The Economist March 19th 2022 Europe 29use, we have spent it on one we don’t want
to use,” says an exasperated official.
Priorities must be identified and trade
offs accepted. Should Germany worry less
about joining French adventures in Africa
and more about supporting allies in east
ern Europe? How should it hedge for the
prospect of a return of Donald Trump in
2025? More broadly, can it embrace the idea
of force as a tool of statecraft? A proposed
nationalsecurity strategy offers a chance
for ideas, but the debate will matter as
much as the answers. “Our passive foreign
policy, waiting for partners to decide and
then taking a stance, is not appropriate for
a country the size of Germany,” says Carlo
Masala at the Bundeswehr University in
Munich. “It comes close to cowardice.”
Polls find majorities for all of Mr
Scholz’s proposals, and then some: 61% be
lieve Germany should cut off Russian ener
gy imports, and nearly half want to reintro
duce conscription. But Mr Putin’s brutal
war has shocked Germans, and the mo
ment will surely fade. For the Zeitenwende
to fulfil its “transformative potential”, says
Sergey Lagodinsky, a Green mep, a sus
tained debate must be led from the top.
Persuade, and then persuade again
German politicians have long been ner
vous about leading such discussions. Yet
Sönke Neitzel, a military historian, says
they drew the wrong lesson from Afghani
stan in 2011, after the Bundeswehr had
been drawn away from peacekeeping into
messy shooting battles. The problem, he
says, is not that voters disliked German
troops being sent into combat. It is that
politicians had not prepared them for it.
Analysis of polling data by the Global
Public Policy Institute, a research outfit,
provides tentative support. Since 2016 a
growing share of Germans, especially
younger ones, have said the country must
take a greater leadership role rather than
hew to the status quo (see chart 3). And
support for more military spending has
long belied Germany’s reputation for paci
fism. There is political space here, should
the country’s leaders choose to occupy it.
For now, such is the unifying power of
Mr Putin’s war that few expect Mr Scholz’s
immediate plans to unravel. Indeed, some
spy a NixontoChina effect of a leftlean
ing government telling Germany it must
rearm. “It needed a war, and it needed the
spdand the Greens in power,” says Claudia
Major at swp, a thinktank in Berlin. Big
wigs such as Lars Klingbeil, the spd’s co
leader, have conducted discreet talks with
security experts on how to establish a more
enduring revision to foreign policy.
But there is unease in both parties.
Sceptical mps will seek compensation in
favoured areas in the coming budget nego
tiations. Some Greens insist the new de
fence fund must not be spent exclusively
on military hardware. “Our members are
certainly not falling into a state of eupho
ria over the Zeitenwende,” says Kevin Kühn
ert, the spd’s general secretary and a hero
of the party’s left. “But Putin’s brutal ag
gression is forcing us to make decisions
that I personally rejected a few weeks ago.”
Certain shibboleths are gone. They in
clude the old Ostpolitikidea that establish
ing energy interdependence—Russia as es
sential supplier, Germany as indispens
able customer—helps build peace. Now
politicians see how hard it has become to
stop financing Mr Putin’s war with gas
money. Nor can Germany’s remaining Pu-
tinversteher (Putin apologists) expect much
of an audience for their pleas to respect
Russia’s “legitimate” security interests. In
deed, most have publicly recanted.
Germany’s Zeitenwendewill have appli
cation beyond Russia. In the eu the gov
ernment has no time for what officials dis
miss as FrancoItalian wheezes on debt
funded investment pools for defence or
energy or rewriting fiscal rules. But as the
world’s thirdbiggest military spender Ger
many will have a crucial role in shapingEurope’snascentcommondefenceandin
dustrialpolicy.Itwillenjoyaddedheftin
discussions, now mademuch more ur
gent,overnato’s direction—includingthe
“StrategicConcept”tobeadoptedata sum
mitinJune.AndGermany’sbelatedcon
versiontothe2%targethasremovedanal
ibi for other European pennypinchers,
severalofwhichhavedeclaredtheirown
planstorampupmilitaryspending.
ThenthereisGermany’slargesttrading
partner.Partsofthebusinessandpolitical
elitehavebeengrowingcoldonChinafor
years.Now,asXiJinpingcosiesuptoMr
Putin,thewindhasturnedicier.Chemical
andcarcompanieswithlongterminvest
mentsinChinahavebeennervouslyeye
ingthealacritywithwhichRussiahasbe
come an economic pariah. One test of
whether Germany’s Zeitenwendeis worthy
of the name, argues an official, will be if
German exporters begin to tap markets in
developing countries beyond China; and if
politicians encourage them to do so in ser
vice of a geopolitically savvy trade policy.
Another is German alertness to the owner
ship of its critical infrastructure, from tele
coms networks to gasstorage units.
For many Germans, all this requires a
painful rejection of recent history. After
the end of the cold war enabled its reunifi
cation, Germany aspired to build a free,
whole and secure Europe with space for its
historic Russian adversary. Diplomatic re
lations were buttressed by a thicket of
commercial, cultural and academic links
that penetrated deep into German society.
Mr Putin’s growing aggression dampened
but did not kill those hopes. Now those
bonds are shattered, and an era of confron
tation looms. Accepting that is a step to
wards ensuring, as Mr Scholz put it, that
the peace and security enjoyedbyGermany
in the past three decadesremain “more
than a historical exception”.nScholz the transformerThe young are more gung-ho
“Do you think Germany is doing enough in global
politics, or should it do more?” % polled by ageSource:GPPi/GESIS360504030202016 17 18 19Aged 30+
Coulddo moreDoing enough18-to2-year-olds
Coulddo moreDoing enough