US-Germany double down on ties amid Russia threat

WITH Russia threatening an invasion of Ukraine as soon as this month, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz made his first big official trip outside of Europe on Monday (Feb 7) to double down on transatlantic ties with US President Joe Biden.

Last weekend, US intelligence estimates revealed that Russian President Vladimir Putin has assembled 70 per cent of the military personnel and weapons on Ukraine's borders he would need for a full-scale invasion of the country. Meanwhile, the first of 3,000 US troops to deploy to Eastern Europe landed in Poland and another 86 tonnes of US weapons arrived in Ukraine.

While Germany has generally had strong ties with the United States in the post-war era, there have been significant disagreements from time to time. One example was the 2003 Iraq War which saw a significant schism in the transatlantic alliance when then-chancellor Gerhard Schroder opposed then-US president George W Bush's decision to topple Saddam Hussein's regime.