Achhh, Scheiße!

Discussing classified information over a hotel phone line is always ill-advised

They’re back!  Unfortunately, less than two months since I published my last article about their ill-advised government decisions, the Germans are back in the news (and my blog) with yet another blunder.  On March 1, Russian propagandist Margarita Simonyan released online a 38-minute telephone conversation among four Bundeswehr (German military) officers discussing potential Russian strategic sites to be targeted by Ukraine.  Simonyan, the editor-in-chief of the Russian ‘news’ network RT, is recognized for her blistering attacks against the West or anyone else who opposes the interests of the Russian government. Furthermore, Simonyan, while an ethnic Armenian, is currently banned from even entering Armenia due to her repeated attacks on Armenian political leaders.  This information alone should paint you more than enough of a picture of Simonyan’s media persona.

More notable than the identity of the leaker was the content of the leaks.  Particularly explosive was the admission that Ukraine would use German-made Taurus missiles to target the Kerch Bridge connecting the Russian mainland to the Russian-annexed Crimean Peninsula.  The Kerch Bridge has been one of Vladimir Putin’s greatest accomplishments.  Putin was so proud of the bridge, he even ordered its image to be minted onto the Russian 5-ruble coin.  While the Bundeswehr officers clearly were not enthusiastic about Ukraine conducting an attack that would certainly be regarded by Putin and his regime as an escalatory and grave offense, they acknowledged there was little use in dissuading Kyiv from making such a decision.  Instead, the consensus of the leaked call was how to contain a Ukrainian attack on the Crimean bridge from provoking a major escalation of the war.  However, context matters little to Simonyan and her friends in Moscow.

The response in the Russian information space to the leaked call has ranged from blustery to hopping mad to downright menacing.  Our friend Dmitri Medvedev, in yet another one of his inebriated rants, called German Chancellor Olaf Scholz a Reichskanzler (a clear reference to the Nazi regime) and even accused the German government of planning a military attack on Russia.  Simonyan’s colleague on Russian State TV, Dmitri Kiselyov, claimed Russia would be within its rights to launch missile attacks against bridges on German territory as retaliation for the destruction of the Crimean bridge by German Taurus missiles.  The most menacing threat of all came from Maria Zakharova, a woman who would clearly be more useful in the role of a trash-talking contestant on Survivor: Siberia than as a “diplomat” of a major world power.  In one of her press conferences, Zakharova suggested that unless Germany took further measures toward Denazification, an unsubtle reference to the grim fate of Ukraine, “tragic consequences” would inevitably befall the German people. 

What exactly, then, are the Russians doing?  Should we really worry that one day we will wake up to the news that a Russian Iskander missile has destroyed the Hohenzollern Bridge in Cologne?  The answer to this question is an obvious nein according to most observers.  You see, Chancellor Scholz has resisted pressure from NATO allies to deliver the Taurus to Ukraine, a position at odds with most German politicians but very much in line with German public opinion.  Multiple assessments of Scholz’s conduct have confirmed, at least in my opinion, that Scholz genuinely fears a major Russian retaliation.  This fear is a major factor explaining the public opposition.  President Putin, himself a fluent German speaker who worked in Dresden for five years, is certainly more than aware of the German fear of war.  Thus, through his proxies (Putin never makes such open threats directly) Putin has decided to use this German blunder to remind them that Russia has all the capabilities to indeed inflict “tragic consequences” on their country.

Beyond the resulting chilling effect in the German psyche intended to stall indefinitely any delivery of Taurus missiles to Ukraine, the whole episode has been an embarrassment to Germany’s reputation for competence.  Any professional in the world of national security and intelligence knows that he or she can only communicate through encrypted means and devices.  Not so for one particular Bundeswehr officer, who decided that it would be a good idea to discuss classified information through a regular phone line in a Singapore hotel.  I hate to break it to the German officer, but even I would know not to make such a foolish mistake- and I have been subject to exactly 0 hours of military or intelligence training.  In the Samurai days, this officer would have had no alternative to atone for this disgrace except to don a white kimono, drink a shot of Sake, pull out a knife and perform ritual seppuku. 

With Ukraine currently playing defense, Russian propagandists celebrating, and Germans living in fear of Russian missiles striking German cities, perhaps it may not be a bad idea to bring back a few Samurai customs in these circumstances.