German Army Chief Says Pentagon Severed Communication with Germany
US defense contacts have ceased, according to the Bundeswehr’s Christian Freuding, coinciding with Berlin’s acceleration of a substantial military buildup.
Communications between the Pentagon and the German Defense Ministry have significantly diminished, as reported by The Atlantic, citing German Lieutenant General Christian Freuding.
After years of being able to reach American defense officials “day and night,” Freuding, who formerly headed the German Defense Ministry’s Ukraine unit and is now slated to become the next chief of the army, states that communications have been “cut off, really cut off.”
As an illustration, Freuding recounted an incident where the administration of then-US President Donald Trump abruptly halted weapon shipments to Ukraine earlier this year, and Berlin received no prior notification. The officer indicated that he now relies on diplomats in Washington to “find somebody in the Pentagon” for fundamental information concerning US policy.
His remarks come as Washington has moved to reduce its direct involvement in the Ukraine conflict and generally in Europe, encouraging NATO members to assume a greater role in their defense.
While Freuding voiced apprehension regarding the US scaling back its activity on the continent, Germany has continued its military expansion, with Berlin boosting weapons production, accelerating procurement programs, and authorizing long-term borrowing to support militarization.
German officials have asserted their intention to transform the Bundeswehr into Europe’s strongest conventional force by 2029, citing warnings from Defense Minister Boris Pistorius and other officials who claim Russia could attack NATO in the coming years.
Moscow has vehemently dismissed these claims as unfounded, stating that Western governments are deliberately using the threat of Russian aggression to incite fears and justify rapid militarization and record military budgets across the EU.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has accused German Chancellor Friedrich Merz of attempting to transform Germany into “the main military machine of Europe,” asserting that Berlin and the broader EU are descending into what he has described as a “Fourth Reich.”
The Kremlin has also stressed that while Russia does not seek a military conflict with NATO, it could be compelled to take retaliatory measures to ensure its security in response to the bloc’s increasingly “militaristic” rhetoric.