Germany needs to get tough
The soft-pedalling of Putin is becoming untenable. Matthew Partridge reports
Officials from Washington to London and Warsaw are warning that the new German government’s desire to “keep a low profile” in international affairs is making it an “unreliable ally” in the ongoing stand-off with Russia over Ukraine, says Bojan Pancevski in The Wall Street Journal. Germany has not only “refused to join the US and others in shipping defensive weapons to Ukraine”, with its belated dispatch of 5,000 secondhand helmets earning derision, but also “blocked Nato partners from giving Kiev German weapons”.
Putting profits before unity
Berlin may like to pretend that its policy is a principled stance aimed at keeping diplomatic channels open with Russia, but it’s clear its real concern is over the impact sanctions will have on its economy, say Guy Chazan and Max Seddon in the Financial Times. The decision of successive governments to phase out nuclear power means that German industry is now “hugely reliant” on gas, 55% of which comes from Russia. Germany is particularly worried that any conflict with Russia will imperil the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, which would directly connect Germany and Russia.
It’s hardly surprising that Germany is putting profits before Nato unity, says David Leonhardt in The New York Times. After all, former US president Donald Trump spent four years deriding the US alliance with Western Europe, calling it “obsolete”, and even considered withdrawing the US from the pact. Trump also downplayed attempts to persuade Germany to abandon the pipeline, a policy initially continued by his successor Joe Biden, who waived US sanctions on companies working on the scheme. Viewed in this context, it makes sense for Germany “to ponder a future in which the US might be pulling back from Nato”.
A glimmer of hope
Besides, the government’s position is in tune with the mood of the German public, says Ulrike Franke in The Washington Post. What some see as “appeasement” and “the triumph of economic interests over security concerns”, Germans see as a “grown-up, sensible and conciliatory approach to foreign policy” – there is, for example, strong popular support for the decision not to send arms to Kiev. Politicians and voters in Germany “remain deeply committed to the hope that all conflicts can be solved through dialogue… as if all conflict resulted from misunderstandings instead of competing interests.”
Still, there remains a “glimmer of hope”, says Andreas Kluth on Bloomberg. “The mood toward Russia is turning even among Germans” as a result of Putin’s aggression. A group of 73 German foreign-policy experts published a letter publicly attacking their country’s policy and even some Social Democrats are “joining these ranks of realists”, including senior diplomats such as Michael Roth and former foreign minister Sigmar Gabriel. There are also signs that the other two government coalition partners, the Greens and the Free Democrats, are ready to take a tougher line. “Increasingly, downplaying or soft-pedaling Putin’s behaviour is becoming untenable – even in Germany, even among Social Democrats.”