2 year old is hoping to improve his performance this year after a disappointing showing last season a new campaign gets underway in just over a month. coming up next is a documentary exploring germany's role in a world of shaky alliances and breaking keep up with all the news on our web site called and told me a lot of both thanks for joining us. german

and czech soldiers are carrying out a military exercise in lithuania the potential enemy russia their mission deterrence and a show of strength a nato eastern flank. if it will deter the enemy with all the means at our disposal the world is growing less secure and more confusing a renewed arms race with nuclear and conventional weapons is imminent existing alliances are crumbling the need to be for many to be strong to deter any potential aggressor from attacking us to preserve the peace germany and its neighbors could again be caught in the middle between the superpowers. russia is laying claim to territory and for the 1st time since world war 2 a country is taking that territory by force but it doesn't operate in sa this is a potential threat of the highest order and anyone who opposes a rearmament debate is not just naive that's incredibly dangerous to feel. can the

german military the bundesliga meet the new challenges. i do believe that the german military is in a very dire and critical state is the number of ships that can sail the number of planes they can fly. to 2 can the western alliance system still guarantee security. what role does germany play in nato and in the world. when nato sounds the alarm the order reaches the 9th armored demonstration. brigade in moonstone in northwestern germany this time the male is about an exercise but

the entire apparatus responds as it would in a genuine emergency the brigade provides part of the ground troops for nato's a very high readiness joint task force the. it was established in 2014 in response to russia's annexation of crimea. and i'm clear. also that. i receive the alarm order now evaluated and then i decipher the letter combinations in the order to find out which alarm measures have actually been triggered. for that i consult the going to spare crisis response plan. so i can see which alarm measures are behind the combination of letters. to check which measures are important for the v.j. t.f. brigade and then i'll inform the chief and the brigade leadership accordingly. bring in from young rapid response units are central to nato's new threat scenarios

in this instance an emergency situation that involves fighting off an enemy attack will be rehearsed in a maneuver in poland. that was going on. within 3 days at the most 2300 soldiers from 3 countries have to be ready to move. all the strands come together here and a high security area at headquarters. it's a logistical challenge to coordinate the troops from germany norway and the netherlands. differ but also from what we have to establish communication with the 1st german armored division and the german netherlands corps i want the initial results in 90 minutes so. the clock is also taking for major maja on. laptops. nothing unusual to report in the area you have a very good with the major heads

a company of around 250 soldiers. and the biggest challenge for us is to be ready to move within 48 hours my soldiers have to load all the trucks the trucks have to be organized in convoys my heavy vehicles have to be prepared for rail transport 48 hours is not a lot of time and i fear a. major item is an experience older who has served on foreign missions in mali and cost of a now she has to ensure that the command in poland will have a fully equipped work place around $600.00 vehicles including 70 tanks are setting off from garrison's around germany to head for poland. the rapid response force is more important to nato than ever but today at a time when europe once again has to worry about security how united are the

partners in the alliance. washington april 29000 nato celebrated the 70th anniversary of its founding for 7 decades the north atlantic treaty organization has used its deterrence capability to protect p. yes freedom and prosperity on both sides of the atlantic a day before the ceremony the west's leading defense and foreign policy officials gathered at a meeting. it was supposed to be a celebration of 70 years of nato and transatlantic relations. but then u.s. vice president mike pence took to the podium to issue a rebuke. more

of our allies are now meeting their commitments but still too many others are falling short and as we all acknowledge germany is chief among germany is europe's largest and healthiest economy it's a leading global exporter and has benefited from u.s. protection of europe for generations germany must do more. and not so diplomatic attack on the alliance partner that has not invested the agreed 2 percent of its g.d.p. on defense. the german foreign minister had to try to explain why his wealthy country wasn't prepared to spend more on european security. and know that our budget jury bro says it's sometimes difficult for outsiders to understand i believe we're not just for them however we made

a firm commitments to invest more money and defense. and we intend to keep all words. we in europe know that we can take our security for granted. a rather modest show of strength from the foreign minister. left the meeting by the back door to avoid unwanted questions a fitting image of germany's appearance at the nato summit. germany has already promised its allies at 3 summits to raise military spending as agreed the defense ministry would like to see a hefty rise to $54700000000.00 euros a year but the finance ministry has other plans even one spending to drop in the coming years to 44200000000 that corresponds to 1.23 percent of g.d.p. so even further below nato's 2 percent target.

julie smith was a security advisor in the obama administration and is a prominent expert on german american relations. i do think the nato alliance has a germany problem because now one of its largest allies is unwilling or unable to meet a commitment that essentially all allies made in 2014 this is not a situation where the trump administration is fired up and frustrated with the german government we're now facing a situation where democrats and republicans alike are quite critical of berlin and its failure to meet that target understand that almost all cultishness would like to spend money on something else on the phone on health or education or infrastructure at the same time we suspect germany to invest more. in defense because we all promised to do so back in 24 team. but

germany's governing coalition of conservatives and social democrats. has a different take on the numbers they say germany has invested more than 30000000000 euros in nato since 2014 provided the 2nd largest contingent of troops in afghanistan and taken part in many missions around the world the social democrats in particular oppose a sudden rise in the defense budget foreign and defense policy expert heifetz and he explains. the figures supposedly provide suitable personnel to nato. as we try to coordinate with our alliance partners and are guided by quality. is a swipe at sent back when the german government accepted this 2 percent target we in parliament said alternately we the lawmakers are the ones who will decide what will be in the annual budget was in yiddish and also stated. a

professor at the bundeswehr university in munich advises the government on security issues he says economizing on military spending would be disastrous this is no it's not just grossly naive it's negligent and risky here in europe we are currently in a situation where the russian federation with its armament efforts has an advantage in strategic escalation that we currently can't compete with getting about the sheets and. letting their putin's russia has changed the world in terms of security policy when the cold war ended it seemed unthinkable but the world is now once again in the middle of an arms race and putin has been testing the limits of the nato alliance with the conflict in eastern ukraine the russian and accession of crimea russia on the other hand feels provokes by nato's eastern and largemouth plans. in april 26th seen over the baltic sea

130 kilometers from kaliningrad to russian fighter jets carried out 20 mock attacks on a u.s. warship and the number of product. patience is increasing. there are threats that we have to address or challenges we have to address in the north atlantic with increased russian submarine activity and our lack of sensors up there to understand what's going on there is definitely a threat stemming from russia. nato takes that threat very seriously its response has been for example the exercise in poland with the brigades from germany norway and the netherlands 4 days after the raising of the alarm in one stop the v.j. t.f. rapid response troops are on their way to the noble jump exercise. more than 2300 soldiers are being trained to ensure europe's security under german leadership

but would jump its a huge noble jump is basically all about nato is rapid response troop the task is deterrence through a show of strength. but if at the end of the day that doesn't help we have to clearly show that we are in a position to defend the territory of the alliance and if necessary to restore the territorial integrity of nato and i'll try to have some. it's just after 4 o'clock in the morning the 9th on our demonstration brigade positions itself. first sergeant major hay get him commands a leopard 2 tank. it weighs 64 tons and has a 1500 horsepower engine. at it and. we're here on a leopard to battle tank we have a crew of 4 men. the fairness of this is my driver he steers according to my orders

the gunner is responsible for the exchange of fire and the loader is responsible for all the weapons on the tank including the machine guns that i'm the commander i coordinate everything. final preparations for the maneuver to get him and his crew take a battle position. look at it it's ok saigon or swing the tower to the right. you've got woods on the right do you recognize. they swing more to the left. and although right there you can see the observation center of the platoon. the mission here is to retake a village even though no one wants to say it openly the rapid response troop is supposed to deter russia today the enemy only consists of dummies and decommission

tanks here let's follow here on our left my platoon is in position next to them is another platoon in position for the log further ahead. add in a left hand section there's also a no we just company in opposition. they are all ready and waiting for the shooting to start of the season before. this i call it was run over. head to tim's tank platoon is one of nato's elite units it's a fully equipped brigade which makes it quite an exception in the bundesbank. to.

the military is supposed to have 8 fully equipped brigades by the year 2031 but at the moment not a single brigade is 100 percent ready for action she even the v.j. t.f. troops had to borrow material from all over germany. is obvious. everyone has realized that the way the system functions at the moment we had to bring materials from throughout the book despair to munster or other places to fulfill our mission but that is not an acceptable state of affairs who this is not about building but adequate equipment those 8 brigades have to be fully equipped so that they can be just as ready for action as this brigade is. fully acquitting them will be costly but germany has made a binding commitments to nato. the army estimates that the price for

a single brigade will amount to $5000000000.00 euros but in recent years there has been practically no investment in material and equipment and even with a lot of money it will. hard to quickly rebuild all the structures that have been dismantled over the years. that's if there's a lot. of guns a steam and when the spread isn't there are systems in the that are older than i am and we still have the problem that we are deployed in major nato exercises so we can meet our obligations but it comes at the expense of operations and exercises back home it. means we no longer invested in the large stocks of replacement parts nor of ammunition and now to fill up and modernize everything in the existing structures will take until 2031. we will definitely need

that many years to get to the point where we can meet nato and e.u. demands to become the us we did not perform for the expression. sometimes even a piece of fencing can stop 60 tons of military high tech in its tracks and then tank commander hey get him is not happy with the situation if. there are go in there turn the motor on give a signal to the front and then drive backwards a bit about. time is pressing the tank crew has to get the vehicle back into position for the nato exercise. and. the scenario that is being rehearsed here is chillingly realistic.

in terms of liberating a village symbolizes the fear of an invasion by enemy troops right. and here in poland in europe. thank. after 5 hours the maneuver is completed for hey get him and his crew the commander is $32.00 his comrades are all under 30 and the cold war is something they only know from history books. when i joined up with one as there was already involved in missions abroad but now the threat is different and we see here that a completely battle ready brigade has been formed to engage in high intensity combat if necessary. since it was the 1st of. the idea of defending the alliance and their country is no longer entirely theoretical 3

quarters of a century after the end of world war 2 that has become an imaginable scenario for german soldiers. it brings out from the house he hands would have been a soldier for 35 years because i saw the wall fall i saw europe being reunited i experienced islamist terrorists occupying half the middle east. that's so at the end of the day one thing counts for me is that it doesn't matter who you're against at the end of the day there's only one thing that is lasting and forward looking and that's what you're for and we are for the freedom and peace full stop. peace and freedom where the goal is in the late 1980 s. when the u.s. and the soviet union agreed to ban their land based intermediate range nuclear missiles. u.s. president ronald reagan and soviet leader mikhail gorbachev signed the i.n.f.

treaty in december $987.00 in washington after decades of cold war it was a milestone in ending the arms race between the superpowers. in 2019. after accusing russia of violating the treaty the u.s. formally pulled out of the i.m.f. . and the new start a 2010 nuclear arms reduction treaty between the u.s. and russia may not be extended when it expires in 2021. just this herald a new nuclear arms race designed if a park is mental at the i.n.f. treaty can't be saved because neither of the party east of ukraine mentor still interested in saving the united states would only want to rescue it if it is globalized meaning of china india and pakistan join the chinese have already made it clear that they see no reason to join it on the russians have violated unless the and in these and. let's. in early 2019 russia publicly unveiled its s s c 8 nuclear missile the ground launched cruise missile is

claimed by u.s. intelligence to have a range of over 2300 kilometers which puts it in violation of the i.n.f. treaty the agreement bans the development and possession of ground based missiles with a range of over 500 kilometers. from the far for me it's also a question of security for germany for an end to the treaty would mean that we again enter a threat mechanism that nuclear medium range weapons will again threaten areas extending to us and western europe. and that has to be urgently presented the need for unity and. it's a crucial test for europe. for some years poland has been calling for nuclear weapons if necessary going it alone with the u.s. . it's. romania has invested billions of euros in u.s.

missile defense systems to protect it from a potential russian threat. is letting near putin deliver. exploiting the current power vacuum and nato's weakness to redefine his own role. police definitely fanning the flames in central eastern europe so it's not that i lie awake at night and worry about some sort of conventional military. escalation with russia i think that's always a possibility but that's not war what worries me the most what worries me the most is his efforts to divide us and undermine our values and our institutions that we've spent 70 years building and he's succeeding on africa and. russia is trying to destabilize the alliance and western democracies it influences elections and

referendums launches the cyber attacks and wants to bind individual nato partners to it more closely. does putin see the end of the i.n.f. treaty as a way of driving a further wedge between nato partners. what is the aim of russia's foreign and defense policy. for years journalist alexander golts has been observing and analyzing the russian military apparatus and kremlin policy. he too finds putin's motivation puzzling. of. 'd argumentation for the reasons because this argument ation doesn't exist but importance of mind within kremlin approach nato is plenty of aggression. you can name it part of the north god knows . moscow sees itself as a victor of the military conflicts in syria and eastern ukraine. the annexation of

crimea also set a dangerous precedent take what you want you don't have to fear consequences. prophetess your military strikes. one of the main features of military state is that. this state gives military odds to any challenge i think mr porter as well as mr rob are very inspired by dia to pose there's this overwhelming force this overwhelming nuclear might if i have these i can do everything i want. mediators are urgently needed german chancellor angela merkel a quick take on the wrong but she's caught in the middle in germany there is opposition to sanctions against russia while the u.s.

is calling for berlin to take a tougher stance. joan can play the role of the negotiate the. we should keep in mind that according to putin mentality. and indeed the governing coalition has been sending out contradictory messages on foreign and security policy what should germany's relationship with russia be a partnership or a stronger rejection of the kremlin's provocations. we discussed this in the defense committee before the parliamentary summer break. we have means of dialogues. we have points of contact between the bundeswehr and the russian military because there are policy talks on a ministerial level the contacts are there but we also clearly show that we expect

the russian side to abide by the mixed accords and assessments cup. in february 2015 the minsk 2 accords were signed by leaders of ukraine russia france germany and ukrainian separatists the aim was to end armed fighting it failed to hold and in the baltic states there is concern about a possible new ukraine scenario in the narrow corridor between poland and lithuania with borders to the highly militarized russian enclave of kaliningrad and bella ruse is nato's the killie's heel if the so-called gap were to be occupied by russia it would cut off the baltic states from the rest of the e.u. the defenses on lithuania's border with bella ruse have been bolstered with millions of euros of e.u. funding they include $300.00 cameras along the more than 650 kilometer long border . lithuanian border police vadim soloveitchik and ilona

sabah are on patrol. security on nato's out of borders is a police matter. the military can only approach within 5 kilometers of the border so as not to further provoke the neighboring country. wielding father a violation of border all modeling aren't also i do give them a grave digger immigrates all just people who doesn't know that the there is a border and. this is the land because we are near to the surveillance system are. i just mentioned that. they are where to go.

no move goes unobserved the 2 sides watch each other suspiciously. border security here is also security for nato the military alliance is less interested in smugglers and migrants than in provoke a tourist sent by the kremlin who might be entering to prepare or even trigger a conflict. of course the system helps in gathering information that could be of interest to our military. especially when military exercises take place in a neighboring state so. that's definitely on the rise more uniformed personnel on the border and technical innovations. as western frontline states visa v. their powerful neighbor the baltic countries followed russia's annexation of crimea

in 2014 with a heightened sense of threat compared to other european countries having experienced decades of soviet occupation many lithuanians have unpleasant memories of the cold war era. so i served on a submarine and more months. i know their system i know how they take they would take ukraine with away any and everything that was part of the former soviet union . their influence extends to belarus which they can use for their military and they're stretching out the belarus of dollars just basically. a land that they can use for their own military advancements and we see what happened in ukraine and we don't want any of that here so that would rather have tractors than tanks to farm the land to give us bread to serve the people should not these tanks what are they good for now to present so that we know is vital for its survival and actually if

we didn't have another soldiers he would be. in the capital vilnius there is little to be seen after 1000 nato soldiers but they are present in people's minds and their numbers are set to rise. and we have all the increased forces triple the size of the night the response force we are not implementing a new ribbon this initiative and germany is pawtucket up on this year and leading the heart of this force of nato this reflects that we are now in the top different security environment and we were years often in the cold war. but deterrence depends not only on troops and military equipment but also on the enemy's belief that the alliance will stick together in an emergency the current u.s. president views international organizations as a person who is at best. his advisors seem to have difficulty preventing him from

fundamentally questioning the alliance. i would caution germans against assuming that it could didn't happen i think it could happen and the fact that we recently saw a news break that. certain members of the pentagon and the state department were tasked with looking into the possibility of giving germany a bill 1st stationing us troops to me indicates that that is a process that could lead to the united states at least distancing itself from. american troops during an exercise in the baltic. but how much longer will they be there. if worst comes to worst with the americans withdraw from nato and would europe then hold berlin responsible and not washington. basically using

germany as a whipping boy for the issue of the burden sharing in nato. if the us president says out loud that the u.s. is no longer interested in nato without the us will not stand by its obligations under article 5. and then 2 parties are responsible in the united states and the federal republic of germany define a construct in america we thought of. article 5 of the nato treaty commits members to consider an armed attack against one member states to be an attack on all of them donald trump has awakened doubts about his solidarity with the alliance and russia is trying to divide nato still further. turkey orients itself towards moscow and has made an arms deal with russia italy's government has been flirting with the west's greatest rival china the giant country doesn't need an alliance china plays its own game. china sees its autocratic

political model as a blueprint for the world of tomorrow. the master plan by the leadership in beijing ems to make china the 1st modern socialist global power by 2050. china's new silk road project is designed to revive the ancient trade routes across central asia and the middle east to europe. it's the biggest infrastructure investment program of all time including high speed rail way lines. deep water ports. gigantic tunnel and bridge projects oil and gas pipelines electricity grids and european harbors from greece to italy to germany. we must further facilitate and liberalized trade and investments and reject protectionism outright china checks all the boxes i mean obviously there we have

military and security concerns about china but we also have concerns about the political model that china is putting forward as an alternative to what the west has put its faith and for many many many decades economic. policy is also military policy with the exception of the u.s. no country in the world spends as much on arms as china in 2018 it amounted to some 142000000000 euros. our military must regard combat capability as the criterion to meet in all its work and focus on how to win when it is called on. we will take solid steps to ensure military preparedness for all strategic directions and make progress in combat readiness in both traditional and new security fields. but that he needs a president president of the chinese president said very clearly at the 19th party congress that he wants a world class military that he doesn't need

a world class military if it's just about asia if it's just about defending chinese territories doesn't mean he needs a world class military if the scenario is a possible military escalation with the united states. meeting with. china has gone on the offensive and is flexing its muscle this marshall footage is part of a promotional video from a chinese arms manufacture it could almost have been shot in hollywood the message is clear we are big we are powerful we take what we want. taiwan is a primary focus of china's power play the chinese leadership wants reunification with what it sees as a breakaway province and it's willing to take on taiwan's protective power the u.s. . and its come about taiwan now we're seeing the same problem with taiwan that we discussed in reference to the baltic states look at china an 800 pound gorilla in

asia and this tiny little bird territorially speaking that is taiwan what's the likelihood that the united states would go to war with china with the potential of a nuclear escalation to prevent this little bird from being taken by an 800 pound gorilla. it's very unlikely i'm going on something so taiwan could become one of the big conflicts in asia in the future. of this region. a few experts doubt that china will try to pursue its plans for real unification with taiwan beijing has not ruled out using military force to achieve that aim and china is an increasing threat to the western alliance in other areas as well. the military aspects are becoming increasingly important in cyber technology. how great is the danger for germany. i think it's clear that china not only intends to become an economic world power. and

of course we are concerned about this development. in the area of digitalisation we have the question of which chinese companies we should allow to build up our infrastructure. i think there's a lot of sensitivity on the european and german side when it comes to dealings with china. in. the u.s. warns of chinese companies like huawei and. they say their technology can be used by beijing for espionage and in fact the chinese government can force companies to take part in espionage operations and sabotage european networks. or through the threat in cyberspace is not primarily a classical military threat but it is a threat to our critical infrastructure as we call it it's a threat to everyone in that we are all exposed to hacker attacks without actually

knowing where they are coming from if it was consequential and challenging in ways that it's hard for people today to imagine the cold war had a whole host of challenges that we were facing but we had essentially kind of one. adversary and we were looking at it through the lens of kind of state to state conflict and through a conventional military lens now we've taken that and we've blossomed and so i think what worries me is that we're still operating in government structures and institutions that were designed for a very different era. is nato ready to meet the new challenges does the western alliance system still guarantee security. the 70 year old foundation our foreign policy on both sides of the atlantic is showing more and more cracks

the one time promise of shared values has been watered down europe's governments are trying to find the least common denominator we're missing in this climate and we have to make it clear in the alliance that we have an interest in approaching russia and china with their support of the us to say the world will be a safer place if we agree on a new comparable arms control system. for that we need to have the u.s. as a partner. as europeans we see ourselves as part of nato as part of the western alliance but we also want to make a stronger contribution to this alliance to remain transatlantic but become more european. but how would that work in practice french president a man when i call on dreams of a european army under french german leadership could such a european army fill the power vacuum that would result if the us pulled out of nato. at the moment the e.u.

is politically and militarily a small entity on u.s. life support. if europe start to go along it will divide europe from north america. but it is also the wild europe so to go alone is not good for not good states it's not good for europe to roll wars to cold war fought to get started somehow photos that we need to stand together. honestly i can't imagine europe being able to guarantee its own security in the foreseeable future. we need the us but when i look around the world i can't see any power that is as close to us culturally and economically as the united states. that's why i think it's good for us to hold on to it but the fact that we sometimes wrangle with the americans that we sometimes have different points of view means that the europeans have to get more involved and make a more effective contribution only then can we have

a say. but. the new threats don't permit europe to go it alone nato is being forced to stick together as shown by the rapid reaction force. tank commander hagi tim's working day is coming to an end he and his crew have been involved in this exercise for several weeks now. but they're not necessarily expecting an emergency. not to list. of course shooting exercises are different because the cardboard targets don't shoot back but i know my training was so good that if i were facing a real tank i'd react just as well. it's still an exercise but the world has become more confusing the old structures are fading germany will have to invest more and not just financially. to be a reliable partner germany will have to take responsibility and send soldiers on

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and profit plummeted an entire continent into chaos and violence. this is the journey back into the history of slavery. our documentary series slavery routes starts march 9th on t w. this is d w news and these are our top stories listing in authority president mahmoud abbas has told the u.n. security council that palestinians will not accept the peace plan put forward by u.s. president donald trump abbas said the proposal would reward israel's occupation of the west and subject any palestinian state.