Germany’s U-turn on Russia underlines its failed policy of appeasement
- For decades, German leaders failed to acknowledge Putin’s ambitions, even when presented with evidence of it in Russian aggression in Georgia and Crimea
- It took a war in Ukraine and a different leadership for Germany to finally wake up
More than ever, a paradigm shift is a sine qua non.
Perhaps it was Putin’s aura or his impeccable German, but almost no one seemed to acknowledge the core message of his speech, which sought a reshuffling of the European order, for Europe to quasi-shift its focus from Washington to Moscow.
That this “flawless democrat” would, only a year later, call the collapse of the Soviet Union the greatest tragedy in geopolitical history did not seem to matter either.
Nor did Putin’s speech at the 2007 Munich Security Conference, when he said that “a unipolar world”, one “in which there is one master, one sovereign”, was “unacceptable”. In other words: after the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia too had a claim to being a superpower again.
Many in Berlin had pinned their hopes on new Russian president Dmitry Medvedev, with whom a new, more liberal style seemed to be moving into the Kremlin. But a few months after he took office, all illusions were gone when Russia started getting hold of the Caucasus, recognising South Ossetia and Abkhazia as autonomous republics and invading Georgia.
Germany’s reaction? The Nord Stream pipeline initiated under Schröder in 2005 started operating in 2011.
The implications were vast. Thanks to the Nord Stream, Russia was no longer dependent on Ukraine when exporting natural gas to western Europe. Considering that Putin’s attitude towards former Soviet states was well known, one could have seen that the Nord Stream, while providing gas, would all but provide for future peace and stability.
It is why, despite all geopolitical concerns, including from the European Union and Washington, Berlin had stuck to Nord Stream 2 – the symbol of the failed German policy on Russia and an affront to Ukraine and other central and eastern European countries.
Yes, Merkel, unlike Schröder, voiced criticism, but never in a language Putin understands – namely determination and strength.
It took a war and a different leadership for Germany to finally wake up. Now, after Putin deployed hundreds of thousands of soldiers across the Ukrainian border and waged a war of aggression that will cost many lives, Germany is changing its position on Russia.
Putin’s goal in Ukraine is a swift win and a buffer state: analysts
But this can only be the beginning. With Europe’s security architecture shifting due to Putin’s aggression, Germany will no longer be able to avoid making a contribution worthy of its status in the world. Moreover, German appeasement towards Putin must be an approach of the past.
And indeed, on Sunday, during a special session of the Bundestag, Scholz put 30 years of his party’s Russia policy ad acta and announced that a special fund of €100 billion (US$112 billion) would be made available to Germany’s armed forces. He also said that Germany would finally meet the Nato target of spending 2 per cent of its gross domestic product on defence.
German idealism proved to be a historical error, and the moral and material failure of an entire generation of German politicians. From today, one may have hope that realism and reason have finally arrived in Berlin. Better late than never.
Thomas O. Falk is a UK-based independent journalist and political analyst