German Chancellor Olaf Scholz welcomes the plan, saying it “has a deterrent effect and guarantees peace.”
The US decision to deploy long-range missiles in Germany could lead to a “direct Cold War-style confrontation”, Russia has warned, with Chancellor Olaf Scholz praising the move.
The White House announced the decision Wednesday during a NATO summit in Washington, arguing that stationing long-range weapons, including Tomahawk cruise missiles, in Europe acts as a deterrent.
“We are taking firm steps towards the Cold War,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told a Russian state television reporter on Thursday.
“All the attributes of the Cold War are returning with direct confrontation.”
Washington's move has sparked criticism in Germany, including among members of Scholz's Social Democratic party.
Defending the decision, Scholz told reporters at a NATO summit in Washington that it was “something of deterrence and of guaranteeing peace, and it is a necessary and important decision at the right time.”
The United States said Wednesday that “episodic deployments” of long-range missiles to Germany will begin in 2026.
The White House said it would eventually look to permanently base them in Germany, and that the missiles would “have significantly greater range” than current U.S. systems in Europe.
“The exercise of these advanced capabilities will demonstrate the United States’ commitment to NATO and its contributions to European integrated deterrence,” it said in a joint statement with the German government.
Russia's ambassador to Germany has warned the German government of a further deterioration in relations between Moscow and Berlin if the deployment goes ahead.
“It is to be hoped that the German political elites will reconsider whether it is advisable to take such a destructive and dangerous step, which contributes neither to the security of the Federal Republic of Germany nor to that of the European continent as a whole,” said Sergei Nechayev.
“Not to mention the irreparable damage to German-Russian relations.”
German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius told broadcaster Deutschlandfunk that the deployment decision addressed a “very serious gap” in the country’s capabilities.
The German army does not have long-range ground-launched missiles, only cruise missiles that can be fired from aircraft.
The announcement sparked protests in Germany, where the deployment of US missiles brings back painful memories of the Cold War.
Ralf Stegner, a member of parliament for Scholz's Social Democratic party, told the Funke media group that the missile decision could mark the start of a new “arms race.”
“This will not make the world safer. On the contrary, we are entering a spiral in which the world becomes increasingly dangerous,” Stegner warned.
Sahra Wagenknecht, a prominent far-left figure in Germany, told the weekly Spiegel that the deployment of US missiles “increases the danger of Germany itself becoming a theatre of war.”
The deployment of American Pershing II ballistic missiles in West Germany in the 1980s, at the height of the Cold War, sparked widespread demonstrations, with hundreds of thousands of people taking to the streets in peaceful protest.
American missiles continued to be stationed during the reunification of Germany and well into the 1990s.
But after the end of the Cold War, the United States significantly reduced the number of missiles stationed in Europe as the threat from Moscow diminished.
NATO countries, led by the United States, are rushing to strengthen their defenses on the continent following Russia's invasion of neighboring Ukraine in 2022.
