Chancellor Scholz Takes the Plunge
Germany Completes Historic Foreign Policy
About-Face
In just 30 minutes on Sunday, German Chancellor Olaf
Scholz discarded decades of foreign policy tradition. His speech to German
parliament marks an epochal shift.
By
Christian Teevs und Charles Hawley
28.02.2022, 13.40 Uhr
"A
watershed” for Europe and the world. During his speech to Sunday’s special session
of parliament, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz described the implications of
Putin’s war of aggression as such five different times. It was the primary
theme of his address, which can safely and without exaggeration be called
historic. Scholz, the Social Democrat who has been in office for less than
three months, essentially discarded decades of German post-Cold War foreign and
security policy in just half an hour.
During his
speech, he accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of starting a "war of
aggression in cold blood,” saying it was "inhumane” and "a violation
of international law.” There is, he continued, "nothing and nobody that
can justify it.”
"The
terrible images from Kyiv, Kharkiv, Odessa and Mariupol show Putin’s utter lack
of scruples.” The world, he said, is now a different one.
He then
went on to announce a list of measures that even just a few days earlier would
have been unimaginable. For decades, Germany has been extraordinarily wary of
military power due to the destruction it wrought on the continent and beyond in
World War II. Its entire foreign policy has long rested on the supposed healing
powers of dialogue – in many cases, to a fault. And while Berlin had joined
international military operations in Kosovo, Afghanistan and elsewhere in
recent decades, its lack of a clearly formulated doctrine when faced with
impending or actual military violence was neatly summed up in its late-January
decision to send 5,000 helmets – and nothing else – to a Ukraine surrounded by
Russian forces
But on
Saturday, Berlin changed its tune. The government announced over the weekend
that it would be delivering 1,000 rocket-propelled grenades and 500 Stinger
surface-to-air missiles to Ukraine. And it announced that it would no longer stand
in the way of efforts to boot Russia out of the SWIFT international payment
system. Natural gas deliveries from Russia have yet to be suspended, but it was
a major shift.
Anything
But Empty Rhetoric
That,
though, was only the start. In his speech on Sunday, Scholz presented measures
that promise to completely transform Germany from a languorous economic giant
in the heart of Europe into a country eager to live up to its responsibility to
protect itself and its allies from external threats.
First and
foremost, Scholz is immediately injecting 100 billion euros into the country’s
armed forces, which have decayed in recent years to the point that Germany’s
top military leader complained on social media in the wake of Russia’s invasion
of Ukraine that Germany was not currently able to defend itself.
The
chancellor then announced that the country’s defense budget, long a sore spot
within NATO due to Berlin’s unwillingness to meet its obligations on defense
spending, would be boosted to over 2 percent of Germany’s gross national
product.
Scholz also
prioritized the development of the next generation of fighter jets and tanks
together with France and announced that Germany would push ahead with efforts
to acquire armed Heron drones from Israel.
In short,
Scholz’s invocation of a "watershed moment” was anything but empty
rhetoric – a shift that is especially notable for coming from a Social
Democrat. It was the SPD Chancellor Willy Brandt, after all, who opted for a
policy of détente with the Soviet Union in the heart of the Cold War, a foreign
policy success that had been part of the party’s DNA ever since. Furthermore,
Germany’s foreign policy is still deeply informed, even today, by the Nazi war
of annihilation launched against its neighbors and, more the point, Russia. The
thought of German weapons being used once again to kill Russian soldiers has
long been an anathema for the country’s political parties, both left and right.
Cleaning
House on Foreign Policy
It was, to
be sure, an SPD chancellor who chose to join NATO’s air campaign in Kosovo in
1999, a controversial decision that led to a firestorm of criticism for
then-Chancellor Gerhard Schröder. That outlier notwithstanding, the SPD has
long embodied the German left’s wariness of NATO and rejected the 2-percent
defense spending goal that all NATO member states agreed to in 2006. In 2017,
the country’s candidate for the Chancellery, Martin Schulz, warned that Germany
cannot become a "military bull” in the heart of Europe. And the current coalition
agreement between the SPD, the Greens and the business-friendly Free Democrats
also avoids a commitment to the 2-percent spending target.
Now, with a
single speech, Scholz has thrown that position and much of his party’s foreign
policy tradition overboard. And in doing so, he has grabbed the reins of
leadership in a way that a number of observers in recent weeks had feared he
never would. Many had considered him to be too hesitant and too indulgent of
Putin. Moreover, his party was viewed with a great deal of skepticism when it
came to Russia -- particularly with Gerhard Schröder, the last SPD chancellor,
having completely sold himself to the Kremlin.
But Scholz,
whose rhetorical style can be rather nebulous at times, showed no shortage of
determination on Sunday. Putin, he said, "is isolating himself from the
entire international community.” It was only through the use of its UN Security
Council Veto, Scholz said, that Moscow "was able to prevent itself from
being censured. What a disgrace!”
He justified
his government’s decision to deliver weapons to Ukraine by saying that Putin’s
aggression had left Berlin with no other choice. And he then threatened the
Russian president with even more economic sanctions. "This war is a
catastrophe for Ukraine. However, it will prove to be a catastrophe for Russia
too.”
The
opposition center-right Christian Democrats (CDU) also threw their support
behind Scholz, with party leader Friedrich Merz offering him full support. He
did, however, question the immediate influx of 100 billion euros for the
military. That, Merz intoned, would mean taking on new debt and must be
carefully considered. Meaning that at least one of Germany’s sacred cows may
have survived the country’s watershed weekend.
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