Germans in Combat?

In a move widely seen as evidence of NATO's new strict approach to its members' non-combat roles in crisis zones, Germany has been asked to provide 250 combat troops for a Quick Reaction Force in northern Afghanistan to replace a 350-strong Norwegian force that leaves in July, a German Defense Ministry spokesman said Tuesday, Jan. 29.

The official request from NATO will prompt heightened concern from within Germany that its current non-combat role in Afghanistan is changing and that German troops will soon be required to fight Taliban and al Qaeda insurgents in the war-torn country as part of the alliance's International Security and Assistance Force.

Despite the assurances of Defense Minister Franz Josef Jung who said during a surprise visit to Kabul Tuesday that a final decision had yet to be taken, government ministers and generals have indicated over recent days that the force is all but certain to be deployed, insisting that it is covered by the current mandate for the Afghan deployment, renewed by parliament in October.

German troops ready for "operations against terrorists"

In a statement released from Afghan President Hamid Karzai's office, Jung was quoted as saying that German troops were ready to "participate in operations against terrorists and cooperate with other international forces in any other part of the country," suggesting a decision to ready German troops for combat had already been made.

The German Defense Ministry confirmed earlier this month that it was considering whether to deploy the troops, responding to a media report that referred to a "new quality" in the German engagement in Afghanistan.

Government officials have, however, in recent weeks denied that supplying a rapid reaction force would amount to sending men into combat. They said the force was designed to provide emergency support to other troops in the north and that though its brief includes hunting "terrorists" and dealing with kidnappings this is not its main task.

As the current head of NATO's mission in northern Afghanistan, German military officials last week said they anticipated having to provide replacements for the Norwegian troops if none of the alliance's members volunteered to take over.

In October, the Bundestag renewed the mandate for 3,500 German troops in Afghanistan, combining two previous mandates.

Up to 3,000 Bundeswehr troops are deployed in a training, reconstruction and security mission in the relatively peaceful north under the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force. There are also six German Tornado reconnaissance jets and their back-up units based in the country.

The request from NATO comes just days after a radical manifesto for a new NATO, compiled by the leading military experts from five member nations -- the United States, Britain, Germany, France and the Netherlands -- was announced.

New NATO manifesto to abolish caveats

The manifesto stated that, among other wholesale changes, the organization would abolish the current system of national caveats in its operations of the kind that plague the Afghan campaign.

This would mean that countries like Germany, which contribute to security and reconstruction missions but opt out of combat operations by way of such a caveat, would be either obliged to commit militarily to enemy engagements or forfeit any say in the running of operations led by NATO.

The manifesto, revealed last week, and other measures outlined in a "root and branch" review of the organization as it faces new global challenges is to be discussed at the NATO summit in Bucharest in April.