In Eastern Europe the image of the ugly German is back – Olaf Scholz is to blame for that. The German chancellor and his party are stumbling through the Ukraine war without a plan and without a goal

14 comments

  1. Without long-term strategies, politicians become prisoners of events. One of these prisoners is called Olaf Scholz. The event that is driving him forward is the Ukraine war. That the German chancellor doesn’t want to travel to Kiev – forget it. That the Federal Republic of Germany initially only wanted to supply Ukraine with 5,000 pointed hats – forget it. What really matters is something else: the German government doesn’t know how to use the conflict for its own political interests. That’s why Germany will lose out to countries that have a strategy.

    Joe Biden may be senile, but he clearly has an idea of what he wants to achieve with the war. America hopes that by supplying massive quantities of weapons to Ukraine it will weaken Russia to such an extent that it falls decisively behind in the geopolitical competition.

    Moscow is no longer supposed to pose a threat, so Washington reworks Putin’s invasion of Ukraine into a proxy war. The Ukrainians fight, the Americans are not a direct party to the war and thus limit the risk of escalation. But they still reap the benefits.

    This constellation is a classic pattern in Russian-American relations. The Soviet Union equipped North Vietnam with weapons and thus made a significant contribution to the American defeat in Vietnam. The US returned the favor by helping the Afghan mujahedin fight the Soviet Union.

    It is in the logic of this confrontation that one hopes to draw the adversary into as protracted and costly a war of attrition as possible. The adversary is expected to wear out. A quick ceasefire and the reduction of suffering are secondary in this geopolitical calculation.

    Emmanuel Macron at least knows what he doesn’t want. In the old French tradition, he wants to preserve the character of the EU as an essentially Western European union in order to cement French supremacy in Europe. He is sceptical about the membership applications of the Balkan countries and Ukraine because this would shift the EU’s centre of gravity eastwards.

    Macron fears the weakening of France and is actively working against it. To this end he floated the idea of a Brussels limbo in which the accession candidates can stew until doomsday. He calls this a “European political community” to complement the European Union. That sounds sympathetic and sufficiently vague, but the real goal is obvious.

    But what does Germany want? Olaf Scholz is getting bogged down in trivialities, in a feud with the Ukrainian ambassador in Berlin, for example, or in a debate about where the ammunition for the Gepard tank intended as arms aid to Kiev should come from.

    All of this seems infinitely petty. Like Biden, Scholz doesn’t see the strategic gain that the war promises. But neither does he, like Macron, take a spirited approach to the risks that exist from a national perspective. Instead the traffic light coalition is driven by the superficialities of the day, by open letters from German intellectuals, for example, which won’t change the course and outcome of the war one iota.

    For all its gloom, there is a deeper reason for this attitude. The chancellor and his party do not wish Putin victory, of course. They have also realised that Germany cannot permanently resist the EU Commission’s insistence that it boycott oil and gas from Russia. But secretly the Social Democrats are mourning the comfortable times when Moscow reliably supplied energy and every government could gain a domestic political advantage by saving on the Bundeswehr.

    A bit of free pacifism always goes as long as the US and Nato guarantee security. With this attitude, politicians of all parties were implementing the wishes of the popular majority. Many people in Germany – and also in Switzerland – have hung a sign outside their door saying “Do not disturb”. They want to be left alone from the impositions of world politics. Putin, the troublemaker, reminds us that this was an illusion.

    It takes a long time to overcome bad habits. The package of 100 billion euros for the “change of times” was supposed to be used to remedy the worst abuses in the German armed forces so that everything could stay the way it was. Just don’t commit: talk to Putin, talk to Selenski too, don’t deliver any weapons – and above all don’t do anything that could endanger the idea of the moral superiority of German foreign policy. But Scholz overlooked how fundamental the change triggered by the war is.

    Within the West, roles are being redistributed. The United States, which had recently come across as egotistical, isolationist, and paralyzed by domestic political polarization, has reestablished its claim to leadership. Whether this is more than a snapshot remains to be seen, but the moment counts too.

    Britain had catapulted itself out of the EU with Brexit. By taking the Ukrainian side even before the war began and supporting it with weapons and military advisors, it is now underlining how indispensable it is for European security.

    Boris Johnson may be a hooligan, but once again he proved his political instincts. EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen also saw her chance. She frees herself somewhat from the paternalism of Paris and Berlin by being omnipresent. She travelled to Kiev, she is pushing for the energy boycott.

    Germany, on the other hand, seems despondent and at a loss. Unlike von der Leyen, Scholz can’t even utter the simple sentence that Ukraine should win the war. By saying that Russia must not win he leaves room for speculation. Does the German government want Ukraine to be divided?

    In the euro crisis Berlin was still calling the shots and ultimately decided Greece’s fate. Now thanks to its size and economic power the Federal Republic can put the brakes on developments in the EU, but it doesn’t shape them.

    On the contrary: Germany has suffered a considerable loss of confidence in Eastern Europe as a result of its clumsy Ukraine policy. The image of the ugly German is back. The anti-German resentment is understandable and yet irrational, because the Eastern Europeans need Germany’s support in the EU. So both sides lose.

    Yet the current shift in weight in the EU towards the East gives Berlin plenty of options. Germany was always safe when stable conditions prevailed in Eastern Europe. That’s why Chancellor Kohl still advocated a rapid eastward expansion of the EU and NATO. Since then the “wild east” no longer begins at the Oder but at the Bug.

    Such strategic foresight is passé. Everyone knows that Ukraine must first fulfil numerous criteria before it can be admitted. But a clear prospect of accession would help extend the zone of stability eastwards. As long as Moscow is absorbed by the war, this would be the best opportunity to create facts.

    Scholz, on the other hand, preferred to go along with Macron’s initiative. The idea of creating a new organisation for the inferior brothers to the east and south already suffered a shipwreck once with the “privileged partnership” for Turkey. Only a French president is capable of draping a failed proposal so deftly that it is not laughed at. For Macron the charade has served its purpose for the time being.

    For Berlin, on the other hand, the stakes in the East have been raised yet again compared to the 1990s. German industry has chosen Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia as its extended workbench. The longer the war lasts, the more bitter the fighting, the greater the risk that the eastern members of the EU will be destabilised. It would therefore be in Germany’s interest to protect its own investments in the East. For this, however, a strategy is needed.

  3. The idea that any german politician could have a “plan” or a “goal” concerning the war is utterly ludicrous to me as a german citizen. No politician, no office, no institution or body in Germany has any constitutional authority concerning any war that goes beyond utter self-defense forced on us by an outside attacker. The mere term “war” is absent from the Basic Law and it, or rather the Clausewitzean maxime of war being a continuation of politics by other means, is under no circumstances something a german politician can dabble in without having to worry about being dragged in front of the Court of Constitution while being pelted with scorn and abuse from the entirety of the media landscape and society.

    What “plan” should exist for a country and society that shuns the very concept beyond not getting involved if we can help it?

  8. >Like Biden, Scholz doesn’t see the strategic gain that the war promises.

    i mean, i am pretty sure both of these people see the possible gains, but Germany wants the status quo before the war. That is the point. If there is a way to go back to that, i am sure germany will take it. And I don’t blame them at all. But significant hard power is being exerted by the US, UK, France, Northern Europe and Eastern Europe to the extent that Germany can’t stop it.

    The US wants things to change, greater EU contribution to defense, weaker Russia, weaker China, redefine its leadership role, consolidate influence over Europe, and if possible, get the UK to contribute a fleet to the pacific.

    France wants things to change too, EU unity around France, take political and military dominance within the EU, weaker US influence, weaker UK influence, and if possible, weaker Russia and weaker China too.

    And then there is Germany, a country where everything was going pretty well for it before the war. Expanding market in China, de facto leader of the EU, Cheap source of natural resources from Russia, Cheap(relatively) source of labor from central and southern europe, being courted diplomatically by Russia, China and the US, . It is in a pretty good spot. What is not to like when you are Germany? Now they risk losing all these things.

  10. Yup Germans lost all good will they had in Poland in a few months. And contrary to the stereotypes it was considerable (even if currently mostly among the opposition voters).

    Such idiotic policy by Germans.

  11. I’m pretty sure in their heads are like “thet those slavs kill each other so we can take our Lebensraum”

  12. Germany should just cut off any money that goes to Eastern Europe. If these ungrateful people hate us so much, why should there be any support? You can only insult someone for so long until it is enough and I really hope that this threshold is reached soon. Eastern Eueopes entitlement is unbearable.

  13. I dont rly know how Germany is supposed to do everything ? They cant ban Russian Oil right away. Do you know how much Logistics that involves. First, all farming Machinery, transportin machinery and everything works with oil. On top of a weak Wheat supplies, how is all this supposed to just STOP. Plus, they have to find another Major Oil producer, find different ports etc etc. its not that easy

Leave a Reply