By Tom Squitieri
Red Snow News
WASHINGTON – German Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht said Tuesday that “zeitenwende” — the turning point — has arrived in Germany and for NATO, that “If Putin’s plans don’t work out, we owe this largely to this NATO unity” and that President Biden’s vow that “America is back” is “totally is all visible to everyone (to) what that means.”
“It is those shared American and European values that Putin is attacking with his greed for more power,” Lambrecht said in an address to The Atlantic Council, a Washington, D.C., think tank. “We are in this together and we are stronger together.”
Among the nations watching the response of Europe and NATO are Iran and North Korea, she said.
Lambrecht was appointed defense minister in December. This is her first trip to Washington and is to meet with Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin early Wednesday morning.
Lambrecht said Berlin intends to remain insistent on pursuing all peaceful means to resolve quagmires, such as Ukraine, but is boosting its military budget and revamping protocols and the German constitution to permit increased and expanded military use.
That will include building up its military sooner than projected by bringing a division to combat readiness two years earlier than planned.
“Being a power of peace means something different today than it did 20 to 30 years ago,” she said, adding that “there will not be a militarization” of German policy.
She noted that the distance from Berlin to Kyiv is the same as from Washington, D.C.. to Chicago. “Security in Europe will pay off for the security of the United States,” Lambrecht said. “That is why we decided to change the policy”
“This new reality is now very clear to Germany,” she said. “There are more than 200,000 Ukrainians who fled to Germany in fear for their lives.”
