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Topic:

Nuclear Blackmail

Country:

Germany

Issue:

Article ID:

57

Title:

Scholz has ‘kissed goodbye’ to nuclear deterrence

Author:

Rothwell, James

Date:

October 27, 2024

Source:

The Telegraph (UK)

Reference:

Summary:

Quotes:

German chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Ukraine strategy has “kissed goodbye” to decades of Western nuclear deterrence and exposed Germany to blackmail from rogue states like Iran, a senior opposition figure has warned. Norbert Röttgen, a foreign policy expert and MP from the Christian Democratic Party (CDU), said Germany will face long-term consequences over Mr Scholz’s reluctance to send more powerful weapons to Ukraine due to fears of triggering a global nuclear war. Mr Röttgen wrote in his new book Democracy and War, which examines the main foreign policy and security threats facing Berlin: “On April 22 2022...the chancellor offered his assessment that Putin could respond with the use of nuclear weapons to the supply of armoured tanks and howitzers. “In doing so, Scholz kissed goodbye to the philosophy, politics and historic success of the West’s nuclear deterrence during the Cold War.” Mr Röttgen warned that Mr Scholz’s responsiveness to nuclear threats will have long-term consequences for the West, such as encouraging Iran – which is actively seeking nuclear weapons – to bully Berlin with similar threats in future disputes. “What would it mean to various nuclear powers and those such as the Islamic Republic of Iran, which wants to become one, if the West as a whole behaved like the German chancellor and exhibited fear openly about nuclear threats?” he wrote. “The world would become more dangerous and an unimaginable shift would occur in favour of those states willing to use nuclear threats as policy.” “If we allowed Putin to win this war it would be by far the most expensive of any alternatives for Europeans,” he wrote. “Repelling Putin’s Russia in the wake of a Ukrainian defeat would be incomparably more expensive and certainly more dangerous.”

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