Douglas Webber - New Europe, New Germany, Old Foreign Policy?: German Foreign Policy Since Unification

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New Europe, New Germany, Old Foreign Policy?

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New Europe, New Germany, Old Foreign Policy?

German Foreign Policy Since Unification

Editor
Douglas Webber

First published in 2001 by
FRANK CASS AND COMPANY LIMITED

This edition published 2013

by Routledge

2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

Copyright 2001 Frank Cass & Co. Ltd

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
New Europe, new Germany, old foreign policy?: German foreign policy since unification
1.Germany Foreign relations 1990
I.Webber, Douglas
327.43

ISBN 0 7146 5172 9 (hb)

ISBN 0 7146 8185 7 (pb)

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
New Europe, new Germany, old foreign policy?: German foreign policy since unification / editor, Douglas Webber.
p. cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-7146-5172-9 ISBN 0-7146-8185-7
1. GermanyForeign relations1990- relations1990-. 2. National securityGermany. 3. GermanyMilitary policy. 4. GermanyForeign relationsEurope. 5. EuropeForeign relationsGermany. I. Webber, Douglas.
DD290.3 .N48 2001
327.43dc21 2001028388

This group of studies first appeared in a Special Issue of German Politics , (ISSN 0964-4008), Vol.10, No.1 (April 2001), [New Europe, New Germany, Old Foreign Policy? German Foreign Policy Since Unification].

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher.

Contents

DOUGLAS WEBBER

In early 1990, not long after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the well-known American political scientist, David Calleo, author of a standard work on the German problem before the Second World War, came out strongly against the prospect of German reunification. He wrote:

A resurrected Bismarckian Empire would have the same effect as the return of the monster Frankenstein. Anything which even looked like it would simply revive the old pattern of continental rivalry: the RussianFrench alliance from the time before the First World War or the Anglo-French alliance of the inter-war years. German unity, so constructed, would be incompatible with European unity. It would be as if nobody had drawn the lessons from a century-long European tragedy.

At the time he was writing, Calleo did not know that German unity would be achieved only ten months later and therefore could not take into account the conditions under which unification took place. It is impossible to say whether the pessimistic and sombre thrust of his analysis would have been different if he had foreseen the external terms of reunification. In any event, however, the second united Germany was not saddled with the same birth defects as the first:

• It was not forged by blood and iron, but rather by a peaceful, democratic revolution;
• It was not a fait accompli, but rather was negotiated and agreed with the four Second World War allies (the US, the Soviet Union, France and Britain);
• It was not built on territorial conquest & acquisition, such that peaceful and stable relations with an important neighbouring state namely France were precluded, but rather renounced territorial claims on other states;
• It was not an authoritarian monarchy, but a democratic republic;
• It was not an unconstrained, autonomous actor in international affairs, but was tightly integrated into numerous alliances and regional and international organisations, such as the European Union (EU) and the NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organisation).

The fears expressed by Calleo concerning the implications of German unity were nonetheless widely shared by political leaders in Europe in late 1989 and 1990. A good indicator of the coolness, if not indeed iciness, with which most member states of the EU viewed this prospect was the atmosphere and tone of discussion at the two meetings of the European Council (comprising the heads of government of the member states) held in Paris and in Strasbourg in November and December 1989. Kohl described the atmosphere at the Strasbourg summit as the most hostile he had ever encountered in this setting.

Only the Spanish and Irish prime ministers, Felipe Gonzalez and Charles Haughey respectively, supported the idea of German unification without any ifs and buts.

Numerous reactions to the prospect of German reunification thus seemed to bear out Calleos expectation that German unity would precipitate a revival of pre-Second World War balance-of-power politics, with other European powers banding together to balance and contain the actual or prospective power of a single German state.

Main Traits of German European and Foreign Policy, 194990

Clearly, most other European political leaders at the time expected and were fearful that a united Germany would pursue different, even very different European and foreign policies to those pursued between 1949 and 1990 by the governments of the old Federal Republic.

What were the principal traits of Bonns European and foreign policies during the Cold War? First, Bonns foreign policy was distinguished by its emphatically Western orientation. This policy trait was fixed by the first post-Second World War Chancellor and Rhinelander, Konrad Adenauer, in the 1950s. It represented a revolutionary change compared with pre-Second World War German foreign policy, which, exploiting the countrys location at the geographical centre of Europe, frequently aimed to maximise German autonomy and influence by oscillating or see-sawing, as the occasion required, between East and West ( Schaukelpolitik ).

The principal manifestation of Adenauers policy of Western integration was Germanys entry and participation in all the major West European and North Atlantic alliances and regional organisations, first and foremost the European Community and NATO. It may be argued that Adenauer simply made a virtue of a necessity, in as far as the Western allies (US, France and Britain) would not have permitted the new West German state to pursue any other kind of foreign policy. However, this would be to overlook the strength of resistance to Adenauers Western policy in Germany in the 1950s, when the idea that Germany could play a bridging role between East and West was still popular and it was widely feared that the Federal Republics ever closer integration into the West would diminish the prospects of German reunification.

Adenauers Western integration policy was complemented later, of course, by Willy Brandts Ostpolitik in the first half of the 1970s. However, Brandts Ostpolitik was pursued from a firm anchorage in the West: rather than being an alternative to or rival of Western integration policy, Ostpolitik built on this policy and was facilitated by it, to the extent that Ostpolitik would have aroused much greater distrust, suspicion and opposition among its allies if the Federal Republic had not already been tightly integrated into the West. Also fiercely contested domestically at the time it was launched, Ostpolitik became a component of the foreign policy consensus in the Federal Republic just like the Western integration policy, but it did not replace, rather it was subordinated to, this policy.

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