The New York Times.
When Chancellor Angela Merkel
hosted a recent reception for military families, she greeted parents,
wives and children whose loved ones were spending their holidays in Afghanistan,
Lebanon, Kosovo and off the Horn of Africa. German deployments
overseas, Ms. Merkel said, “will soon encompass the entire globe.”
On that same wintry afternoon, members of Parliament debated whether to
add to the nearly 6,000 German troops currently serving abroad by
sending up to 400 soldiers to Turkey, where they would operate two
Patriot missile batteries to help protect their NATO ally from a potential escalation of the civil war across the border in Syria.
“For decades, we Germans have benefited from the fact that our partners
gave us the feeling of reliable security,” Thomas de Maizière, Germany’s
defense minister, said during the debate last month. “Now we are in a
position and have the duty, even, to make our impact felt.”
