CHALLENGES FOR MAINTAINING THE PRESENCE OF THE BUNDESWEHR IN ZONES OF INSTABILITY IN ASIA AND AFRICA

Abstract

Currently, there are two main forms of a state’s military presence outside its national borders: first, military presence on the territory of allies, strategic partners from among stable countries, and second, various ways of using the armed forces to resolve armed conflicts in areas of instability. In the second case, if and then military confrontation is over, external players can maintain their military presence in the country of origin of the conflict, which is about to enter or has already entered the stage of post-conflict development, preserving the role of external guarantors of its national security and defense systems. The goal of the article is to show the main results of the use of the Bundeswehr in the zones of armed conflicts in Asia and Africa by the early 2020 s, revealing the features and «bottlenecks» of this process in dynamics. The article analyzes the use of the Bundeswehr in the following areas: in Afghanistan, examines Germany’s involvement in the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) and the NATO «Resolute Support» mission, showing the determinism of the forced strategic exit of the Alliance forces from this country; in the Middle East, examines the involvement of the Bundeswehr in the reform of the security sector in Lebanon and Iraq in the context of the anti-terrorist struggle is considered, the «bottlenecks» in the use of the military potential of the Bundeswehr in Syria; in the Horn of Africa, analyses three strategic attempts of Germany to gain a foothold on Somalia as well as their consequences for using the Bundeswehr on the African continent in general; in North and West Africa, the use of military tools for «fencing» of instability zone in Libya and for resolution of armed conflict in Mali are compared, the fundamental difficulties of maintaining Germany in this region are revealed.