https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/n...ment-2jlqfb53q
Nuclear row over US jets splits Angela Merkel government
The German defence minister has angered her centre-left coalition partners by forging ahead with a plan to buy 45 US fighter jets, 30 of which will be fitted to carry American atom bombs.
Germany’s fleet of roughly 90 Tornado jets, the symbol of Berlin’s commitment to upholding the Nato nuclear umbrella, must be replaced from 2025. Yet
Angela Merkel’s coalition is rancorously divided over the next generation of nuclear-capable aircraft. The defence ministry, controlled by Mrs Merkel’s
close ally Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, wants 90 Eurofighters from Airbus, the European aerospace giant, and 30 F-18 Super Hornets and 15 F-18 Growler jets from Boeing, its American rival. The left-wing Social Democratic party (SPD), however, is uncomfortable about spending so much on US hardware and its MPs insist on having a say in the decision.
The dispute came to a head on Sunday when it emerged that Mrs Kramp-Karrenbauer had emailed her US counterpart, Mark Esper, saying that Germany was ready to order the F-18s.
The US has about 150 B61-12 air-launched nuclear bombs in Europe, with 20 or so stored at the Büchel air base in western Germany. Opinion polls suggest that an overwhelming majority of the public want them gone but the government regards them as a pillar of the country’s Nato membership. Torben Schütz, a research fellow in security and defence policy at the German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP), said the F-18 order was “very closely bound up with Germany’s continued role as an active partner in Nato’s shared nuclear deterrent”.
Anti-nuclear MPs have accused Mrs Kramp-Karrenbauer of cutting the Bundestag out of the decision. Fritz Felgentreu, the defence spokesman for the SPD group in the Bundestag, said it would withdraw its support for the ministry unless it changed course. “As long as we have no opportunity to examine the ministry’s choice, to evaluate it critically and to compare it against the alternatives, the SPD will certainly not go along with this process,” he said.
The nuclear question has taken on a sharper significance since Russia stationed large numbers of medium-range cruise missiles within striking range of European capitals. While the other seven EU states which house US bombs have all bought state-of-the-art F-35 fighter jets to carry them, Germany’s choice to acquire a combination of older models from Europe and the US reflects its delicate strategic tightrope act.
“Franco-German and US-German relations are at the centre of this in political terms,” Mr Schütz said. “If you order as many Eurofighters as possible you strengthen Airbus, which is . . . supposed to develop and build the next generation of fighter jets at the behest of the French and German governments. But at the same time it’s important for Germany to maintain relations with the US, which is where buying American aircraft helps.”