Joe Biden is pushing the scandal-ridden German who heads the European Union’s unelected executive for NATO secretary-general, having blocked the British defense secretary for the role. Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, claimed just last month that she did not want the job.
Biden backing von der Leyen will deepen the growing rift between America and Britian. The Democrat initially backed a Danish socialist over Britain’s Ben Wallace, an army veteran. Switching support to von der Leyen, whose home country fails to meet its NATO targets, will be seen as an even worse snub, given the “catastrophic” state of Germany’s military when she was Angela Merkel’s defense secretary.
While benefiting from large numbers of American troops on its soil, Germany has let its own military crumble. During von der Leyen’s tenure as defense chief, fewer than a fifth of its Tiger combat helicopters were fit to fly, and fewer than a third of its Eurofighter jets. Its submarines are in a similarly poor state.
This situation was exacerbated by Germany’s belated efforts to bolster the Ukrainian war machine, with its stockpile of artillery shells reduced to a mere 20,000 – around the same number of shells Russian forces use daily. Britain, while it has also suffered severe military cutbacks, does meet its NATO targets, and it has in general followed the U.S. line against Russia much more closely than Germany, which has enriched Moscow in recent years with projects such as Nord Stream.
