John Vinocur published a must-read article this week in the IHT and New York Times. Excerpts:
"There's a maxim in German politics, sometimes attributed to
Bismarck, that if a subject gets too miserably uncomfortable to discuss
with an unmistakable German voice, bid it up, and carry on in the name
of Europe.
So there are times when Germans call their own issues European ones
in an attempt to legitimize them, or try to blur their motives or goals
by insisting German concerns foreshadow or encapsulate Europe's less
well-articulated views — while stating them better, quicker and more
forcefully.
This is the case now as some of Germany's deepest and
hardest-to-admit worries — how to preserve its special, advantageous
relationship with Russia without betraying its status as a Western
player and ally of the United States — rise to the surface of its
national debate.
The context is Poland and the Czech Republic's acceptance, over
Russian threats and objections, to participate in an American
antimissile shield that could block Iranian nukes.
The particular German conundrum lies here.
Angela Merkel wants to avoid Germany becoming the fulcrum for a
maneuver by Vladimir Putin that seeks to cast the United States,
regardless of the defensive nature of the U.S. system, as the cause of
a new arms race in Europe.
But for some in Germany, those fears mean a chance for domestic
political profile and profit, a wide horizon depending on their
exploitation and Europeanization. Inside Germany, that diffuse
fearfulness is there for the taking: polls not only show that around 70
percent accept Putin's characterization of America-the-aggressor but 77
percent opposed the Bundestag's decision over the weekend to send
Tornado reconnaissance aircraft to support NATO troops in Afghanistan.
So it's open season for opportunism, encouraged by the ambiguity,
accommodating Russia's line, expressed on the missile shield by
Merkel's foreign minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier.
The German landscape, right to left, is crowded these days with pols
who cannot swallow the idea of "new Europeans" like Czechs or Poles,
European Union members since 2004, assessing their security
requirements in ways that do not please the Russians. These are the
same pols who don't like other EU members asking why Germany has
abandoned pressing Russia for an energy charter that would outlaw
blackmail on oil and gas supplies as a condition for renewing the EU's
"strategic partnership" with Moscow."
Read the whole thing.
In thinking about this situation, it is actually useful to quote Richard Nixon. In his book "Seize the Moment," published in 1992, he writes on pages 119-120:
"While Germany's power will inevitably grow, the key question is how it will be used. Germany is not a potential rogue state or threat to its neighbors. The changes wrought by forty years of democracy and close association with Western institutions have transformed its society. But Germany must undergo a profound adjustment. During the cold war, free Germany lacked the power and confidence to chart an independent foreign policy and felt compelled to maintain a tight alliance with the West. With the waning of the cold war, that has changed. While still limited by the legacies of World War II, Germany is now tentatively staking out its new European and global roles. Our challenge lies in helping the Germans define constructive ways to use their new power.
Their are two key concerns. The first centers on the re-emergence of Germany's geopolitical tradition of keeping one foot in the East and one in the West. The cooperation between Imperial Germany and Tzarist Russia, the covert rearming of Germany after World War I, Germany's role in the industrialization of Soviet Russia under the Rapallo Treaty, and the division of Eastern Europe between Hitler and Stalin marked the darkest chapters of that tradition."
Mr. Vinocur's article reminds us that the German tradition of keeping one foot in the East and one in the West is alive and well. So does this. (Posted by Ray D.)
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