Chancellor Olaf Scholz is facing opposition about the deployment from within his own party
August 1, 2024
A new poll about a planned US missile deployment to Germany shows that more Germans are opposed to the idea than favor it.
The US recently announced that starting in 2026, it will be deploying missile systems that were previously banned by the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, which prohibited land-based missile systems with a range between 310 and 3,400 miles.
The poll, conducted by the Forsa Institute, found that 49% of Germans think the new missile deployment is “not right,” while 45% support the idea. Opposition is stronger among Germans living in states that used to be East Germany, with 74% of them against the plan.
The US announced the deployment in a joint statement with Germany, but German Chancellor Olaf Scholz is facing opposition to the plan from within his own party and coalition government.
“Not every weapon makes Germany immediately safer,” Rolf Mützenich, the parliamentary leader of Scholz’s Social Democratic Party (SDP), told POLITICO. Mützenich previously warned that the “danger of an unintentional military escalation is considerable.”
Senior members of the SDP who are concerned about the deployment said they would call a debate about it in September. “The current debate surrounding the announced stationing of long-range conventional weapons systems in Germany concerns us all,” they said in a note seen by POLITICO.
The US announced its deployment would include Tomahawk missiles, which are nuclear-capable and have a range of over 1,000 miles. Tomahawks are typically used on US Navy destroyers and submarines since a land-based version was banned by the INF.
The US also said it will send SM-6 missiles to Germany, which signals it’s planning to deploy a Typhon missile system. The Typhon is a covert system concealed in a 40-foot shipping container that can fire Tomahawks and SM-6 missiles. The SM-6 can hit targets up to 290 miles away, below the levels previously banned by the INF.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has vowed Russia will respond to the deployment by ending its moratorium on deploying missiles previously banned by the INF. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said he wouldn’t rule out the idea of Moscow deploying nuclear-armed missiles in response.
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