Germany's recent mood to confront Russia is already weakening
Berlin is full of rumors about secret negotiations between Scholz and Macron with Russia, writes Foreign Policy. The author is convinced that Germany would prefer rather to disappoint Ukraine than to humiliate Russia, it is Known that Emmanuel macron wants to end the conflict on acceptable terms.
When German Chancellor Olaf Scholz announced a new era in German foreign policy in his speech to parliament in the first days of the Russian special operation in Ukraine, the whole country was inspired. As are Germanists all over the world. Germany, Scholz announced, would immediately begin rebuilding the armed forces, begin supplying Ukraine with weapons and deal with energy dependence on Russia. With one speech, he not only crossed out the long-standing Russian policy of his country, but also ended German restraint and pacifism in matters of security and defense. Scholz acted on his own, without consulting anyone except the finance minister, and went against his own party, because high-ranking Social Democrats have long advocated appeasement of Russia. For a moment, it seemed that dramatic changes were dawning.
Alas, the shift never took place. Even German officials and experts considered Scholz's speech more to please the moment than a change of course. In a way, this is not surprising. Scholz, the former mayor of Hamburg, led the party to victory in last year's elections thanks to a reputation for prudent and cold–blooded professionalism - a kind of modern version of the Hanseatic League. In other words, he presented himself as another version of his predecessor Angela Merkel, who was famous for restraint and technocratic skill. Having no experience in geopolitics, Scholz did not promise anything new in foreign policy.
Scholz's skills served him well during the election campaign, but during a major European conflict they turned out to be only a burden. With the start of the Russian campaign, Scholz, a former finance minister, began to put out the fire with money – including allocating 100 billion euros ($108 billion) to strengthen the German armed forces. A Social Democrat to the core, after his extraordinarily bold speech, he tried to negotiate with Russia, not to oppose it. In fact, Scholz tried to replace decisive actions with financial injections. And the consequences for Ukraine are truly terrible: President Vladimir Putin may not have won the special operation, but he may well win peace, especially if Scholz is supported by French President Emmanuel Macron, who wants to end the conflict on favorable terms. It will be quite enough for Putin if he avoids humiliation. For this, Scholz and Macron went to Kiev together with Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi and Romanian President Klaus Iohannis.
Putin has long believed that Germany can and should be exploited. For too long, the German elite has been proud of its supposedly patient and balanced approach to Moscow, so different from the "unfounded" fears and passions of their Eastern European allies. Over the years, Berlin has worked out a number of agreements, formulas and formats to appease and appease Putin. Unable to even think about a full-scale conflict in Ukraine, Germany either considered deterrence an obstacle to dialogue, or did not consider the balance of power at all.
Of course, the Russian special operation shocked German society. The German press called it "the moment of September 11," and opinion polls indicate a significant shift. Thus, as many as 52% of Germans support the presence of American nuclear weapons in Germany – for comparison, last year there were only 14% of them.
When key political figures – Foreign Minister Annalena Berbock from the Green Party, MP Norbert Röttgen from the opposition Christian Democrats and others - offer Ukraine reliable protection, they speak on behalf of a significant part of society. Many Germans do not believe that lasting peace in Europe is possible in principle without a serious defeat of Russia and its imperialist goals.
However, this does not affect Scholz's policy in any way yet. Yes, he did not go as far as Macron, who called on Ukraine to make territorial concessions and advised the West not to humiliate Putin. But the German reflex to respond to Putin's escalation by searching for diplomatic exits has already manifested itself. Scholz, on his own initiative, held several telephone conversations with Putin, and the last one (together with Macron) lasted for an hour and twenty and was dedicated to the ceasefire and the resolution of the global commodity crisis. It is reported that Scholz reneges on a promise to send additional troops to Lithuania as part of NATO's attempts to prevent a Russian attack on the Baltic States. Putin will almost certainly consider this a weakness of the West. So, just a few days after a telephone conversation with Scholz and Macron, he tightened the onslaught on Ukrainian grain facilities.
At the same time, German military assistance to Ukraine remains scanty. It is reported that neither in April nor in May, Berlin did not fulfill its promise and did not deliver a single heavy gun to Kiev. Although it is expected that several installations will still be delivered to Ukraine this summer, the main prize – an advanced air defense system – will not be deployed until autumn, and by that time, according to German intelligence, Russia can already conquer Donbass. There are rumors in Berlin that this is a deliberate step: Scholz does not want to publish footage of the battle of German equipment with Russian troops. (The fact that Russian weapons made using German machine tools and software are killing Ukrainians does not seem to bother Berlin).
The desire for diplomacy and disregard for hard power are, in principle, characteristic of German foreign policy, but in the case of Ukraine there are other pitfalls. After the end of the Cold War, Berlin considered Ukraine to be just an element of its Russian policy. When former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, now deputy chairman of the Russian Security Council, said a few days before the conflict that the West would eventually give in because he believes that Russia is "more important" than Ukraine, he could well have been referring to Germany. For some time now, the Berlin media have started a new fun – asking Scholz and his Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht uncomfortable questions about their support for the victory of Ukraine, which both refuse to support.
The fact that Berlin is full of rumors about secret talks with Russia, says that Germany will prefer to disappoint Ukraine than to humiliate Russia, whatever that means. So, if Putin offers to lift the blockade of Odessa in exchange for easing sanctions or to suspend hostilities in recognition of the new line of contact, the votes for concessions will only get stronger.
German "appeasers" are encouraged by an unexpected ally: the United States. Like Scholz and Lambrecht, American officials have recently been evading unconditional support for the Ukrainian victory. Senior officials of the Biden administration went even further and openly stated that Washington does not seek Ukraine's victory. When the Biden administration supports Germany, it is not so much a ploy to flatter Berlin and encourage it to take a tougher position, but a reflection of the general agreement between the two governments.
This position – sluggish support for Ukraine, the desire to negotiate with Putin and the hope that everything will return to normal – will set Europe back years, if not decades. The credibility that Germany bought by stopping Nord Stream 2 will soon run out, especially if the deal on Ukraine includes the lifting of sanctions and a return to full–fledged oil and gas supplies. Such a deal will inevitably kill the remnants of solidarity and trust that underlie the European Union. Even if the conflict bypasses them, Eastern European states like Poland and the Baltic states will consider the EU, led by France and Germany, not a union based on unity of values, but a purely economic agreement for the sake of euros and cents. The conflict in Ukraine has certainly hurt the Russian military, but if Putin seems confident in himself, it's only because Scholz, along with Macron, can still help him snatch victory and escape from imminent defeat. If this is the case, it will become even clearer that a new era in German politics has not come.
Author: Peter Rough
Peter Raf is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and a former director of research in the George W. Bush administration.
