NATO plans to set up the command center for its missile shield at the US military base Ramstein, a diplomatic source said Thursday.

Speaking in Brussels on condition of anonymity, the diplomat said the command center was planned for the Ramstein Air Base, located in the western German state of Rhineland-Palatinate.

The missile shield is intended to protect Europe from a potential attack of medium-range missiles. Several European countries will take part in the project. Spain will host US ships with interceptor missiles, while Turkey will be home to an early warning radar system. Poland and Romania have also confirmed their participation.

Russia has objected to NATO's plans, saying the missile shield will target its own strategic development. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has said the shield is intended to counter missile threats from Iran.

The missile shield is expected to be fully operational by 2018.

For hobby spy-enthusiasts, they have been available in Germany for quite a while: For 300 euros ($393), you can pick up a drone at most electronics stores. It's a model-sized helicopter that can be fitted with a camera and used to film videos from above.

The police also have drones, which they use to monitor demonstrations, for example. They were used for the first time about a year ago during protests against a nuclear waste transport and to keep an eye on soccer matches in the state of Saxony.

But police are limited in the extent to which they can employ drones, with strict regulation of range, elevation, and flight times.

Current law says the unmanned flying objects cannot be bigger than a model, and that the skies are reserved for manned flying machines. But that's about to change. A new airspace law, which is set to be approved Thursday, will open the skies for larger drones that have been only used by the military so far.

Avoiding the word
"There is a technological development that needs to be regulated," said a spokesman from the German transport ministry.

Instead of using the military term 'drone,' the ministry prefers to refer to the aircraft as "unmanned aeronautical systems." For the first time, these devices are to be included in air-traffic laws and allowed to "participate equally in air traffic," according to the bill.

"It is not the case that the government is introducing drones," said the ministry spokesman. The law only "creates the category" and allows for a procedure of approval. In addition to use by the police, these aircraft could be introduced to monitor traffic, survey land or in connection with environmental protection measures, the ministry said.

The military uses of drones are quite varied. Before troops from the Bundeswehr go on patrols in Afghanistan, for example, drones are sent over the route to scout out any possible obstacles.

The US military sends drones to attack positions of the Taliban.

Despite falling budgets in many countries, the demand for unmanned aircraft is growing, and German companies are among those profiting.

Whether or not Germany's skies will soon be filled with unmanned aircraft depends on several factors. For one, it remains to be seen how safely automatic aircraft can be steered in heavily-trafficked airspace. After all, three million aircraft cross German skies each year, the highest amount in Europe.

"We don't yet have any information about the operating safety," the transport ministry said.

'Constitutional nightmare'
Safety concerns aren't the only reason the plans to change the laws regarding drones are drawing criticism. Wolfgang Neskovic of the Left party says it's a "constitutional nightmare."

"The use of drones by police is the final remaining puzzle piece for the total technological surveillance of people in public," he said.

Equipped with powerful cameras, the drones would be able to identify who has been spending time where and when, und exactly what they did there, he pointed out.

Neskovic believes the government is trying to push through measures that would lead to fundamental invasions of the private sphere without attracting attention. The suggestion to include drones in air-traffic laws appears harmless when incorporated into a bill that mainly exists to implement various EU policies regarding air traffic. The draft bill was brought to parliament shortly before Christmas.

Data protection debate
The Green party is critical of the use of drones as well.

"That is a very problematic issue," said Konstantin von Notz, a domestic policy spokesman. He is calling on the government to provide precise information about how exactly the drones could be used. Some Green party members are giving their approval to the bill anyway - under the condition that data protection measures be improved.

Germany's data protection commissioner, Peter Schaar. has also weighed in on the subject.

"These systems are capable of filming people and monitoring their movements," he said. "It is also potentially possible to collect data associated with a specific person."

He says data protection measures should be added to the bill. That could mean, for example, that in order for a drone to be approved, data protection standards would have to be met in addition to technical standards.

In parliament, the exact wording of the bill is being negotiated, and it appears as if Schaar's demands will indeed be heeded.

One thing is certain: by the end of 2014, international combat troops are supposed to be completely pulled out of Afghanistan. Germany's Bundeswehr is therefore already reducing the ceiling of its mandate from the current 5,350 to 4,900 soldiers. The extended mandate, which the German parliament, the Bundestag, will finalize on Thursday, will be valid until January 2013.

Johannes Pflug, spokesman for the "Task Force Afghanistan/Pakistan" in the Social Democrats' parliamentary group, does not believe that the deployment of German soldiers will be completed at that time.

"We want our combat troops to have left Afghanistan by 2013/2014," Pflug said. "But I assume that we will see at least two more extensions of the mandate."

The German government's goal is to reduce the number of German soldiers to 4,400 by January 2013. Whether this will be successful is also dependent on how the security situation in Afghanistan continues to develop.

Crucial security training
There are a number of clear priorities derived from the international community's withdrawal plans by 2014 that apply to the German deployment. In the remaining period, the Bundeswehr is supposed to speed up the development of Afghan security forces and help them to limit the Taliban's mobility as much as possible.

In total, NATO wants to train 350,000 Afghan soldiers and police. But the killing of four French troops by an Afghan soldier last week shows how massive the problems can be in the process. According to a report in the New York Times, Afghan security forces killed 58 soldiers of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in the period between May 2007 and May 2011 alone.

The military training of the ANA, the Afghan national army, is only one side of the story. The soldiers also want to be paid. Figures show how dependent the army is on western funds and support: in 2012 alone, Afghanistan received eight billion euros ($10.4 billion) for troop training.

But even after 2014, the military costs are estimated to reach at least six billion euros a year. If the United States and other donor countries reduce their financing as planned, a situation could develop that could leave over 100,000 of these security forces unemployed, said Pflug. This is an enormous risk.

"You don't need a vivid imagination to envision what would happen if they all run over to the other side," he said.

A dwindling economic factor
Timo Christians, Afghanistan expert for the German aid agency Welthungerhilfe, said he believes that the Afghan economy will experience an economic shock after international forces withdraw. The withdrawal, he said, would have serious implications for security policy.

"Also, the income source 'international community' will significantly decline in the next few years," Christians said. "That will not remain without consequences."

The Welthungerhilfe, which has been active in Afghanistan since 1992, wants to remain involved in the country beyond 2014. It is focusing its work on food security projects in the northern and eastern regions of the country. This involvement is not affected by the planned withdrawal of the Bundeswehr.

However, the aid workers do expect that the conflict will intensify after foreign troops pull out. In addition, there will also be fewer contracts for the Afghan economy.

"Old and new divides will open up because everyone will have to come to terms with the lesser resources available," Christians said. "Everyone is positioning themselves for the day that the foreign troops leave the country."

Diplomatic support from Germany
The extension of the Bundeswehr mandate puts the deployment in its 11th year. In the meantime, hardly anyone still believes in a military solution. In the US, but also in Germany, great hope is being placed in negotiations with the Taliban. Western diplomats consider the opening of a liaison office for the Taliban in the Qatari capital of Doha a positive signal - especially since President Hamid Karzai has meanwhile grudgingly given up his resistance to talks with the Taliban.

"That took some doing," said Pflug and points out the significant role which the German special representative Michael Steiner played in the process.

With the liaison office, Qatar wants to become the leading mediator in the conflict between the West and the Taliban. But for a successful course of negotiations, Afghanistan's direct neighbor Pakistan plays an even more significant role.

"Nothing will work without Pakistan," Pflug said. He said he hopes that China, which played "a very constructive role" at the Afghanistan Conference in Bonn in December, will exert pressure accordingly on its ally. Pakistan boycotted the Bonn conference after a deadly NATO air strike killed 24 Pakistani soldiers in November.

Difficult negotiations
The negotiations with the Taliban will also deal with constitutional issues, for example women's rights. The right to unhindered schooling for girls is a thorn in the Taliban's side, but essential for the West. Everything that has been achieved in Afghanistan so far, however, is by no means only being put into question by the Taliban, said Christians.

"The current people in power are also putting many freedoms and human rights under pressure," he said.

An entirely different question will be who specifically will take part in the negotiations. For example: who will be representing Mullah Omar, the Taliban leader living in exile who has been repeatedly declared dead, but who still controls many Taliban-related activities.

One option is the Taliban representative Tayeb Agha, with whom the German intelligence service BND has established contact. Participation by the longtime Afghan warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar is also disputed. Pflug said the Hizb-i-Islami leader - the perhaps most significant radical Islamic group after the Taliban - was an "evil war criminal."

But German parliamentary circles would be happy if negotiations even got off the ground in the near future. In fall 2013, Germany elects a new lower house of parliament. This could lead to higher hurdles for a renewal of the Bundeswehr mandate again, Pflug said.

"Extending the mandate has already not always gone smoothly until now and the new members of the Bundestag will find it very difficult, as well," he said.

German arms manufacturers exported weapons worth 2.1 billion euros ($ 2.8 billion) in 2010 - a record turnover in export statistics and a significant increase from 2009. On an international scale, Germany ranked third after the US and Russia last year.

According to the German government, more than half of the revenue was due to the export of three warships to NATO partners: Portugal bought German submarines and parts for warships worth more than 800 million euros; Greece, too, purchased a German submarine.

Warships are at the top of armament manufacturers' export lists - as are handguns, ammunition, military electronics and track vehicles, including the Leopard 2 combat tank, produced by Krauss-Maffei Wegmann. Last year, Leopard 2 tanks were sold to Chile, Turkey and Singapore, among other countries. German government plans to sell hundreds of Leopard 2 vehicles to Saudi Arabia triggered a wave of criticism during the summer, with opposition politicians branding the tank deal as the wrong signal to the democracy movement in the Arab world.

The German government must agree to every single weapons export. The government must adhere to specific guidelines: Arms exports are only permitted to countries that respect human rights and are not involved in armed conflict. Every year the government declines requests for weapons exports. In 2010, rejections included exports to Belarus and Yemen.

Controversial export plans
Critics say exports to Saudi Arabia should also be rejected because Riyadh helped the government in neighboring Bahrain forcefully put down an uprising. Apart from in its annual weapons export report, the German government has remained silent on the issue. Where transparency is concerned, Berlin lags far behind many of its neighbors.

In 2010, German firms sold handguns, ammunition and military communication equipment to Saudi Arabia. The country ranks 10th among the 20 most important recipients of German arms exports.

This is something that outrages Jan van Aken, a Left party parliamentarian.

"Especially disgusting is the unimpeded sale of arms to states which disrespect human rights in the worst way," Aken said. "Every euro that is earned from war is one euro too many."

Weapons are also sold to developing countries - more in 2010 than in the previous year.

"The exception has become the rule," criticized Green party parliamentarian Katja Keul. She said it sets a particularly bad example when Germany sells weapons to both Pakistan and India, who have fought three wars against each other. "Detente looks different than that," she said.

Germany's state-owned development bank, Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau (KfW), will buy a 7.5 percent stake in the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company from Stuttgart-based carmaker Daimler next year

The stake, valued at 1.2 billion euros ($1.6 billion), will be held by the bank until a long-term solution is found, according to the Economy Ministry.

Since early this year, Daimler has been spreading the word that it wants to sell a least half of its remaining 15-percent stake in EADS when a consortium agreement expires in June 2012. The company wants focus more on its core luxury car and truck manufacturing operations, as competition, particularly from Asia, heats up in both sectors.

Complicated structure

In June, Daimler CEO Dieter Zetsche said the discussion about Daimler's stake in EADS can't go on "forever."

"This is a good move by Daimler," Albrecht Denninghoff, an analyst with Silvia Quandt Research in Frankfurt, told Deutsche Welle "The company has a complicated structure compared with its German rivals, which are focused on just cars. It would be even better if Daimler could pull out (of EADS) completely but no other private investor has come forward yet."

Those plans, however, left the German government scrambling to find a way to counterbalance French influence at the aerospace company. Under the agreement that created EADS, the parent of aircraft builder Airbus, investors from France and Germany must hold balanced voting rights in the company.

Both countries are keen to avoid having to return to the negotiating table to debate the politically sensitive pact ahead of elections next year in France and the following year in Germany.

In addition to its 15-percent stake, Daimler controls the voting rights of an additional 7.5-percent stake it sold to a consortium of German banks and insurance companies in 2007.

Similarly, French publisher Lagardere owns 7.5 percent of EADS and manages the French government's 15 percent stake.

To finance the acquisition, the German government has hinted it plans to accelerate the sale of its remaining stakes in Deutsche Telekom and Deutsche Post.

The government agreement to buy a stake of EADS, however, required some intensive lobbying on the part of Chancellor Angele Merkel, whose coalition partner, the Free Democrats, traditionally oppose state ownership of companies.

For Daimler, the slow retreat from EADS signals the end of an ambitious strategy to grow beyond cars and trucks.

"Exiting EADS makes sense for Daimler," Cord Schellenberg, an independent Hamburg-based aerospace consultant, told Deutsche Welle. "But it's amusing to see how industry strategies move in waves. At some point, companies want to broaden their scope of activities, only to revert to their core business 10 or 15 years down the road. And the government is there to help balance those waves."

Wednesday was a dark day for many German cities and municipalities. They fought to convince the German military, the Bundeswehr, to stay with them, but to no avail. The bad news came from the Defense Ministry in the early hours: 31 military bases will be completely shut down.

Among them some heavyweights: the renowned air force officers' school in the Bavarian town of Fürstenfeldbruck and the fleet command of the navy in Glücksburg. Both bases are to have their functions transferred to other places.

Early Wednesday, the 1,800 soldiers in the southwestern town of Sigmaringen also found out that they'll soon have to move - the base there, rich in tradition, will be closed. And businesses in the Danube city of about 16,000 are now fearing economic losses.

"Every closure and every reduction is painful," said Defense Minister Thomas de Maiziere. He said there were deeply-rooted traditions in the military, but that the reforms were unavoidable. "The Bundeswehr is not there for the base's sake. It's there to fulfill its mission efficiently and well."

Smaller army, fewer bases

The Defense Ministry's plan for its military bases follows an earlier decision to reduce personnel in the Bundeswehr, which is set to shrink to about 185,000.

The bases were built for many more soldiers, and the ministry says maintaining them would be too expensive. Since the end of compulsory military service in March, 55,000 posts have been axed, and 30,000 are soon to follow.

The Bundeswehr bases are spread out across the country so that the military is "present in the region," as the military says. This will reportedly not change, as a concentration of the military in a few larger bases was never considered.

Rather, de Maiziere proceeded with the motto "reduction comes before closing." Many bases will be shrunk but not closed. At 31, the number of closures indeed seems moderate. According to the minister's calculations, the smallest bases not included, 264 will remain in operation.

New policy rolls out through 2017

Hardest hit by the closures is Schleswig-Holstein in the north, the state with the highest military concentration. Eight bases there are to be closed, and 10,000 service positions cut. Still, State Premier Peter Harry Carstensen said he doesn't feel betrayed by the closures, since important military installations will remain in the state.

The western state of Saarland and Bavaria in the south will also feel the cuts, while posts in the former East Germany will remain relatively unaffected.

The Defense Ministry has said it will not yet allocate money made from any civilian use of the closed military bases, but it has stressed that it wants to help the affected soldiers and civilian contractors.

"The uncertainty has come to an end," said the German Armed Forces Association, a soldiers' interest group. It praised the publication of the new base plan, for which soldiers had long been waiting. But its chairman, Colonel Ulrich Kirsch, warned the government not to let the affected soldiers down. "All hardships have to be mitigated as best possible," he said.

Reforms reach the top

Also to be reworked is the Bundeswehr's leadership structure. First and foremost, the headquarters of the Defense Ministry will remain in Bonn, the former capital of West Germany. Current capital Berlin will continue to play second fiddle. All together, Bonn and Berlin are to have no more than 2,000 employees, a good 1,000 fewer than now.

The command of the various military branches will be relocated and merged with the responsible administrative bodies. The navy will soon be led from Rostock on the northeastern coast, the air force from Berlin and the army from Strausberg, in the eastern state of Brandenburg.

The logistical headaches facing the United States as it prepares to bring home the majority of the 40,000 or so troops still left in Iraq by the start of 2012 were compounded last week when Iraq's political leaders agreed to allow some US military trainers to stay in the country past the withdrawal date but declared that any remaining troops should not be granted immunity from Iraqi law.

Under Article 12 of the 2008 bilateral 'status of forces agreement' (SOFA) between the US and Iraq, "Iraq shall have the primary right to exercise jurisdiction" over US forces, but only in cases of "grave premeditated felonies" and only when "such crimes are committed outside agreed facilities and areas and outside duty status."

In cases which fall outside the definitions of the SOFA, US troops accused of crimes within Iraq have been tried and punished by US military courts back on home soil. No US troops have been tried by the Iraqi justice system despite a number of cases allegedly falling within the definitions of the SOFA in regard to crimes punishable by Iraqi courts.

Cases such as these have provoked angry accusations in Iraq that the immunity agreement has been used to shield US military personnel from punishment despite the fact that private security contractors from the US have been prosecuted under Iraqi law while US troops have faced military tribunals for crimes committed in Iraq back in the United States.

"US soldiers were obviously accused of crimes in Abu Ghraib and other situations on the ground where Iraqis were killed without context," Professor Patricia DeGennaro, a security expert at New York University's Department of Politics and a senior fellow at the World Policy Institute, told Deutsche Welle.

"These soldiers were in fact tried in the States," she said. "The Army is holding more soldiers feet to the fire when they commit war crimes. Such cases against troops in the US have been effective and continue to be more effective as time passes."

Lt. Col. Bill Connor, former senior U.S. advisor in Helmand Province, Afghanistan, and an attorney in civilian life, said there had been numerous instances of US soldiers being prosecuted and sentenced to long jail terms for war crimes violations.

"I dare say that Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) is stiffer than almost any set of national laws," he told Deutsche Welle. "All the main characters in the Abu Graib scandal have been convicted under UCMJ and sent to prison for varying lengths of time. Other lower enlisted soldiers have been tried and convicted under court martial after they returned home. The US military does not turn a blind eye. If anything, they may go overboard at times."

The topic of immunity for US troops is a painful one for Iraqi citizens due to its association with some of the worst crimes of the war such as the Abu Ghraib prison scandal and the killing of civilians by Blackwater mercenaries. The issue evokes such painful memories that the Iraqi government has come under increasing pressure from the population to revoke immunity for any US troops staying behind.

Immunity 'a must'

For US military planners, legal immunity is a must for any American troops, not only those serving in Iraq as part of any training mission after 2011, but anywhere in the world. The Iraqi decision to revoke immunity puts the US in a position where it could withdraw all its troops out of Iraq, leaving no military support behind.

"Any troops that we have serving in Iraq would need to have the legal protections that they have now under the security agreement, or similar to the legal protections they have in any country they serve in around the world," Major General Jeffrey Buchanan, the US military's spokesman in Iraq told reporters this week. "I don't know of any country where our troops serve in where they don't either have diplomatic immunity or, in a more traditional sense, legal protections under some sort of bilateral agreement."

Bildunterschrift: Großansicht des Bildes mit der Bildunterschrift: US troops need to feel secure when in combat zones
Even though the troops which potentially stay behind in Iraq would be training Iraqi forces, should a combat situation arise in which US soldiers are forced to engage in, DeGennaro believes that the lack of immunity may compromise their effectiveness.

"US soldiers need to feel they are able to respond as needed," she said. "If they respond in a way that is not accepted by Iraq but is accepted by the US, they need to know that they are supported by their country."

"There can be all kinds of misunderstood events that can cause international problems," she added. "The deal should be that if war crimes are committed, these soldiers must be held accountable under US law transparently so Iraqis understand that the US will not tolerate these types of acts."

According to Lt. Col. Bill Connor the problem in Iraq could be the prosecution of offenses that are unique to the country.

"For example, the Iraqi Constitution starts with the line 'no law will conflict with Islam'. Therefore, Sharia Law is arguably the law of the land in Iraq."

"What happens if a US Muslim soldier converts to Christianity? What happens if a US soldier gives an opinion to another soldier critical of Islam or Sharia law? What happens if we have corruption in the Iraqi system and US soldiers are targeted for retribution by those who were in the insurgency but now part of the system?"

Implications for foreign deployments

The Iraqi decision to remove immunity for US troops in Iraq may have more far-reaching consequences than the US deciding against leaving any troops behind. The potential knock-on effects for US troops on foreign deployments around the world could shape Washington's future approach to defense engagements outside of the United States.

If other countries withdraw immunity clauses from 'state of forces' agreements with the United States, Washington's reluctance to keep its forces in that country - or even deploy them there in the first place - would restrict the US military's reach. The US would be forced to think twice about putting its soldiers at the mercy of another country's law in time of war.

Patricia DeGennaro believes that modern warfare and the changing demands of the military has contributed to this thinking over the conduct of troops, the interpretation of laws and the use of immunity. A re-defining of military roles could help to eliminate the gray areas and the risks that may come about when deployed overseas.

"The lines have been blurred between military and civilian components of national security and countries expect the military to adhere to civilian standards but this is just not possible," said DeGennaro. "In Iraq and Afghanistan, the military has been expected to take on so many civilian responsibilities that we are all forgetting they have a different function. They are not police or reconciliation officials."

Former development minister, Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul, spoke out against the German government on Monday for the suspected sale of 200 "Leopard" combat tanks to the Saudi government.

The Berliner Zeitung newspaper reported that Wieczorek-Zeul accused the government of hypocrisy. "The tank deal with Saudi Arabia is a catastrophic decision," she said. In selling the tanks, Germany has "supported an authoritarian, despotic regime."

This policy "is the exact opposite of the government's public stance on the democratic uprisings in the Arab World," Wieczorek-Zeul added.

She called on German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle to justify conducting a secret arms deal while publicly supporting the democracy movement in Egypt.

Court complaint
Wieczorek-Zeul's comments came just a day after Germany's opposition Green party announced it had launched a complaint with the country's highest court, over the sale of the tanks.

German news magazine Spiegel reported Sunday that Green party leaders had filed a motion with the Constitutional Court, demanding that information over the deal be made public.

Reports of the sale have been published by several news organizations, but the German government has so far refused to comment on the basis of national security.

The Greens argued this position is untenable as the alleged deal has been in the public sphere for weeks. Deputy party leader, Hans-Christian Ströbele told Spiegel that even if confidentiality was justifiable, information must be relayed to parliament.

Until now, it has been German government policy not to export heavy weapons to the authoritarian regime in Saudi Arabia.

On Thursday, Iranian and Indian media reported that an American drone strike had killed four militants in the North Waziristan region of Pakistan. Over in Europe, also on Thursday, the French Ministry of Defense said it was in talks with a military contractor to order a new fleet of drones that could be deployed as soon as 2014.

Meanwhile, across the globe, on the very same day, the police chief in the Australian capital, Canberra, told Australian media that he was considering deploying surveillance drones across his city's skies.

Over the last few years, drones have become an indispensible part of the American campaign to combat terrorism in various parts of the world, and also are starting to trickle into law enforcement tactics worldwide as well.

Major increase in drone attacks
The United States has especially increased its use of drones in Pakistan. Between 2004 and 2007 there were just nine drone attacks. In 2008 it was 33, the next year it was 53 and last year the attacks hit 118.

The estimates about the number of fatalities from these attacks range from 600 to almost 1,000.

"I can't imagine that the USA would launch this many manned air attacks in Pakistan," said Jürgen Altmann, in an interview with Deutsche Welle.

The University of Dortmund physicist is a founding member of the International Committee for Robot Arms Control (ICRAC), a non-profit organization that advocates for a re-evaluation of automated war technologies, like drones.

The fact that these planes are relatively small and have no crew on board makes it easier for Pakistan's government to allow them, Altmann said.

"[The] threshold for the involvement of unmanned drones in conflict is lower, as when manned planes are involved," he said.

War without risk?
The enormous increase in computer power, new camera and sensor technology has made it possible to run a war without risk to one's soldiers.

Noel Sharkey, a professor of artificial intelligence and robotics at the University of Sheffield in the United Kingdom, said the new development isn't just dangerous for civilians living in enemy territory.

"It is also dangerous for our own civilians, because lopsided wars lead to new terrorism," he noted. "People won't just give up because we've got the best technology."

The case for drones?
A worldwide drone arms race is well and truly underway. Some 50 states have already bought drones for surveillance – including countries like Israel, Germany, China, Russia and Iran. Many of these nations are working on armed drones as well.

Drone proponents argue that the money saved in comparison to normal fighter jets is considerable: a US MQ 9 drone costs only $10 million (7.05 million euros) and can be loaded up with 14 Hellfire rockets. By comparison, a F-22 fighter jet costs around $150 million (105.8 million euros). Plus, the training for the drone pilots also costs much less than training for a traditional jet pilot.

Plus, others have argued that a drone's inability to become emotionally inflamed might be a possible argument for the increased use of drones.

"Robots don't get angry when their fellow soldiers get killed," said Peter Warren Singer, an analyst at the American think-tank, the Brookings Institution, and the author of the 2009 book, "Wired for War."

"They don't commit any crime due out of revenge or retaliation – that's one of the reasons why war crimes are committed," he told Deutsche Welle. "But for a robot an 80-year-old grandmother is the same as a tank. Both are just a combination of zeros and ones."

An ethical robot
Similarly, Ronald Arkin, a professor of robotics at the Georgia Institute of Technology, believes that robots' unemotional operating methods as a strength.

Arkin is convinced that systems can be developed which will be better than humans on the battle field - he argues that it may be possible to program a robot with the rules of the Geneva Conventions. This would mean they could refuse to carry out some orders which contradict the rules of international conflict and rules of engagement.

However, not all roboticists are convinced of the ability to reduce human ethics into software.

"Because no-one knows what it means to bring in ethical considerations into programming," said Hans-Jörg Kreowsky, a professor of computer science at the University of Bremen. "Ethics can't be defined by algorithms, that means you can't build it."

The anonymous Saudi source probably had no idea what trouble he was causing. On Monday, the informant told a Reuters reporter about Saudi Arabia's deal to buy 200 2A7+ Leopard tanks from Germany.

The news caused outrage throughout Germany. Memories of Saudi troops suppressing Bahraini democracy protestors are still fresh, and the mood was not improved by a video posted to Youtube apparently showing how the 2A7+ can be used to break up demonstrations.

The video showed a German army demonstration of a prototype Leopard, and came complete with a voiceover explaining how the tank can be fitted with a water cannon.

Such deals don't raise an eyebrow in larger arms exporters like the US and Russia, but the German government has now spent three days reaping a popular whirlwind. And it's come from unexpected parties.

Renke Brahms, peace commissioner for the Evangelical Church in Germany, told the Passauer Neuen Presse newspaper, "If German Leopard tanks are being used to clear barricades and suppress demonstrations, then we carry some responsibility for violating human rights."

Concerns were even raised by prominent members of Chancellor Angela Merkel's own party, the Christian Democratic Union. According to media reports, the chairman of the foreign policy committee Ruprecht Polenz, Bundestag President Norbert Lammert and CDU human rights spokeswoman Erika Steinbach all argued against delivering the Leopards during a party meeting on Monday.

Jürgen Grässlin, spokesman for the campaign "Action Outcry: Stop the Weapons Exports" - the biggest-ever alliance of German peace organizations and churches - told Deutsche Welle: "Apart from Libya, Iran and maybe North Korea, I can't think of a country with a worse human rights record than Saudi Arabia. To export weapons there just because it is western-orientated and because it has oil is almost illegal. I would almost call it an act of barbarism."

A new precedent

This deal with Saudi Arabia is significant for historical reasons. As Grässlin points out, Germany has been exporting other weapons there for some time, and is also part of a much bigger deal to export Eurofighters to the country.

"Even Chancellor Gerhard Schröder's government delivered patrol ships, military vehicles, machine pistols and sniper rifles there," he says. "Merkel's government has exported even more weapons to Saudi Arabia, but with the export of the tanks the last taboo has been broken."

"The tanks are different," Grässlin explains. "By traditional thinking, the Leopard is a German combat tank, and the big companies involved in its manufacture are German - Rheinmetall and Krauss-Maffei Wegmann."

"In the history of the German arms trade, combat tank exports were always very controversial. Saudi Arabia has been asking for German tanks since the 1980s, but up until now all the German governments - from Chancellor Helmut Kohl onwards - have refused to allow them," he added.

Why now?

It seems particularly egregious that Germany should suddenly approve a major sale of heavy weaponry to a Middle Eastern dictatorship when the region is in massive turmoil. Grässlin points out that, were it not for this week's leak, reports of the exports would probably not have emerged until next year, which may have been a factor.

And Germany has large economic incentives for approving the deal, according to Mark Bromley, a researcher with the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). "The Free Democrats have argued that Germany is more restrictive than other European countries, and is missing out on business opportunities," he told Deutsche Welle. "Also, Germany, like other European countries, is facing falling defense budgets, leaving less money for domestic procurement from industry. This may be leading to more pressure to find markets abroad."

And there may be another motivator lurking in the background. In the past, permission to sell large weapons to Saudi Arabia was refused for two reasons, says Grässlin: "Firstly, so as not to pour gas onto the conflict between Saudi Arabia and Iran, and secondly, because Saudi Arabia was always one of the arch-enemies of Israel, and we can't supply them with weapons because of German history."

There is speculation, therefore, that Israel's attitude to Saudi Arabia may have been changed by the "Arab Spring." "It seems that with the German tank deal, there was contact with the Israeli government, so apparently objections weren't raised," says Bromley. "Obviously there's a change in Germany, but presumably Israel has voiced opposition to these deals in the past and is not doing so now, so maybe there's a re-calculation in Israel as well."

Secret council

For the past few days, the German government has been avoiding questions about the deal, which was allegedly green-lit last week by the Federal Security Council, the cabinet sub-committee that deals with all arms exports. This committee, which meets behind closed doors, comprises Chancellor Angela Merkel, Defense Minister Thomas de Maiziere, Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle and other members of the cabinet.

According to official government policy, the council is supposed to veto all weapons deals with countries that have questionable human rights records. The principle, agreed by the cabinet in 2000, reads, "Armaments exports are categorically not approved if there is 'sufficient suspicion' that the armaments in question are being used for internal repression or other continuing and systematic human rights abuses."

But Merkel, Westerwelle and de Maiziere have a perfect excuse for not answering awkward questions about the council's decision - it would be illegal. According to government regulations, all cabinet sub-committee meetings are state secrets.

This allows the government to maintain silence in the face of vehement demands for information from opposition parties. In a parliamentary question and answer session on Wednesday, Hans-Joachim Otto, parliamentary state secretary at the Economics Ministry, said the Federal Security Council always met confidentially. "That is why the government cannot take a position on the press reports about the council's alleged decisions. That has always been the case," he said.

So far, the government has not yet confirmed that the Leopard deal even took place, but as Grässlin says, the fact that they have not denied it speaks volumes.