Perle Assails German Leadership’s Incompetence In Dealing With “Gorbomania”

(Washington, D.C.): Richard Perle, former Assistant Secretary of Defense and member of the Center for Security Policy’s Board of Advisors, this week published a stinging rebuke of the leadership of West Germany and of policies vis a vis the Soviet Union it is embracing.

"The persistent pressure from the German government to relax the restrictions on military and sensitive technology goes in exactly the wrong direction because it enables Gorbachev to hope that he might have the best of both worlds. That is, that he might sustain the growth of Soviet military power by incorporating advanced technology in their new weapon systems, on the one hand, while saving resources for the restructuring of the economy on the other," said Perle.

Perle, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, sharply criticized West German export control practices in the German magazine, Der Spiegel:

"I am not for stopping the export of every PC. I think we want to draw the lines at an appropriate place. If it were up to Herr Genscher, I do not think there would be any lines at all. He would sell anything. And in this he has the full support of aggressive German capitalists who respect no limits, who sell missile system components to Iraq and Syria and equipment for chemical weapons to Libya — which is perhaps the most irresponsible industrial policy in the modern world. It is a scandal [what] Germany has been prepared to scatter around the world."

When asked if such criticism did not jeopardize the conservative government of an important ally, Perle replied: "I am not wedded to incompetent conservative governments."

Excerpts of an English-version of the full Perle interview with Der Spiegel are attached.