The German Bundestag is considered as being among the national parliaments with the most extensive “war powers” worldwide. However, its influence on decisions about the foreign deployment of the German armed forces, the Bundeswehr, is not only limited by the competencies of the German federal government. Rather, three additional factors pose restrictions on the use of both formal and informal instruments at the disposal of the Bundestag to influence governmental decision making. Those are: (a) hesitancy on the part of parliamentarians from the governing coalition to voice their concerns over foreign deployments; (b) a lack of substantive agreement among the parliamentary groups from the opposition which renders it impossible for them to put substantial pressure on the government; and (c) disunity among the foreign and security policy specialists across all parliamentary groups which also prevents the Bundestag from taking an unequivocal stand on deployment decisions. The occurrence of those restrictions is illustrated by the decision on the participation of the Bundeswehr in the UNIFIL mission. [ZParl, vol. 45, no. 3, pp. 596 – 614]
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