“In Germany’s view, the conflict in Ukraine could not spread beyond Ukraine because Russia’s military power is limited, and Russia doesn’t want a war anyway”
Germany’s view is that the United States is carelessly threatening the global balance and, far more important, the European balance. Germany went through two catastrophic wars in the past century, was divided in two with both halves occupied (albeit one half more benignly by the United States), and faced the possibility of being the battlefield for a disastrous war. Germany’s primary strategic interest is avoiding a repeat of the past century. In looking at the foundations of that century, it was Germany’s excessive reliance on military force that led it into wars it couldn’t win.
The NATO of the Cold War was something the Germans had to live with to recover from the material and moral catastrophe of World War II. But 1991 opened a new era for Germany in which it wished to avoid being drawn into a conflict that its geography dictated would be disastrous. Germany exists on the North European Plain, a difficult area to defend except at the river lines that run north-south. Whenever the Germans moved to the west or east, they discovered short-term victories, but in the long term they were ground into the dust, constantly in retreat until their collapse. Germany experienced this most emphatically in Russia.
It has no intention of being drawn into such a conflict again, and it does not see Russia as a strategic threat. In Germany’s view, the conflict in Ukraine could not spread beyond Ukraine because Russia’s military power is limited, and Russia doesn’t want a war anyway. Germany intervened diplomatically in Ukraine in 2014, but the Germans believed a new attempt at containment from the Baltics to Romania would not deter war and could even increase its likelihood by encouraging Russia to respond.
For Germany, a strategy of containment requiring the preemptive deployment of substantial forces would drain its economy and achieve nothing. Moreover, if the United States and a coalition of the willing decided on a containment policy outside the framework of NATO, Germany, at the rear of the line, would inevitably be drawn in. For Berlin, the measure of commitment to European security is not the willingness to deploy military force but the maintenance of a full appreciation of the balance of forces. In its view, the U.S. and Europe are not rationally evaluating Russian power, and it is Germany’s responsibility to act as a brake on the United States.
Behind this is another reality. Germany is a massive exporter and needs the EU for a free market for sales, a common currency that benefits it, and a system of regulations that protects its industry. Above all else, it must protect the European Union. The EU is already under terrific stress, with Brexit, political tensions between Brussels and Poland and Hungary, and the emergence of a general anti-EU faction. Marine Le Pen’s defeat in the French elections has not ended that problem.
Increased military tension that involves Eastern Europe but is looked at skeptically by countries farther west opens the door to another dimension of European fragmentation. U.S. deployments in Eastern Europe have the potential to increase the centrifugal forces that are already edging toward being out of control. Demanding increased spending from NATO at a time of economic stagnation may seem reasonable to the Americans, but it underestimates Europe’s fragility while simultaneously drawing Eastern Europe into its orbit and further fragmenting the EU.
From Germany’s point of view, the U.S. has been too powerful for Germany to influence, and until now Germany had been too weak to resist. Germany sees the U.S. wars in the Middle East as examples of America’s excessive power. The U.S. has for 15 years waged a war, even in the face of failure, that towers over anything the Europeans can field for any length of time.
Germany is a weak and scarred country living in a difficult place. The Americans tend to see war as a viable option where Germany cannot. The demand that Germany and Europe increase their spending on defense is really, in Merkel’s eyes, an attempt to draw Germany into the American mode of thought, of never seeing problems as insoluble and never hesitating to seek military solutions – only to find that the problem remains.
For Merkel, Trump is American geopolitics personified. He is enormously powerful and unreasonably confident, and he demands that an alliance of equals serve the American interest as its first responsibility. When she said that Europe must not depend on anyone, what she was saying is that Europe must stick together and not be drawn into the American understanding of the world.
This was bound to happen, Trump or not. America and Germany have utterly different imperatives and experiences. One has known only triumph and relatively minor defeats, the other has been devastated over and over by its own actions. The U.S. is far more powerful and geographically secure than Germany ever was. It is involved in wars and doesn’t understand an alliance that expects U.S. force when its allies need it but can’t offer the same in return. The Americans and Germans are no longer even participating in the same discussion.
The American view and the German view of Europe are incompatible. The future of Europe means far more to Germany than to the United States. The United States can increase fragmentation unintentionally, and this is why Germany has declared itself and Europe self-reliant. The problem is that the very idea of Europe as a political entity and not just a place is in crisis. It is necessary for Merkel to declare self-reliance, but right now, it’s unclear what the self of Europe is.