German Defense Minister Borus Pistorius arrived in Hawaii on July 30, on a tour that will also take him to South Korea and the Philippines. In Hawaii, he commented on the discussion to place U.S. long-range missiles on German military sites, rejecting criticism even from his own Social Democratic Party (SPD). He said that unlike in the early 1980s, these missiles were not nuclear but conventional weapons.
The deployment of long-range weapons with conventional warheads is now about “real deterrence,” proclaimed Pistorius. “It is now about closing this gap on our side, not to threaten anyone, but to make it clear that a possible attack on NATO territory, on NATO allies, would have such a high price for Russia that the risk would no longer be calculable.”
