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"Germany needs a Walther Rathenau, a Gustav Stresemann or an Otto von Bismarck, but God knows no Annalena Baerbock."
This quote from last week's👇magazine unwittingly reveals a rarely discussed, yet highly relevant aspect of German strategic culture.
A🧵/1
www.tichyseinblick.de/meinungen/baerbock-aussenministerin-sicherheitsrisiko-deutschland/
Many of the seemingly endless debates over the contents of NATO's help to embattled Ukraine can be boiled down to its division into roughly 2 camps - "hawks vs doves", "justice vs peace" - you name it. I think no one needs convincing Germany is firmly in the 2nd camp. But why?/2
There are many reasons cited for Germany's reluctance. Some approach the problem with cold, calculated rationality straight out of the imaginarium of Realpolitik, and bring up lingering hopes for reestablishing beneficial relations with Russia after the war ends./3
Others insist on analyzing German foreign policy with the toolkit fitting of a freudian psychoanalyst. They point to "fear of escalation", "ingrained pacifism" and psychosomatic condition of irreflective deference to Russia resulting from WW2 trauma./4
What is clear is that whereas the countries of NCEE clearly treat the conflict as a system transforming war and welcome the potential shift to a radically new international order - one built without and in opposition to imperial and revanchist Russia
- Germany is afraid of it./5
But is it just fear of reprisals? Or is it something else entirely - an existential fear of unknown, stemming from a deeply held conviction, that any form of spatial organization of political power in the East MUST(!), in one way or another, involve an arrangement with Moscow?/6
To answer let me turn back to the acrimonious call for return of the Bismarckian type of statesman - the quote opening this 🧵The sentiment it carries, typical of certain stream of German political thinking, is indicative of one of plausible explanations of the German myopia./7
It is after all of profound significance that unified state of Germany, since the very moment of inception, had its mental map of the East formatted by the likes of the "Iron Chancellor". And on that map, there was nothing of real significance laying between Berlin and Moscow./8
Strategic culture of Germany is founded on an axiom that the great task of the state to the East is to play a game of management of power relations in the space between itself and Russia through some sort of negotiation with the only other significant fulcrum of power - Moscow./9
It is seemingly hard-wired into the way German elite thinks of the East. The existence of independent states in the "lands in between" (which sprang into being in the interwar period, and then again after 1945) did not change much in the geometry of power as seen from Berlin./10
Despite formal independence, in praxis the territories formed a sort of a glacis between powers. Deprived of the right of deciding their own fate, choosing alliances and building economies centered on their own needs and plans. They would only be allowed a limited sovereignty./11
To understand how deeply the paradigm described above is ingrained into traditions of Ostpolitik, we don't even need to stray from the original quote. Apart from Bismarck, it mentions Rathenau, the architect of Rapallo treaty, foreshadowing the 1939 German-Soviet alliance./12
And then Gustav Stresemann. The man who worked tirelessly to differentiate legal status and guarantees protecting the borders of Germany to the West, from the ones that stood in its way to the East. Work he concluded successfully through the Pact of Locarno in 1925./13
And so - the very choice of these 3 men as symbolizing the tradition of "the good old days" in German foreign policy reveals something about Germany and its mental map of the CEE. It is there as a space in between, something to be traversed by pipelines, railroads and roads./14
But never as a partner to be truly engaged with, listened to, and accommodated towards. In that paradigm CEE functions solely as space within which specific German interests are promoted and realized, but ONLY as a function of certain harmonization with the RU imperial center/15
German policy towards the nations of CEE since the end of Cold War was but a clear continuation... Strict adherence to the principle of consulting anything happening in the "space in between" with Moscow persisted to guide all successive German administrations./16
Opposing independence of the Baltic States and Ukraine and NATO membership of former Warsaw Pact nations... Supporting Russia's demands of special privileges in the neighborhood and guarantees in the form of strict adherence to NATO-RU Founding Act (no NATO dislocation in CEE)/17
opposing preparing defense plans for CEE (too provocative), even vicious attacks(!)👇 on allies practicing their defense in face of RU threats - all that showed how Moscow and its interests remained the central reference point for German foreign policy./18
nationalpost.com/news/world/german-foreign-minister-condemns-natos-loud-sabre-rattling-and-warmongeri...
Is it, then, really surprising, that for a long long time an overwhelmingly large part of German elite perceived Russian aggression against Ukraine as some sort of a legitimate policing operation? As an understandable intervention in its rightful sphere of imperial dominance?/19
Ukraine became that place where German and Russian imperial legacies and praxis found a space for compromise. They could both agree it was only a simulacrum of a nation - to be disregarded and bypassed - truly a place where the devil says goodnight./20

Ukraine surely wasn't a part of what was regarded as "Europe" - the way Germany wanted to understand it. Finally, even if it voiced such aspirations, they could be shelved,as they surely weren't worth sacrificing grand visions of "Europe from Lisbon to Vladivostok" for./21
And so, observing Scholz pathetically agonizing over every single successive decision regrading arming Ukraine, one cannot help but feel pitiful. It's almost as if it is somehow inconceivable to him there might be a world in which Russia lost, and is not a beacon anymore./22
But one also can't help but wonder, if Germany is going to be, one day, capable of making the paradigm shift and move towards a new concept - one based on partnership with its CEE neighbors, anchored in true true unity of security and basic interests./23
neweasterneurope.eu/2022/12/14/what-germany-does-not-know/
Surely, the present Chancellor's utterances of wish to provide Moscow with "guarantees" and "return to pre-war order" do not sound optimistic. The road to true progress lays in decisively refuting Moscow's pretenses for "sphere of interests" in its immediate neighborhood./24
And the first step on that path would be recognizing both the absolute rational AND moral imperative of providing the embattled Ukrainian nation with ALL(!) the tools the Western arsenal can muster.
And that, dear reader, would be a truly Copernican shift in European affairs./25
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