Warworthiness | Mindset for the trenches

Chancellor Merz and his wife celebrate with the Bundeswehr. If only everyone had so much enthusiasm for the troops, then society's military prowess would also work. Photo: DPA/Christoph Reichwein Just a year ago, Rowohlt Publishing published Ole Nymoen's "Why I would never fight for my country," a book against rampant militarism. Now he apparently wants to browse the market from the opposite side. In “Being able to fight so as not to have to fight,” Wiebke Hönicke complains that “we” are not making any progress in the “debate about defensive capability” and sees – in stark contrast to Nymoen – the need for a “common strategy” for the path to war capability.

Hönicke “performed service for Germany” for fourteen years, as she puts it. She wrote the book during her deployment abroad in northern Iraq. In 2011, at the age of eighteen, she decided to be brutalized by the Bundeswehr - even though she did not come from a "military family" and was "more Barbie than Bundeswehr." But she wanted to “secure peace” and “go where security and freedom are specifically defended.”

A simulation game that the Bundeswehr carried out for its political course (one more reason to keep the Bundeswehr out of schools) radicalized them. Hönicke learned that security must be “actively designed.” Now she wanted to put herself “at the service of a larger whole” – one that even “extends beyond national borders.” An “adventure outside of my current world” and “financial independence” were alluring. The prevailing “alpha habitus” put her off, but at the same time she wanted to assert herself in this “male-dominated space”.

Your deployment in Iraq was probably one “with everything that goes with it.” Hönicke avoids going into what is probably terrible detail. Instead, she emphasizes her ideal as that of “inner leadership,” a “firewall against dehumanization” in which mission and conscience are “reconciled.” How killing on behalf of the state works without dehumanization remains an open question. Hönicke experienced her role as a “military leader” as something “deeply fulfilling,” and her first “use” – as the bellicose jargon goes – even as “something intoxicating.”

But criticism is allowed. Let's look at the "international stabilization operation" in Afghanistan, which was about "reconstruction work" and "universal basic needs" and not about "value imperialism" or - God forbid! – economic interests. A “long-term, sustainable plan” was simply missing here. Today there is actually a danger of an arms spiral, with Hönicke proposing a fictitious golden mean as an ideal: "As much military capability as necessary to be taken seriously and as little as possible in order not to further fuel escalation potential." Security policy is also "always a distribution policy" - cuts and the far-reaching attack on the welfare state at least prove her right in fact, even if not in her assessment: what is needed is an "honest weighing of limited resources and moral responsibility." In the context of this trade-off between bread and tanks, “foreign policy responsibility” can under no circumstances be fundamentally averted. Because Hönicke knows: “interest politics” does not work “without military capabilities.” Anyone who wants to secure “prosperity” and “open trade routes” needs not only diplomatic means but also the necessary means of violence at hand.

A simulation game that the Bundeswehr ran for their politics course at school radicalized them.

Hönicke firmly rejects a perspective critical of the state: “The German state is not an anonymous institution that stands above people. It consists of us citizens who live in it." When the state acts, the “community of values” acts, and in case of doubt, sometimes in violation of international law. “L’État, c’est moi” – from the citizen benefit recipient to the war minister.

According to Hönicke, autocratic states such as Russia, China or Iran, on the other hand, stand out for their “disinformation and support for irregular forces,” something that is not known from the value-driven West. For Hönicke, the planned secret service reform in the Federal Republic of Germany, which - as early drafts suggest - also gives the BND significantly more powers, is not worth mentioning. The BND would essentially be given a “license to kill”: The current draft law talks about the use of “kinetic means,” which secret services describe as “usually targeted killings,” as Dietmar Neuerer explains in the “Handelsblatt.”

In order to overcome the “alienation between the Bundeswehr and civil society,” Hönicke wants everyone to have a say, especially young people. Consent comes from “early participation”. The “yes” to war capability as the goal of participation remains the author’s central premise.

Hönicke also names problems in the Bundeswehr - visible in scandals that were sometimes "exaggerated in the media" in order to "generate attention and 'clicks'." She even admits that there are “systemic grievances” and that clarification and consequences are necessary. Certain “group genres” would particularly attract “right-wing ideas” – for example, combat units that embody a “classic” image of soldiers. At the same time, it wants to defend the reputation of the Bundeswehr as an institution, established in 1955 with a base of 101 former SS and Wehrmacht soldiers. More diversity in the “talent pool” is necessary. Potential is being wasted due to a “lack of perspectives, correctives, other styles of leadership and thinking.” Hönicke is thinking about a “gender-equitable service idea” and wants to “sharp ideas” and “consciously provoke”, but not “divide”, but rather “put his finger in the wound”: The queer community will probably soon be able to form a combat group. But if they aren't enthusiastic, Hönicke might be able to help - she has been a reservist with the military police since July.

Despite understanding the reasons against compulsory service, the author believes: If voluntary work does not meet the needs, that is a problem. Hönicke is weighing up various options. Compulsory military service could “initiate a basic sensitization to the issue of defensiveness” and “prepare the ground for new mindsets.” A “social year” could show people how much “invisible work is necessary for this country to function.” But it doesn't automatically solve the Bundeswehr's personnel problem if too many people decide to work in civilian areas. She's right: without enough human material that can be thrown into the meat grinder for foreign interests, it can't work. The call for “gender equality”, underpinned by their own experiences, particularly addresses women*. Without inspiring them to serve and take up arms, the personnel problems will hardly be solved.

Hönicke is convinced: "We have to be able to fight so as not to have to fight and yet be prepared to do so if necessary." This is the well-known idea, dear to the military capital faction, that peace can be secured with weapons. But the author goes beyond the rhetoric of deterrence and threatening gestures when she demands that “we” – even better: “we as a state” – must “fight and want to win”. There is “no second place” in war.

Hönicke systematically ignores the connection between the capitalist mode of production and war. In the economic race, war is seen as a possibility and Rosa Luxemburg already knew: "The dividends rise, the proletarians fall." Hönicke's call to "assume responsibility" means nothing other than submitting to the system of power and the global injustice conditions that surround it, for the maintenance of which "martial capability" is needed.

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