Germany’s Strategic Interest

Is Germany a normal country? For years, historians have debated whether Germany’s development has followed a political, economic, and social ‘Sonderweg’.[1] It has been argued that this special development path has led to two World Wars and one of the most brutal dictatorships in the history of mankind. Yet, with the creation of the Federal Republic in West Germany after 1949 and with the democratic revolution in East Germany after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Germany seems to have become a ‘normal’ western democracy, which is fully integrated into the European Union and NATO. As any other nation state, it uses these alliances to further its national interests. Yet, this view, which is now widely shared among policy makers and historians, is too simplistic and could lead to very serious policy mistakes.

In my last column for Social Europe, I argued that Chancellor Merkel is moving away from the traditional policy consensus of Einbindung, which has prevailed for over 60 years. Einbindung meant that Germany was closely tied to its neighbours through the institutions of the European Union and NATO. This institutional arrangement was understood to be in the German national interest because it guaranteed enduring peace in Europe. This argument is still valid, although it needs to be articulated in new ways.

Germany is the largest country in Europe and has more common borders with neighbours than any other European nation. Big countries are often tempted to act on their own without consideration for the external spillover effects their actions may have on others. Such acts create resentment and tensions. Given its geostrategic position, the potential for conflict is significantly higher for Germany than for any other European country. After WWII, European and American policy makers recognized that European security could only be guaranteed if nation states and their governments were bound together by common rules and laws and constrained in their national autonomy. Germany accepted to remain under the tutelage of its western allies and renounced the pre-War Schaukelpolitik (seesaw policy) of varying alliances and the balance of power games. It has delegated certain rights of sovereignty to international organizations and mutual ties have progressively deepened in the European Union. This policy of Einbindung has created a new historical situation. Without it, the political stability in Western Europe after the War and the democratic revolutions in the East after 1989 would not have been possible. Hence, by moving away from Einbindung Mrs Merkel risks destroying the very foundation on which modern Germany has been built.

Since German re-unification, the geostrategic environment has changed. Yet, the Einbindung of Germany into a larger Union is more important than ever. There are at least three structural reasons for strong institutional ties among Germany and its neighbours.

The first consists in size. Germany’s population is nearly 82 million, versus 65 million for France, 62 for the UK and 60 for Italy. While 82 million may appear large in absolute terms, this figure reflects only 16.2% out of half a billion in the EU of 27 member states and Germany counts only for less than 1 percent of the world’s population. Thus, Germany is big enough to fall for the illusion of acting on its own and ignoring its neighbours, but it is not strong enough to prevail in the world on its own. Nevertheless, Germany remains the central pivot in European policy making, partly because its size is coupled with economic strength. Germany is the économie dominante in Europe. Its GDP represents 20% of the EU, but France, Italy and the UK have a GDP of less than 15%. In addition it is Europe’s manufacturing centre, while other more peripheral economies are becoming subcontractors. Thus, Germany is and will always remain a major player in Europe. The question is simply, whether it will use this power to bully its neighbours or to further the collective welfare of Europe.

The second structural fact is Germany’s strategic dependence on its economic partners in the European Union. Germans are proud to excel in exports, which prove the power of their technological knowhow and engineering skills. ‘Vorsprung durch Technik’[2], as the famous Audi slogan says, has always been the basis of German industry. Yet, Germany’s comparative advantage depends largely on economies of scale obtained in Europe’s domestic market, which then generate advantages for exports into world markets. In fact, more than half of all German exports are sold within the European Union. Without this large European single market, Germany’s competitive advantage would melt like snow in the sun. And without the single currency, Europe’s single market could not last. Hence, Germany’s economy, its power and welfare, and its cherished social model, are only sustainable because Germany is embedded in the deep structures of the European Union.

The third factor is related to a particularity of the German culture in policy debates. British pragmatism or French grandeur always has a bottom line: ‘What’s in it for me or for us?’ In Germany, the argument is more often about ‘what is right?’ rather than ‘what is good for us?’ This leads to the principled rigidity, which prevents German policy debates from remaining open to the good arguments sometimes made by others. Such an attitude easily generates conformism of opinions around ‘us’ as opposed to ‘them’. You only need to look at how the Bildzeitung (read by 12 million Germans) is reporting about Greece to understand what I mean. Cass Sunstein has written numerous books[3] about the dangers for democracy that result from ‘informational echo chambers’ where we only listen to what re-enforces our own point of view. The problem is by no means unique to Germany, as we see in many other member states, but the culture of self-righteousness makes Germany particularly vulnerable to imposing policy solutions on others, which they may neither share nor desire. The clumsy foreign policy by Merkel increases the risk of anti-German resentment.

These three factors put Germany in a position where it may easily be perceived as aggressive or where it will be rejected and aggressed by others. This is why it is so important to tie German policy makers into a tight net of mutual interdependencies, which forces them to remain open to the suggestions, arguments and interests of its neighbours. This is what Chancellors Adenauer, Brandt, Schmidt and Kohl understood. They knew that it was in the German interest to step back behind other nation states, especially France. But Germany has carried wounds from its division into East and West that are only healing slowly. Not surprisingly, it wishes to affirm its newly won international recognition and sovereignty. However, in the post-1989 geostrategic environment, domination by one European state over another, whether economically or politically, is no longer acceptable. The only way to ensure that such effects do not damage the interests of European citizens in Germany and in neighbouring member states is deeper integration.

It is time to recognize that in modern democracies it is not states that are sovereign, but citizens. A modern concept of Einbindung must go beyond intergovernmental cooperation between autonomous states. To control the external effects of national governments and their policies, European citizens must have the power to democratically decide how they wish to administrate their common interests and the public goods which they share in the European Union. Einbindung means today, to put EU member states under the control of all European citizens and to create institutions and political practices that prevent national governments from creating ever more damage by seeking to serve their partial interests. Europe needs its own government. Everyone should understand this, even Mrs. Merkel.

Endnotes

[1] Sonderweg (literally: ‘special path’) is a controversial theory in German historiography that considers the German-speaking lands, or the country Germany, to have followed a unique course from aristocracy into democracy, distinct from other European countries. It is also used to explain German foreign policy and ideology before and during World War I, which was characterized by trying to find a ‘Third Way’ to be implemented for the world, other than western ‘vulgar’ democracy or eastern Czaristic autocracy. See: http://dictionary.sensagent.com/sonderweg/en-en/

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