Frank-Walter Steinmeier :
(From previous issue)
Our historical experience has destroyed any belief in national exceptionalism-for any nation. Whenever possible, we choose Recht (law) over Macht (power). As a result, Germany emphasizes the need for legitimacy in supranational decision-making and invests in UN-led multilateralism.
Every German military deployment faces intense public scrutiny and must receive approval from the Bundestag. Germans always seek to balance the responsibility to protect the weak with the responsibility of restraint. If Germany’s partners and allies walk an extra mile for diplomacy and negotiations, Germans want their government to walk one mile further, sometimes to our partners’ chagrin. That does not mean Germany is overcompensating for its belligerent past. Rather, as a reflective power, Germany struggles to reconcile the lessons of history with the challenges of today. Germany will continue to frame its international posture primarily in civilian and diplomatic terms and will resort to military engagement only after weighing every risk and every possible alternative.
Germany’s relative economic strength and its cautious approach to the use of force have persisted as the regional and global environment has undergone radical change. Germany’s partnership with the United States and its integration into the EU have been the main pillars of its foreign policy. But as the United States and the EU have stumbled, Germany has held its ground and emerged as a major power, largely by default.
Germans do not believe that talking at roundtables solves every problem, but neither do they think that shooting does.
In this role, Germany has come to realize that it cannot escape its responsibilities. Since Germany sits at the center of Europe, neither isolation nor confrontation is a prudent policy option. Instead, Germany tries to use dialogue and cooperation to promote peace and end conflict.
Consider Germany’s new role in the Middle East. For decades, the Arab-Israeli conflict dominated the region’s political landscape. In the decades after World War II, Germany deliberately avoided a role at the forefront of diplomatic efforts to resolve the standoff. But today, as conflicts have spread, Germany is engaging more broadly across the region. Since 2003, when multilateral efforts to dissuade Iran from building a nuclear bomb began, Germany has played a central role, and it was one of the signatories to the agreement reached in 2015. Germany is also deeply involved in finding a diplomatic solution to the conflict in Syria.
Nor is Germany shying away from the responsibility to help construct a new security architecture in the region-a process for which the Iran deal may have paved the way. Europe’s history offers some useful lessons here. The 1975 Helsinki conference helped overcome the continent’s Cold War-era divisions through the creation of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. If regional players choose to look at that example, they will find useful lessons that might assist them in addressing their current conflicts.
Sometimes Germans need others to remind us of the usefulness of our own history. Last year, for example, I had an inspiring conversation with a small group of intellectuals in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. One of them remarked, “We need a Westphalian peace for our region.” The deal that diplomats in Münster and Osnabrück hammered out in 1648 to separate religion from military power inspires thinkers in the Middle East to this day; for a native Westphalian like me, there could be no better reminder of the instructive power of the past.
Closer to home, the Ukraine crisis has tested Germany’s leadership and diplomatic skills. Since the collapse of Viktor Yanukovych’s regime and the Russian annexation of Crimea in early 2014, Germany and France have led international efforts to contain and ultimately solve the military and political crisis. As the U.S. government has focused on other challenges, Germany and France have assumed the role of Russia’s main interlocutors on questions concerning European security and the survival of the Ukrainian state.
Russian President Vladimir Putin meets with German Chancellor Angela Merkel at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia, May 2015.
Germany did not elbow its way into that position, nor did anyone else appoint it to that role. Its long-standing economic and political ties to both Russia and Ukraine made it a natural go-between for both sides, despite Berlin’s obvious support for the victims of Moscow’s aggression.
The intense political debate that played out within Germany over how to respond to the challenge only enhanced Berlin’s credibility, by showing the world that the government did not take its decisions lightly.
The Minsk agreement that Germany and France brokered in February 2015 to halt hostilities is far from perfect, but one thing is certain: without it, the conflict would have long ago spun out of control and extended beyond the Donbas region of Ukraine. Going forward, Germany will continue to do what it can to prevent the tensions from escalating into a new Cold War.
During the euro crisis, meanwhile, Germany was forced to confront the danger posed by the excessive debt levels of some Mediterranean EU states.
The overwhelming majority of the eurozone’s members and the International Monetary Fund supported plans to demand that countries such as Greece impose budgetary controls and hard but unavoidable economic and social reforms to ensure the eventual convergence of the economies of the eurozone. But rather than placing the responsibility for such changes in the hands of these countries’ national elites, many in Europe preferred to blame Germany for allegedly driving parts of southern European into poverty, submission, and collapse.
Perhaps no other European nation’s fate is so closely connected to the existence and success of the EU.
Germany has come under similar criticism during the ongoing refugee crisis. Last autumn, Germany opened the country’s borders to refugees, mainly from Iraq and Syria. The governments of the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Slovakia worried that this move would worsen the crisis by encouraging more refugees to enter their countries in the hope of eventually crossing into Germany. So far, however, such fears have proved unfounded.
How and when Europe will resolve this crisis remains unclear. What is clear, however, is that even a relatively strong country such as Germany cannot do it alone. We cannot give in to the rising desire of certain groups of the electorate to respond on a solely national level, by setting arbitrary limits on the acceptance of refugees, for example. Germany cannot and will not base its foreign policy on solutions that promise quick fixes but in reality are counterproductive, be they walls or wars.
(Frank-Walter Steinmeier is Foreign Minister of Germany)
