GERMANY DONATES SUBS TO ISRAEL
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Potential Bases
Another issue is basing. The Dolphins cannot
commute from the Indian Ocean to a home port in Israel say,
Haifa and no submarine pens are reported in the area of Eilat.
Rounding the Cape of Good Hope is a trip of 20,000 kilometers,
an unsupportable strain on crews and machinery on any regular
basis. A regional base for Israels flotilla is thus indispensable.
India or Sri Lanka suggest themselves immediately.
The political links exist Israel is a major supplier of arms
to both, girding Indias loins against Pakistan and helping
Sri Lankas Sinhalese majority suppress the ambitions of the
Tamil and Muslim minorities. India is geographically attractive
Bombay or Surat are but 1,000 kilometers from the likely attack
station. Israeli nuclear weapons in India would be hard to
conceal, however, and feared as a casus belli, so it seems
improbable that Delhi would risk the possible international
repercussions. Sri Lanka, while more pliable, also is more
distant a 2,000-kilometer run to any holding area off Karachi
or the Musandam Peninsula.
The Dahlak Archipelago emerges as a prime suspect
for a home away from home for Israels Dolphins. Located at
the southern end of the Red Sea, some 100 kilometers offshore
from Eritreas port of Massawa, one of the Dahlak Islands offers
both convenience and a measure of anonymity. The Russians
maintained a submarine base on Dahlak Kebir during the Cold
War, and Israelis have been buzzing about the spot for several
years. Indeed, the sub pen and harbor may already have been
rehabilitated.
The location is not ideal; it is still 2,500
kilometers to a station just off the Musandam Peninsula, and
the Bab al-Mandab is a known choke point. Unless the Dolphins
were dispatched only for a quick strike, basing in the Dahlaks
would require at-sea refueling capability. Diplomatically,
the situation is fragile. The Archipelago redounded to Eritrea
when the civil war with Ethiopia ended, but Asmara and Addis
Ababa still are at loggerheads leaving Israel caught in the
middle, and vulnerable to pressure from both sides. If, for
example, it delivers new weapons to Ethiopia, Eritrea can
retaliate by complicating access to the Dahlaks. Israel is
trapped, since it needs both states back-country borders with
the Sudan to pursue its support of the anti-Muslim movements
there.
Who Paid and How?
Who paid for the submarines and how also is
a touchy matter. The Israelis collect or cash in, but very
rarely pay. The usual suspects here are the U.S. or the Federal
Republic of Germany (FRG) which raises the collateral questions
of how and why. In the early 1990s the Israelis demanded new,
nuclear-capable submarines but the U.S. is unable to supply
conventional boats, since the last diesel electric submarine
line was closed more than 20 years ago. Thus, a scheme was
contrived where Ingalls Shipbuilding would serve as the front
for moving Foreign Military Sales money restricted in principle
for expenditure in the U.S. to Germany. Ingalls was to be
the nominal prime contractor, but would subcontract the subs
to Howaldtswerke-Deutsche Werft (HDW) in Kiel, thereby circumventing
U.S. regulations and creating welcome jobs in the German shipbuilding
industry. It is unclear what happened even though the Israelis
had lobbied successfully for the scheme and President George
H.W. Bush had approved.
Germanys Role
The German role is clear, however albeit rife
with anomalies. First, in direct contravention of its explicit
restrictions on arms exports, the FRG delivered the submarines.
Second, the German government paid for most or all of the
bareboat costs.
Germanys applicable constraints on exports are
unusually precise for diplomatic documents:
Respect for human rights is a key factor in
the granting of licences. Israels unsavory record is voluminously
documented, and the FRG recognizes not only reports by international
organizations but also NGOs such as Amnesty International.
Consideration must be given to whether the recipient
is involved in armed conflict or where exports may stir up,
perpetuate or exacerbate latent tensions and conflicts. Facilitating
the nuclearization of the Indian Ocean certainly applies here.
It must be weighed whether the recipient country
complies with international obligations concerning the use
of force and international humanitarian law. Israels history
of flouting the Geneva Conventions is no less well documented.
The recipient shall have assumed obligations
in the area of non-proliferation. Here, too, Israel fails
the test.
The restrictions are not theoretical. They are
often enforced, so that exceptions are all the more egregious.
Germany actually does refuse sales to certain countries even
when they are capable of paying which highlights the extraordinary
circumstances of the gift of nuclear-capable Dolphins to Israel.
The Saudis, for example, for many years persistently tried
to buyand pay for Leopard tanks from Germany, and German governments
no less persistently spurned the propositions. Indicating
a quasi-consistency, Berlin has agreed to sell Turkey submarines
but not tanks or other armor, which, it notes, could be used
for internal repression.
The principles have been carried one step further:
despite urging from Washington, which has decided to promote
greater defense capability for Taiwan, Germany refuses to
sell submarines to Taiwan, citing the labile political situation.
Here other forces may be at play. According to the FRG policy
statement Labor policy considerations must not be a decisive
factor. Janes, however,opined that Germanys Ministry of Economy
seriously feared trade reprisals from Beijing if it sold eight
top-of-the-line subs to Taiwan.
Might there be reprisals from the Arab street
if it were bruited that Germany had given Israel nuclear submarine
capability? Might attacks on Mercedes agencies replace boycotts
of McDonalds? Obviously, the German government discounted
such repercussions.
It is not contested that the Dolphins were donated
to Israel. The sum of DM 1.2 billion was reported in Einzelpost
60, a special account in the Ministry of Finance used for
interest payments or ad hoc arrangements. This was subsumed
bureaucratically within Germanys contribution to the Desert
Storm begging bowl, even though the U.S. did not receive a
penny of the amount.
Other factors also made the deal less painful.
In the 1990s, when the subs were to be constructed, the German
economy was staggering. Unemployment rates were high, and
the shipbuilding industry in particular was suffering from
aggressive competition, especially from Korea. The three submarines
for Israel kept the HDW yard busy at a critical time when
the German arms industry needed contracts to maintain capacity.
The money in part was an alternative to additional support
for the unemployed.
Why did Germany take the political risk of such
high-profile exports, in violation of its own restrictions?
The immediate media mantras are that it is an offset for guilt
from World War II or compensation for the war materiél
Germany supposedly delivered to Iraq during the 1980s. These
are not convincing. Greater leverage was necessary.
The decision was made by Chancellor Helmut Kohl
personally, and it is speculated that he was subject to blackmail
over the matter of the covert funds which ultimately cost
him his post. The transfer clearly was not in Germanys interest,
and may indeed have been approved by the chancellor for the
most personal of reasons.
Thomas R. Stauffer is a Washington, DC-based
engineer and economist who has taught the economics of energy
and the Middle East at Harvard University and Georgetown Universitys
School of Foreign Service.
SOURCE: Washington Report on Middle
East Affairs
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