The importance of the relationship between the United States and Germany should not be… The importance of the relationship between the United States and Germany should not be underestimated, according to former Minister of Defense of the Federal Republic of Germany Rudolf Scharping.

Scharping spoke at the Duquesne Club on Wednesday afternoon at a lunch sponsored by the World Affairs Council of Pittsburgh and the Pittsburgh Chapter of the American Council on Germany.

He stressed the ties between the two countries, including history, economics and security. He stated that the current transatlantic political climate is neither the first nor the worst case of tension between the United States and Germany.

“If one is limiting his thinking on security in terms of territorial defense … we are going the wrong way,” he said. “And to ignore the very, very deep and substantial economic interdependence between both continents – that is against both interests.”

He also made clear the need to rethink old strategies of defense in light of the changing tactics of enemies. The world, Scharping said, is no longer organized in a bipolar manner, and as such, defense cannot be either.

Traditional security efforts such as defense and deterrence will not work, Scharping said, expressing the need to be “engaged at the source of the threat.”

“How [do we] deter a human being or organization of human beings ready to die, ready to kill, with a fanatical organization behind them telling them that they will go to heaven?” he asked.

Scharping made minimal effort to disguise the presence of such tensions as the transatlantic disagreement over Iraq, but rather discussed them in both his speech and as a response to several of the questions posed in the period after it.

“What I want to make clear is that in the comprehensive sense of our relationship I hope that our political leadership understands that statesmanship is asked. I know every statesman is a politician, but sometimes you have to decide ‘what do you want to be?'” he said.

He addressed this comment to both American politicians and the German chancellor who, he said, in the “crucial time between summer and Christmas in 2002, acted more as a political party leader than as a statesmen.”

Scharping was dismissed by German Chancellor Gerhard Schroder in July 2002 for suspected payments that he received from a German public relations firm. Under German law, ministers are not allowed to receive any payments outside of their ministerial salary.

The issue of President George W. Bush’s State of the Union Address held the night before was raised several times and Scharping commented, saying that, “As a foreign observer, I asked myself, ‘what is it?’ Is it more complaining or is it more the State of the Union as such? But that is the question, and it’s not my job to answer it because I am an observer.”

In response to a question specifically asking what he thought of Bush neglecting to mention either Germany or France and the inability of weapons inspectors to find weapons of mass destruction, Scharping said that he was not disturbed and urged people to wait for the final reports.

Cooperation was mentioned many times and Scharping stressed the need for both the United States and Germany to “think through the eyes of [their] counterparts,” and “disarm the rhetoric” to get rid of the misperceptions on both sides.

Scharping has been the deputy chairman of the German Social Democratic Party since 1995 and a member of the German Parliament since 1994.