THE IMPLEMENTATION OF GERMAN DEFENSE POLICY AGAINST ISIL IN IRAQ AND SYRIA: A SHIFT FROM RELUCTANT TO ACTIVE PARTICIPATION IN FOREIGN MISSION (2014-2016)

Abstract

Since its declaration on creating a "caliphate" or Islamic State in 2014, ISIL has been claiming its territory all over Iraq and Syria. ISIL threatens to eradicate world's ethnic and religion that opposing the group. Expanding their territory, recruiting new soldiers and spreading terror through social media was not difficult by ISIL when the group took advantage over The Syrian ongoing civil war and Iraq's crisis. The regional and global strategy of ISIL continues to shocked the international community. Military effort against ISIL has been attempted by several states, including Germany. As a commitment on maintaining international peace, in 2014, Germany announced its military aid for the Iraqi Kurdish fighters, the Peshmerga, fighting ISIL. A year later, on a mutual collective security obligation, and as an attempt to participate more active in international conflict, Germany joined the U.S. lead coalition in the fight against ISIL. The main focus of this thesis is presenting German's military culture shifting from reluctant to active and an analysis on how implement its defense policy against ISIL. This research was done between the period of November 2016 - January 2017, using qualitative method to construct narrative and analysis from news, governmental publication, journal and books. Most of the research was done by a touch of the modern technology at home.