Rarely has a German government appeared so steadfastly decided than when it announced its response to the Russian assault on Ukraine. During an emergency session of the German Bundestag on Sunday the tripartite coalition announced a number of punitive measures against Russia, recurring to an almost martial tone, atypical to German foreign policy lingo. Even the leftist opposition party known for its anti-NATO rhetoric and flair for president Putin’s narratives, presented its mea culpa and admitted that it had been taken in by a malicious deceit: who would have thought Putin could do such a thing?
“The war in Ukraine has wakened us from a long self-righteous dream,” said Germany’s liberal finance minister when he announced his government’s decision to provide 100 billion Euros of additional funding to the Bundeswehr, Germany’s notoriously depleted armed forces. The minister didn’t have to lay out what he meant by “self-righteous dram” in detail. Everyone in the historical Reichstag building, situated on the former Iron Curtain and today a symbol for end of the Cold War, knew. The treacherous idea that all problems can be solved with reason, mutually beneficial business relations and good faith. Until February 22 wars between sovereign nations in Germany’s vicinity had belonged forever to the past.
On the eve of this historical session, Chancellor Scholz had decided another dramatic turn-around in the country’s foreign and defense policy: Germany provides anti-tank weapons and portable surface-to-air missiles to Ukraine. By giving in to the requests of CDU opposition leaders and of various other European leaders, including the Ukrainian president himself, Germany changed a position that it had firmly defended hitherto: No delivery of weapons into hot conflict zones unless a NATO ally under attack invokes the mutual defense guarantee. This is even more remarkable since the new government composed of Social Democrats, Greens and Liberals had promised an even stricter policy on arms export control than its predecessor. Ukraine changed this all.
The last time Germany deviated from the aforementioned formula was when it supported Kurdish Peshmerga in fending off ISIS militants in Northern Iraq. Sarcastically said, Putin and ISIS enjoy the same degree of sympathy in Berlin. But there is some truth to this equation: When ISIS built its territorial hub for global terrorist attacks, Germany felt that its own security was threatened. And this is how it feels today.
We do not know yet how the weapons will be delivered and if they will come too late. However, this move is a gesture of solidarity to the NATO allies. Being “reliable” has for a long time been Germany’s aspiration and a value of its foreign policy itself. But it is also meant to be a gesture of defiance to the Russian leadership. The namby-pamby and mercantile Federal Republic in the heart of Europe would not be intimidated by Putin’s announcement that whoever got into Russia’s way to support the enemy would be met with unprecedented rage.
This is a critical and painful moment for the German government with its progressive and, as far as foreign policy is concerned, rather inexperienced team. When the coalition was sworn in last autumn it announced a great struggle on climate change, energy consumption, the pandemic and gender inequality. Confronting Russia in Ukraine was not on the agenda, though the conflict had been smoldering for years.
For the Greens and the Social Democrats, the historical irony lies in the fact that, when they last governed Germany together in the 1990s, war was waged in former Yugoslavia and Kosovo. In 1998 their decision to participate in a NATO-led air campaign entailed a severe controversy at their respective constituencies, in particular for the Green Party which had emerged from a fundamentally pacifist grassroot movement. Moreover, Russia has time and again characterized this war on Russian-aligned Yugoslavia as an original sin: a unilateral Western aggression and a show of contempt to Moscow’s interest and its good will. Now the Greens and the Social Democrats have to deal with the aftershocks of the Cold War again and with the Russian version of “what comes around goes around”.
Chancellor Scholz said on Sunday that Germany would not decline any invitation to diplomacy but that “talking for the sake of talking” was no longer an option. This is what many have accused Germany of before, namely that it was naïve to believe it could talk reason into Putin. After all, Germany has a long legacy of liaising with Moscow, since the times of the so-called peace chancellor Willy Brandt in the 1970s through Helmut Kohl’s negotiations with the Soviet leader Gorbachev to the personal, however controversial, friendship of between former Chancellor Gerhard Schröder with Putin. Germany’s current president Frank-Walter Steinmeier served twice as foreign minister and was the chief-architect of the so-called Minsk format to deal with the crisis in Ukraine after Russia’s annexation of Crimea.
Chancellor Scholz’s previous hesitation to threaten Russia with specific sanctions if it invaded Ukraine was certainly influenced by this tradition. Germany should play a mediating role. When other Western leaders had already concluded that Putin had made up his mind (or lost it) and was determined to invade, Scholz and his cabinet still seemed hesitant. Either because they thought Putin was bluffing and could be reasoned with or because they were afraid that such a step would further provoke the Russian leader. That Moscow had “lied to our faces”, as the German Foreign Minister Baerbock put it, adds a personal dimension to this all. Russia had made their government look foolish, adding insult to injury.
A final and decisive aspect of Germany’s complex relations with Russia is energy. Most of Germany’s gas imports come from the East. When Russian Gazprom became the shirt sponsor of one of Germany’s most popular football clubs, it was a symbol of a mutual reassurance: We do business with Russia and, as long as Russia depends on us paying for their bills, we can do away with any problem.
The Russian-German pipeline project Nordstream 2 was built in this spirit, with lots of lobbying from various political and business leaders. As a result of the current crisis, Nordstream 2 will, for the time being, not be opened by Germany, citing national interest and security over private sector contractual arrangements. Far more impactful could be the decision to exclude Russian banks from the SWIFT system. It may lead to the situation that Germany and other European countries will be cut off from Russian gas supply for at least some time.
Germany announced this Sunday that it will build two LNG terminals to be able to process deliveries from gas suppliers, such as the United States and Qatar. Some in Germany see this also as a result of aggressive US lobbying – or bullying – to buy American gas instead of Russian. Putin gave it the final push.
This crisis hits Germany when it is most vulnerable since it finds itself in the middle of an ambitious transformation project, with the government powering down nuclear and coal-fired energy production almost simultaneously and turning to green renewables. Prices for energy are rocketing and the captains of Germany’s export-oriented industry have flagged that this may threaten the country’s ability to compete.
This situation may also shift the focus to Europe’s southern neighbors, in particular those energy suppliers who position themselves as partners in energy, security and attempts of peaceful conflict resolution. In this context it was noted in Berlin that, whereas one Arab state had already started filling LNG reserve tanks on the European continent, another one abstained from voting on the US and EU sponsored UNSC resolution to condemn the Russian invasion, siding with India and China and thereby quite symbolically turning to the East.
