Human Security Centre Human Rights and International Security Research
Each US president since 1990 conceived of his own doctrine to deal with these new threats. Bush Snr. was a traditionalist, adhering to old alliances and the legitimacy of power. Clinton was the internationalist, believing in the economic power of globalisation. Bush Jnr. was the interventionist, funnelling the efforts of the Americans into an enormous war effort. Obama is the cautious isolationist, ordering the retreat, sometimes displaying passion for geopolitics but mainly focusing on America’s inner weaknesses. Since Barack Obama it has become clear to many international observers that the Unites States’ short hegemonic era is about to come to an end. The nation has lost its interest and strength, is tired of the role it adopted in response to the 9/11 attacks. Some even say the US has wasted a huge historical opportunity. Zbigniew Brzezinski, the old grand strategist once put it quite simply: If, in 1991, the world had been asked who should take the main responsibility for global security, a vast majority would have voted for the United States. Today, many see the US rather as a threat to global security.
But after decades of neglecting the military and some years of further tough cuts in the defence budgets, Europe is not ready to take over this responsibility, either. That is why the global security architecture is starting to crumble everywhere in the world, from the South China Sea, via the Middle East, to Eastern Europe.
For several decades now, militant Islamism is undermining the Arab states, triggering revolutions and civil wars. For two and a half years, the international community is watching the massacre in Syria without being able to stop it. China is eager to become the new hegemonic power in the Pacific, promising a peaceful rise while building aircraft carriers. Ever stronger demands are made for a regional security architecture in East Asia, that could absorb the increasing nationalist tensions. In the meantime, however, yet another US Secretary of the State is wasting his time trying to find a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
So, this is how the multipolar world order that so many have desired feels: no power for anyone. Recent years have shown, however, that such zero-sum games do not exist in international politics. There is no perpetual peace and no end of history. It is simply ‘no one’s world’ as the historian Charles Kupchan recently wrote, a world without any political centre of gravity, without any superiority. And it is in a world like this that actors such as China, Russia or Iran see an opportunity to undermine the Western order. Since the end of the Cold War the West has never been challenged so fiercely as in recent years.
It is no wonder, therefore, that a state like Germany is starting to get worried. So, when the federal president together with the foreign and defence ministers start talking about German responsibility, there is more behind it than just trying to score some political points; it reflects a sincere concern for their country’s place and role in the world.
The Culture of Restraint as a Pretence for Inaction
In recent years, several people in Germany tried to subdue what in the 1990s had been called the ‘culture of restraint’. This restraint, however, caused more and more concern among Germany’s partners as it reflects neither Germany’s weight nor its values or interests. They entertained the suspicion, quite rightly, that Germany’s constant reference to its Nazi-history was just a pretence for not having to act. In a world without order, however, the West simply cannot afford Europe’s economic powerhouse to just remain on the sidelines of international politics. Or, as the Polish foreign minister, Radek Sikorski, put it: “Today I am less afraid of German power than of German inaction.” The message is clear: Germany has to demand more of herself than just an increase in GDP and the financial stability of the Eurozone. She cannot act as a superpower within Europe, while acting as a self-sufficient Switzerland everywhere else in the world, where matters are more complicated.
Of course, one cannot measure foreign policy commitment just by the number of soldiers a nation has deployed overseas. But under the former foreign minister, Guido Westerwelle, Germany was very outspoken when it came to criticising other countries, but was very quiet when it came to proposing concrete solutions, be it in Libya, Syria, or anywhere else for that matter. Whether one likes it or not, military power is an effective element of foreign policy. A country’s diplomatic efforts tend to be more successful if it has a credible military option up its sleeve, even if it does not intend to actually use it.
