Germany’s New Muscle

Internationale Politik (International Politics),
Vol. 58, No. 9, September 2003, Berlin

Much like the fall of the Berlin Wall, the September 11 terrorist attacks marked a turning point in global politics — and one that looked quite different to Germans and Americans. In the United States, the Soviet collapse prompted former U.S. President George H. W. Bush to envision a "new world order" for the 1990s and beyond. But in Germany, the demands of reunification and the ever present political and emotional legacy of the Nazi regime left leaders reluctant to seize upon momentous changes to articulate a new, proactive foreign policy grounded in national rather than European interests.

This paralysis is over, argues political scientist Wilfried von Bredow in the German monthly Internationale Politik, the flagship publication of the German Council on Foreign Relations, a leading Berlin think tank. Germany’s global role and self-perception have changed dramatically in recent years. Two events — one prior to September 11 and one after — influenced and highlighted this evolution in different ways: The NATO intervention in Kosovo in 1999 and the U.S. war in Iraq in 2003. The pacifist dogma of the reunited Germany, whereby the government refused to commit troops to foreign policy tasks, has evolved into a more assertive stance. Germany now confidently formulates and pursues its national interests, even if doing so means opposing Washington. "[I]t may well be that Germany today asserts its interests more boldly and clearly than in the past," acknowledges German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder in an interview in the same issue of Internationale Politik, "but I do not see anything negative about this."

During the Kosovo conflict, the German government spoke out in favor of military action against then Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic and provided equipment and personnel to the NATO operation. In the face of the human suffering in Kosovo and with vivid memories of the Bosnian tragedy, the German public also began to accept military force as a tool for managing crises and preventing conflicts. And in an important symbolic event, Germany hosted the European Council in Cologne in June 1999, when the European Union (EU) established the institutional structures for a common European security and defense policy.

The international policy debate preceding the 2003 war in Iraq further revealed the shift toward a more self-assured German foreign policy, with Schroeder opposing U.S. military action. Von Bredow highlights how, in the midst of a reelection campaign, the German government not only boldly publicized its antiwar stance but also chose to "actively obstruct any possible legitimizing of the Anglo-American strategy in the U.N. Security Council." Ironically, Schroeder’s decision to oppose the Iraq war was no less unilateral than the United States’ decision to wage it. Nevertheless, Germany’s foreign policy priorities — preventing or resolving conflicts peacefully, promoting the nonproliferation of weapons of mass destruction, strengthening multilateral regimes, and fighting global terrorism — became evident to all.

Now that it has asserted its strategic national interests more forcefully on the global stage, Germany must move beyond rhetoric and pool resources with its European allies to build a genuine European defense force — though one that does not undermine or duplicate NATO’s role. Thus far, Germany has played an ambiguous role, advocating European military capabilities as a complement to NATO’s security umbrella, but also supporting efforts to create an independent EU military planning capability, which clearly would duplicate NATO’s current role.

Such moves suggest that Germany will remain committed to multilateralism, but a very selective form of multilateralism that focuses on the EU and on other organizations beyond the reach of U.S. dominance, or at least settings in which the United States can be counterbalanced. While politically attractive in an age of anti-Americanism, this approach may backfire on Berlin in the long run. Current and future German governments (and their European partners) need the United States to secure geopolitical stability, not just because of unrivalled U.S. power, but because the United States and Europe share fundamental common values. The September 2003 meeting in New York between Schroeder and U.S. President George W. Bush marked a positive first step. A serious and permanent rift would dramatically diminish the ability of either side to defend these shared values and project them around the world as a credible and desirable alternative to conflict and chaos.