German AfD Split Over NATO and Russia Defense Policy

The Ger­man AfD defense pol­i­cy split has exposed fun­da­men­tal divi­sions with­in the far-right par­ty as it attempts to posi­tion itself as a cred­i­ble gov­ern­ing force. On 30 Octo­ber 2025, Politi­co report­ed that the Alter­na­tive for Ger­many’s east­ern pro-Rus­sia wing clashed with west­ern pro-NATO tra­di­tion­al­ists over mil­i­tary con­scrip­tion and alliance pol­i­cy, with 24 law­mak­ers block­ing draft pro­pos­als until Ukraine war ends and Ger­many adopts neu­tral stance. The arti­cle begins:

The Ger­man far right wants to defend the home­land. It just can’t say how — or against whom. Chan­cel­lor Friedrich Merz’s coali­tion is mov­ing to over­haul Ger­many’s defense pos­ture in response to the threat posed by Rus­sia under Vladimir Putin and wor­ry about the U.S. com­mit­ment to Euro­pean secu­ri­ty under Don­ald Trump. That’s push­ing the far-right Alter­na­tive for Ger­many (AfD), the coun­try’s sec­ond-largest par­ty, to try and stake out a clear posi­tion of its own. But the effort is split­ting the nation­al­ists, with its east­ern pro-Rus­sia wing in con­flict with west­ern pro-NATO tra­di­tion­al­ists, just as the par­ty hopes to gain cred­i­bil­i­ty for an even­tu­al push to take pow­er, while dis­may­ing Ger­many’s allies.

Read more: https://www.politico.eu/article/germany-far-right-afd-war-over-own-defense-policy/

Key Points

• A bloc of 24 AfD law­mak­ers from east­ern Ger­many led by Ste­fan Möller cir­cu­lat­ed a writ­ten motion to halt any talk of reviv­ing mil­i­tary con­scrip­tion until the Ukraine war ends and Ger­many adopts a neu­tral, deesca­la­to­ry stance.
• Par­ty co-chair Tino Chru­pal­la dis­missed reports of Russ­ian drones cross­ing into Pol­ish air­space as pro­pa­gan­da and joked they were made of Sty­ro­foam and ply­wood, while co-chair Alice Wei­del warned Rus­sia could be test­ing NATO air-defense systems.
• The AfD elec­toral pro­gram insists Ger­many should remain in NATO only until an inde­pen­dent and capa­ble Euro­pean mil­i­tary alliance has been estab­lished, with Chru­pal­la sug­gest­ing the coun­try should even­tu­al­ly found a new secu­ri­ty struc­ture respect­ing Rus­si­a’s interests.
• Pol­ish Deputy Defense Min­is­ter Paweł Zalews­ki expressed con­cern that a sit­u­a­tion where Ger­many would link its eco­nom­ic pow­er with mil­i­tary might has always raised fears, empha­siz­ing the impor­tance of Ger­many remain­ing root­ed in EU and NATO.

The Alter­na­tive for Ger­many (Alter­na­tive für Deutsch­land, AfD) is a right-wing pop­ulist and nation­al-con­ser­v­a­tive polit­i­cal par­ty found­ed in 2013 by a group of econ­o­mists, jour­nal­ists, and for­mer mem­bers of the Chris­t­ian Demo­c­ra­t­ic Union (CDU) in response to dis­sat­is­fac­tion with Chan­cel­lor Angela Merkel’s man­age­ment of the euro­zone cri­sis and her per­ceived lack of alter­na­tives to main­stream policies.

For more, go here https://www.global-influence-ops.com/wiki/alternative-for-germany-alternative-fur-deutschland-afd/

Global National Conservative Alliance Challenges NATO Unity and Collective Defense

The Glob­al Nation­al Con­ser­v­a­tive Alliance pos­es a mul­ti­fac­eted chal­lenge to NATO’s cohe­sion and effec­tive­ness. This transna­tion­al move­ment, unit­ing right-wing fac­tions world­wide under prin­ci­ples of nation­al sov­er­eign­ty and oppo­si­tion to mul­ti­lat­er­al insti­tu­tions, has increas­ing­ly ques­tioned the val­ue of col­lec­tive defense arrange­ments cen­tral to West­ern security.

Hun­gary under Vik­tor Orbán exem­pli­fies this ten­sion. Despite NATO mem­ber­ship, Hun­gary serves as a bridge between Euro­pean nation­al­ists and Amer­i­can con­ser­v­a­tives while main­tain­ing warm rela­tions with Rus­sia. Orbán’s July 2024 vis­its to Moscow and Bei­jing, fol­lowed by meet­ings with Trump, crys­tal­lized this bal­anc­ing act. He has con­sis­tent­ly delayed EU and NATO sup­port for Ukraine and opposed alliance expan­sion, cre­at­ing what West­ern offi­cials view as open­ings for Russ­ian exploita­tion. CNN and the Atlantic Coun­cil doc­u­ment­ed how Orbán’s obstruc­tion tac­tics frus­trate West­ern uni­ty, with Euro­pean offi­cials believ­ing he lever­ages Putin rela­tion­ships to hold NATO hostage.

Trump’s MAGA move­ment ampli­fies these dynam­ics. His Feb­ru­ary 2024 ral­ly state­ment that he would “encour­age” Rus­sia to attack allies fail­ing to meet spend­ing tar­gets shocked the alliance. NPR report­ed this rep­re­sents a fun­da­men­tal break from bipar­ti­san U.S. for­eign pol­i­cy. Beyond rhetoric, Trump’s Amer­i­ca First doc­trine pri­or­i­tizes skep­ti­cism toward mul­ti­lat­er­al insti­tu­tions over Rea­gan-era glob­al lead­er­ship com­mit­ments. The Her­itage Foun­da­tion has pub­lished pro­pos­als for “nation­al­ist inter­na­tion­al­ism” that would reori­ent alliances around nation­al con­ser­v­a­tive prin­ci­ples rather than lib­er­al demo­c­ra­t­ic values.

Rus­sia strate­gi­cal­ly exploits GNCA net­works to under­mine NATO. Roman­ian intel­li­gence uncov­ered mas­sive Tik­Tok-based oper­a­tions ele­vat­ing far-right, anti-NATO can­di­dates through coor­di­nat­ed manip­u­la­tion. Though Roman­ian vot­ers reject­ed this agen­da, the inci­dent revealed how Rus­sia weaponizes GNCA skep­ti­cism of inter­na­tion­al coop­er­a­tion to ampli­fy con­spir­a­cy the­o­ries and erode insti­tu­tion­al confidence.

Aca­d­e­m­ic analy­sis notes Trump’s sec­ond term, with uni­fied Repub­li­can con­trol, removes mod­er­at­ing forces from his first admin­is­tra­tion. This accel­er­ates Euro­pean strate­gic auton­o­my dis­cus­sions while com­pli­cat­ing NATO’s abil­i­ty to respond swift­ly to threats, as CEPA warned. The GNCA’s empha­sis on bilat­er­al rela­tion­ships over col­lec­tive action fun­da­men­tal­ly chal­lenges Arti­cle 5 mutu­al defense when coor­di­nat­ed respons­es to Russ­ian and Chi­nese assertive­ness are most needed.

Exter­nal References:
— Trump told S.C. ral­ly that he sup­ports Russ­ian aggres­sion against NATO allies — NPR
— Orbán’s ‘Diplo­ma­cy’ Reveals a Vul­ner­a­ble West — CEPA
— Beyond sta­ble alliances: uncer­tain­ty at the dawn of Trump’s sec­ond act — Zeitschrift für Politikwissenschaft

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