Security

“Today’s security challenges call for a new emphasis on professional capabilities,” said German Defense Minister Thomas de Maiziere. The realignment of the Bundeswehr is his response to this challenge. Defense no longer means just national defense, but also the defense of alliances as well as international crisis prevention and crisis management.

How will allied troops pull out of Afghanistan by the end of 2014 without jeopardizing the stability it has achieved so far? The country’s future was a focus of the recent NATO Summit; another Afghanistan conference will take place in July. Mark Sedwill, British Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, outlined the priorities and challenges facing international stability efforts at the DGAP.

Growing security-political challenges on the one hand, shrinking defense budgets on the other: It is only through common efforts among NATO partners (above all through effective coordination) that the world’s largest defense alliance will be able to fulfill its role in the future, said Philip Hammond at an event organized by the DGAP and the British Embassy in Berlin.