著者

森井 裕一

出版者

JAPAN ASSOCIATION OF INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

雑誌

国際政治 (ISSN:04542215)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.2012, no.167, pp.167_88-101, 2012

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Germany ceased conscription for its military, the Bundeswehr, in July 2011. Ever since the establishment of the Bundeswehr, the system of conscription had played a key role in connecting the Bundeswehr and German society. The concept of "Staatsbürger in Uniform" (citizen in uniform) was a guarantee to keep the Bundeswehr as a military for peace. This paper discusses why Germany stopped conscription, even though it had long been regarded as a vital component of Germany's postwar security culture.<br>In the first section of this paper, historical developments in the German security culture and the role of the Bundeswehr are discussed. During the process of German rearmament in the 1950s, a new military was established in a way that would prevent it from being able to become an independent and undemocratic institution outside society—as it did in the days leading up to World War II. The Bundeswehr gained respect from society and became one of the most successful institutions in postwar Germany.<br>In the second section, the changing role and the military transformation of the Bundeswehr after the end of the Cold War are examined. The changing international security environment forced Germany to reconsider the role of its military. During the period up until the end of the Cold War, the use of Germany's military was restricted to the defense of its own and its allies' territories. However, this previously respected self-imposed restriction became an obstacle in the new international environment. The 1994 decision by the Federal Constitutional Court (FCC) made the deployment of the Bundeswehr outside NATO areas legally possible, although the FCC at the same time gave more power to the Bundestag, the German parliament, to control the deployment of the Bundeswehr. In the 1990s, the new military role for international crisis management demanded the military transformation of the Bundeswehr. Since the mid-1990s, many proposals were made to reform and reorganize the Bundeswehr, but they were not totally successful, because the domestic political discourse did not change as rapidly as the technical needs had changed. In addition, constraints upon the state budget made the reform even more difficult. After more than ten years of discussion, conscription was finally suspended under the strong leadership of the politically popular defense minister, Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg. According to zu Guttenberg's reform, the Bundeswehr would be an effective, efficient and flexible military for international crisis management.<br>The final section analyzes the implications of the reform of the Bundeswehr on Germany's security culture and foreign policy. Germany's security policy defined in multilateralism, i.e. within NATO and the EU, would stay unchanged. However, the new security environment might change the domestic understanding of Germany's military, and thus Germany's security culture in the future.