BSW on foreign affairs and defence

The BSW wants German foreign policy to focus on détente, balancing interests and international cooperation, invoking Willy Brandt. Conflicts should be settled through negotiation under the UN Charter, not with weapons.

The BSW wants a foreign policy for peace. Countries should talk to each other. Weapons should not settle conflicts. Germany should mediate between countries.

The party sees itself as part of the peace movement and points to Germany's responsibility arising from two world wars. The security interests of all sides should be taken seriously. Germany should act as a mediator in a world with several centers of power. The United Nations should be strengthened, and countries of the Global South should get a greater say. According to the platform, economic sanctions and trade wars are not in Germany's or Europe's interest.

The BSW wants a purely defensive alliance aimed at disarmament in place of NATO in its current form. Europe should get a security order that in the longer run also includes Russia.

The BSW criticizes NATO. NATO is a military alliance. The BSW wants an alliance only for defense. Later, Europe should also work with Russia on security.

The platform accuses the alliance's leading power of having attacked five countries in violation of international law over three decades and holds the alliance partly responsible for rising tensions. The alliance the party wants would respect the UN Charter and would not oblige its members to arm. Members should deal with each other as equals. According to the platform, US interests differ considerably from German ones in some respects.

The BSW calls for disarmament, new arms control treaties and a ban on exporting weapons to war zones. Arms companies would no longer be allowed to pay out their profits to shareholders.

The BSW wants fewer weapons in the world. Germany should not sell weapons to war zones. Countries should sign deals to cut weapons. Arms companies should not pay their profits to shareholders.

According to the platform, Germany is among the largest exporters of weapons to war zones and so shares responsibility for suffering. The party laments that nearly all arms control agreements have expired or been canceled and sees a new arms race. It seeks a long-term restructuring of the arms industry, arguing that people's security must not depend on profit interests. Money should go to education, research, health and care instead of weapons.

The BSW wants Germany to join the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons and have the nuclear weapons stored in the country removed. According to the platform, a nuclear conflict would leave large parts of Europe, and Germany above all, uninhabitable.

The BSW wants a world without nuclear weapons. Germany should sign a treaty against nuclear weapons. The US nuclear weapons should leave Germany. The BSW fears a nuclear war in Europe.

The party backs the general ban on nuclear weapons proposed by the United Nations and wants partner countries to join in the long run as well. It points to a 2010 Bundestag resolution on withdrawing US nuclear weapons and wants to carry it out, with the US troops stationed in Germany included in that process. The platform says a war with Russia would inevitably turn nuclear, and that more conventional weapons or bunkers would not help against that.

The BSW rejects the planned stationing of US intermediate-range missiles in Germany. In the party's view these weapons do not protect the country but make it a target for Russian missiles and raise the nuclear risk.

The US wants to put new missiles in Germany. The BSW is against this. The party says the missiles make Germany a target for Russia. That is dangerous.

The platform criticizes Chancellor Scholz for agreeing to the stationing on the sidelines of a NATO summit without any debate. The party demands strict compliance with the provisions of the Two Plus Four Treaty on missile deployments. A major war in Europe may look calculable from the distance of the US, it says, but would be devastating for people in Europe.

The BSW wants the Bundeswehr to focus solely on defending the country and to be adequately equipped for that. The party rejects deployments in international wars and stationing troops on Russia's border or in the South China Sea.

The Bundeswehr should only defend Germany. It should be well equipped for that. German soldiers should not go to foreign wars. They should not be at the border with Russia either.

The platform attributes the Bundeswehr's problems to its conversion into a force for missions abroad. It rates the deployments in Afghanistan and Mali as failures. The party invokes the defense mandate in the constitution.

The BSW rejects rising military spending, NATO's two percent target and new special funds for the Bundeswehr. Instead, procurement should become more transparent, and arms companies should be liable for cost overruns and delays.

The BSW does not want to spend more on the military. NATO asks for two percent of economic output for defense. The BSW rejects that goal. Arms companies should pay when projects cost more.

According to the platform, German military spending has more than doubled since 2014 and stood at nearly 90 billion euros in 2024. The party calls the idea of a Bundeswehr starved of funds a myth. It says one fifth of spending is lost to mismanagement and poor planning. The government should bind the industry to liability by contract, disclose all military spending and end costly consulting contracts. The BSW also rejects further debt-financed funds for rearmament or military aid.

The BSW opposes a new military draft. Young people should be free to choose during the period when they are finding their career path, and that voluntary principle must not be suspended for the sake of rearmament.

The BSW does not want a draft. A draft means young people must join the military. Young people should choose their own path. Germany should be peaceful, not ready for war.

The platform contrasts its rejection of conscription with Defense Minister Pistorius's goal of making the country fit for war. The party wants to make Germany fit for peace instead. It says the voluntary principle matters greatly for young people.

The BSW calls for a ceasefire without preconditions and negotiations on a peace plan for Ukraine. The party rejects delivering Taurus cruise missiles and wants no further German taxpayer money made available for the war.

The BSW wants the war in Ukraine to end fast. The fighting should stop right away. Then both sides should talk. Germany should not send Taurus missiles. Germany should give no more money for the war.

The party condemns the Russian attack but considers the war avoidable and a proxy war between Russia and the US. Germany and Europe should launch their own peace initiatives and support the diplomatic efforts of China and countries of the Global South. Talks should pick up where they ended in Istanbul in spring 2022. In the BSW's view, a Taurus delivery would amount to a declaration of war on Russia. Weapons deliveries would not end the dying, it says.

The BSW demands an immediate end to weapons deliveries to Israel, along with a ceasefire and negotiations on a two-state solution. The party condemns the Hamas attack of October 7, 2023, but considers the Netanyahu government's conduct in Gaza unjustified.

The BSW wants no more German weapons for Israel. The fighting in the Middle East should stop now. Israel and the Palestinians should hold talks. In the end there should be two states.

The platform speaks of war crimes against civilians in Gaza, the West Bank and Lebanon. It criticizes Germany's Staatsräson (the doctrine that Israel's security is a core German interest) as uncritical support for the Netanyahu government. In the party's view, the Bundestag's antisemitism resolution of November 2024 narrows debate because it largely equates criticism of Israel with antisemitism. The BSW distinguishes between protecting Jewish life in Germany and criticizing Israeli government policy. Peace is possible only if Palestinian interests are also taken into account, it says.

The BSW wants to reduce the causes of flight in countries of origin. To that end, military aid to warring parties should end, economic sanctions should be lifted and EU foreign and trade policy should be realigned. It argues this helps more people than taking in a few in Germany.

The BSW wants fewer people to have to flee. Germany should stop giving military support to parties at war. Sanctions against other countries should end. Sanctions are trade penalties. Aid groups should get more money.

According to the platform, most refugees came from countries destabilized by the US and its allies, such as Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq and Libya. Germany and the EU should not take part in military operations to topple governments. Sanctions mainly hurt the population, it says. Organizations like the UN refugee agency UNHCR should get more money for help on the ground. The international community should also do more to end wars, support development cooperation and protect the climate.