A civilian criminal court will have to be good enough.”
The tide in the Ukraine war has not only turned since the abject failure of the Ukrainian summer offensive; it’s now getting ever closer to being lost. In this situation, desperate men and women on the NATO and Ukrainian side are considering desperate measures.
The US does not want peace because Joe Biden would be branded the loser and it would cost him the November election. Zelensky has called off elections in Ukraine due now and will not negotiate. NATO thinks it must play tough and look like it has the ability to win the war – though everyone knows that NATO has neither the troops nor military equipment and munitions to do so.
This is the perfect political brew in which French President Macron talks about sending NATO ground forces, or NATO General Secretary Stoltenberg proposes to put NATO ground forces at the Ukraine-Belarus border to relieve Ukrainian border troops there. This could start a European-wide conflagration.
The coming months will be critical. As it’s election period, cool heads will be hard to come by.
One interesting political fact: Germans oppose the Taurus deployment by 56 to 35%, the rest are undecided. Chancellor Scholz’s opposition to Taurus may well be the only thing on which a substantial majority of German voters agree with him.
Follow Uwe Parpart on X at @uwe_parpart