>Merkel accepted that the invasion had marked a turning point and had “no justification whatsoever”; she said that her “heart always beats for Ukraine”. But she also insisted that she had no regrets: “I tried to work in a direction that would prevent trouble, and diplomacy is not wrong just because it did not work. I do not think that I now have to say that this was wrong and, therefore, I will also not apologise.”
>Her argument is essentially that Russia’s attack on Ukraine was in retrospect inevitable and that her actions if anything delayed it, buying Ukraine time to develop politically, institutionally and militarily by keeping Putin at the negotiating table. “That was not the Ukraine that we know today,” she said of 2008. “The country was not yet firmed up, it was riddled with corruption, it was a country run by oligarchs. So I could not say, ‘Let’s take them into Nato tomorrow.’” Putin would not have accepted that, Merkel argued, citing his invasion of Georgia a few months after the summit. Her argument on 2014 was likewise that the alternative would have been worse. “What would have happened if, in 2014, no one had cared and Putin had simply continued?” she said. Later she added: “Those seven years [from 2014 until the build-up of Russian forces in 2021] were very, very important for the development of Ukraine.”
>It is not totally unconvincing. Ukraine did come on a long way in the years between 2014 and 2021. The term most often used when, in January, I asked Ukrainians in Kyiv about this period was that the country had gained “resilience”, in every sense. That development doubtless did contribute to the country’s robust resistance this year.
>Moreover, Merkel’s comments are a reminder that, unlike many German politicians and business leaders, she was never naive about Putin. She speaks Russian, thanks to her East German education, and Putin speaks German after a spell in Dresden as a KGB officer in the 1980s; Merkel told Osang that Putin speaks her language better than she does his. When last week she claimed that she had told other world leaders in 2014 that “he wants to destroy Europe, you know”, it rang true. She also claimed to have recognised Putin’s feindschaft (a hard-to-translate German word that is sometimes conveyed as “hostility” but is stronger than that, explicitly defining its subject as an enemy). Merkel knew of what Putin was capable, in other words.
The case against Merkel:
>Yet despite and indeed because of all of that, her arguments fail on their own terms. To recap: Merkel professes solidarity with Ukraine, claims she saw the Russian invasion coming and thus acted in a way that bought Kyiv time to prepare for the onslaught. Yet it is really hard to square those claims with the reality of her own policies in those “very, very important” seven years from 2014 to 2021. Her arguments are evidence for the imperative of Germany using those seven years to arm Ukraine and limit Russia’s power and international leverage. But it did nothing of the sort.
>Not only did Merkel’s governments not arm Ukraine, but they led the international case against doing so. “Germany will not support Ukraine with weapons,” she proclaimed in a press conference with the authoritarian and Putin-friendly Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán in 2015. At the Munich Security Conference that year she argued: “I cannot imagine any situation in which improved equipment for the Ukrainian army leads to President Putin being so impressed that he believes he will lose militarily.” When General Philip Breedlove, then the top Nato commander in Europe, suggested arming Ukraine, sources in Merkel’s chancellery termed this “dangerous propaganda”.
>Nor did Merkel act to restrict Russia’s wider tools of leverage in the event of war. In fact she did the opposite. As chancellor she pushed ahead with the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline between Russia and Germany, clearly designed in the Kremlin to bypass Ukraine and increase Russian leverage over the West. Her governments’ post-2014 energy policies continued to put Russian gas at their heart, substantially adding to Putin’s ability to blackmail Germany and the wider West. None of this makes much sense when compared with the former chancellor’s claims at the Berliner Ensemble last week.
Sounds like beating a strawman.
Praised too much. Seen as a leader but had no vision and turned out to be a mediocre administrator for easier times.
If she knew Russia would attack Ukraine at some again, then she should indeed have acted differently from what she has done in the years since 2014.
And embarassing for her and us, no remorse, no self critisism, headstrong and resistent to learning.
Many of us are like that. They fear to lose a few jewels in their crowns.
Never a more overrated modern European leader.
Of course it doesn’t. Her foreign policy towards Russia is a historic failure & her failure to take German military preparation seriously has left the EU completely reliant on US assistance to repel the EU’s single greatest geopolitical threat.
I think general German foreign policy towards Russia since 2000 (so since Putin is in power) has been shown to have been naive and overly self-interested, this having happened under both chancellor Schröder (who is now a gas lobbyist) and then the various Merkel governments.
But as much as this should be condemned, its also naive to assume this played some role in Putin deciding to invade Ukraine, the same goes for the UK letting London become the playground of Russian oligarchs.
8 comments
The meat of the article:
Merkel’s case:
>Merkel accepted that the invasion had marked a turning point and had “no justification whatsoever”; she said that her “heart always beats for Ukraine”. But she also insisted that she had no regrets: “I tried to work in a direction that would prevent trouble, and diplomacy is not wrong just because it did not work. I do not think that I now have to say that this was wrong and, therefore, I will also not apologise.”
>Her argument is essentially that Russia’s attack on Ukraine was in retrospect inevitable and that her actions if anything delayed it, buying Ukraine time to develop politically, institutionally and militarily by keeping Putin at the negotiating table. “That was not the Ukraine that we know today,” she said of 2008. “The country was not yet firmed up, it was riddled with corruption, it was a country run by oligarchs. So I could not say, ‘Let’s take them into Nato tomorrow.’” Putin would not have accepted that, Merkel argued, citing his invasion of Georgia a few months after the summit. Her argument on 2014 was likewise that the alternative would have been worse. “What would have happened if, in 2014, no one had cared and Putin had simply continued?” she said. Later she added: “Those seven years [from 2014 until the build-up of Russian forces in 2021] were very, very important for the development of Ukraine.”
>It is not totally unconvincing. Ukraine did come on a long way in the years between 2014 and 2021. The term most often used when, in January, I asked Ukrainians in Kyiv about this period was that the country had gained “resilience”, in every sense. That development doubtless did contribute to the country’s robust resistance this year.
>Moreover, Merkel’s comments are a reminder that, unlike many German politicians and business leaders, she was never naive about Putin. She speaks Russian, thanks to her East German education, and Putin speaks German after a spell in Dresden as a KGB officer in the 1980s; Merkel told Osang that Putin speaks her language better than she does his. When last week she claimed that she had told other world leaders in 2014 that “he wants to destroy Europe, you know”, it rang true. She also claimed to have recognised Putin’s feindschaft (a hard-to-translate German word that is sometimes conveyed as “hostility” but is stronger than that, explicitly defining its subject as an enemy). Merkel knew of what Putin was capable, in other words.
The case against Merkel:
>Yet despite and indeed because of all of that, her arguments fail on their own terms. To recap: Merkel professes solidarity with Ukraine, claims she saw the Russian invasion coming and thus acted in a way that bought Kyiv time to prepare for the onslaught. Yet it is really hard to square those claims with the reality of her own policies in those “very, very important” seven years from 2014 to 2021. Her arguments are evidence for the imperative of Germany using those seven years to arm Ukraine and limit Russia’s power and international leverage. But it did nothing of the sort.
>Not only did Merkel’s governments not arm Ukraine, but they led the international case against doing so. “Germany will not support Ukraine with weapons,” she proclaimed in a press conference with the authoritarian and Putin-friendly Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán in 2015. At the Munich Security Conference that year she argued: “I cannot imagine any situation in which improved equipment for the Ukrainian army leads to President Putin being so impressed that he believes he will lose militarily.” When General Philip Breedlove, then the top Nato commander in Europe, suggested arming Ukraine, sources in Merkel’s chancellery termed this “dangerous propaganda”.
>Nor did Merkel act to restrict Russia’s wider tools of leverage in the event of war. In fact she did the opposite. As chancellor she pushed ahead with the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline between Russia and Germany, clearly designed in the Kremlin to bypass Ukraine and increase Russian leverage over the West. Her governments’ post-2014 energy policies continued to put Russian gas at their heart, substantially adding to Putin’s ability to blackmail Germany and the wider West. None of this makes much sense when compared with the former chancellor’s claims at the Berliner Ensemble last week.
Sounds like beating a strawman.
Praised too much. Seen as a leader but had no vision and turned out to be a mediocre administrator for easier times.
If she knew Russia would attack Ukraine at some again, then she should indeed have acted differently from what she has done in the years since 2014.
And embarassing for her and us, no remorse, no self critisism, headstrong and resistent to learning.
Many of us are like that. They fear to lose a few jewels in their crowns.
Never a more overrated modern European leader.
Of course it doesn’t. Her foreign policy towards Russia is a historic failure & her failure to take German military preparation seriously has left the EU completely reliant on US assistance to repel the EU’s single greatest geopolitical threat.
I think general German foreign policy towards Russia since 2000 (so since Putin is in power) has been shown to have been naive and overly self-interested, this having happened under both chancellor Schröder (who is now a gas lobbyist) and then the various Merkel governments.
But as much as this should be condemned, its also naive to assume this played some role in Putin deciding to invade Ukraine, the same goes for the UK letting London become the playground of Russian oligarchs.