Ostpolitik Meets West

GERMANY GERMANY

Vladimir Putin just gave Berlin a wake-up call. But how long will Germany stay awake?

By Josef Joffe

Vladimir Putin must feel like a lapdog that’s suddenly banished from the couch to the basement. Since 2008, when he set out to restore the Soviet empire, he has piled up territory at little risk and cost. He subdued Georgia, grabbed Crimea, pushed into the Middle East, and sliced off Ukraine’s southeast. All the while, the West refused to raise the price. It slapped him with mild penalties while preaching the virtues of diplomacy. Presidents Obama and Trump actually pulled troops from Europe.

Now, after the lunge into Ukraine, the biggest surprise is Russia’s loss of Germany, for decades a most reliable partner. Suddenly, the country at the fulcrum of the European balance has stopped seesawing, plunked down in the West, and traded striped pants for fatigues. The country is promising to re-arm. It has imposed nasty sanctions on Russia and is letting weapons get to Ukraine.

Josef Joffe is a distinguished visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution and a member of Hoover’s Working Group on the Role of Military History in Contemporary Conflict. He is also a senior fellow at Stanford University’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies. He is publisher of Die Zeit in Hamburg and is chairman of the board of trustees of Abraham Geiger College at the University of Potsdam.

MAINLINING: The Nord Stream 2 pipeline, owned by a subsidiary of Gazprom, is shown under construction in Russia. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz announced in February that the project would be halted because of the invasion of Ukraine. At the time of the invasion, Germany was drawing 55 percent

of its gas and 45 percent of its oil from Russia. [Nord Stream 2/EyePress]

For more than fifty years, Bonn and later Berlin had taken a pacific approach: Don’t rile the Russians; enmesh them in trade and diplomacy. Huddle under America’s nuclear umbrella but stay on Moscow’s good side. Nord Stream 2, the gas pipeline from Russia, was but the latest symbol of druzhba—friendship.

Since 1970, the Federal Republic has financed a vast network that would feed the country’s industrial machine with plentiful Russian gas. Never mind the carping from Washington. All presidents since Richard Nixon correctly foresaw the strategic dependence trillions of cubic feet would impose. Yet as late as 2021, when Chancellor Angela Merkel stepped down, Berlin clung to the deal. As Gazprom’s best customer, Germany draws 55 percent of its gas and 45 percent of its oil from Russia.

The larger point is geostrategic. Germany has been in and of the West but not always with it, balancing and mediating between the blocs. Blame geography and Otto von Bismarck, who famously counseled: “Never cut the link to St. Petersburg.” Russia is so near, and America so far. So, don’t confront,

don’t provoke, even while Putin shifts toward imperialism.

Germany, the world’s fourthlargest economy, shrugged off military power, though it could afford it. With the end of the Cold War, the Bundeswehr turned into a waif. Three thousand main battle tanks dwindled to 260;

[Taylor Jones—for the Hoover Digest]

the backbone of the Luftwaffe, the Tornados, are destined for the scrap heap. Even as Russian divisions encircled Ukraine, Chancellor Olaf Scholz went off on a mission to Moscow, competing for the broker’s fee with President Emmanuel Macron of France.

Thus, the cosmic surprise. Scholz, this peace-minded Social Democrat, unleashed a diplomatic revolution, turning Ostpolitik upside down. Nord Stream 2, which Merkel had defended to the last, won’t be completed, at least for now. Defense spending is to be increased to 2 percent of gross domestic product, a long-standing NATO goal honored consistently in the breach. Germany will buy advanced F-35 fighters from the United States. It is joining the rest of the West with sanctions that bite. Scholz also wants to have two liquefied natural gas terminals to cut into Russia’s blackmail potential. Reluctant to provoke the bully in the Kremlin, Germany had always denied arms to Kyiv. Now it wants to send not only armor and antitank gear but also Stinger antiaircraft missiles that come with a sly message. In the 1980s these hand-held devices tilted the war in Afghanistan against the Soviets. Suddenly, all Bundestag factions save the pro-Russian Left Party, descendant of the East German Communists, project a mood change that defies past pliancy. Who would have thought Scholz would call for the “strength” that must “impose limits on Putin, the warmonger”? Propitiation was baked into Germany’s postwar soul. And not only the political class is fuming. Resentment reaches all the way to the soccer pitch where Schalke, a prominent club, has torn the Gazprom logo from its blue jerseys.

Which raises a question: how long will the revulsion last—not only in

Germany but in the United States, Canada, Japan, Australia, even eternally neutral Switzerland, which has joined in? Realism suggests caution. A perfect welfare state like Germany is unlikely to max out defense spending overnight, especially while COVID is claiming billions of euros.

Nor will Germany cut itself off from Russian gas, given that the country wants to save the planet by ditching coal in 2038. Its last three nuclear power plants are still slated to be decommissioned by year’s Reluctant to provoke the bully in the end. Will Germans really Kremlin, Germany had always denied shiver for Kyiv next winarms to Kyiv. ter? Will the West fully expel Russia from Swift, the global payments system? If so, Germany in particular can say goodbye to billions in Russian credit as long as the lockout lasts.

The biggest question transcends Germany. It is posed by the Chinese joker in the game. Beijing shares with Moscow the ambition to topple the United

States from its perch as the world’s number one. Pressed too hard, Putin will demonstrably move into Xi Jinping’s embrace to damage the United States.

Never mind that China and Russia are natural rivals. Right now, intensified collusion is a no-brainer. If China sidles up to Russia, the United States will pay the price of justice for Ukraine.

If Putin does ultimately crush Ukraine, he will shift the balance of power against Europe, which breeds intimidation. And in any case, Europe will still have to live with Russia and won’t want to anger this ruthless giant forever.

Baiting the bear isn’t a sustainable strategy. Geography is destiny.

Reprinted by permission of the Wall Street Journal. © 2022 Dow Jones & Co. All rights reserved.

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