Germany’s Shift From Wolf to Lamb
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After trouncing mighty France in eight weeks in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71, Prussia pounded 25 German principalities and statelets into a new German Reich. The venue of the proclamation didn’t bode well. The Second Reich, styled as heir to the Holy Roman Empire, was revived at the Versailles Palace, a splendiferous symbol of French glory. To boot, a humiliated France had to cede Alsace and Lorraine to the new Germany—a theft that fed into World War I.
At the intoxicating ceremony, Prince Otto of Bavaria, a critic of Prussian ambition, struck an ominous note: “Everything is so haughty and ostentatious, so heartless and hollow.” Soon the Times of London warned, “An enormous power has risen up…and we watch attentively for signs of its character and intention.”
Born in war, the new colossus died in war: Just 74 years later, American and Soviet troops linked up in the heart of Germany, and Hitler’s Third Reich was cut into pieces. It had taken two world wars to thwart Germany’s twin bids for supremacy.
Fast forward to Germany’s reunification in 1990, after the fall of the Berlin Wall. At the festivities in Berlin, there were no spiked helmets and raised swords, but plenty of grey suits and subdued speeches. Fast-forward again to the 30th anniversary of reunification in early October: Prince Otto would have nodded approvingly while listening to Chancellor Angela Merkel. Her remarks were free of crowing or hubris. Known as “Mutti” (mom), Ms. Merkel just wanted a “good life for our children.” Then it was back to the urgent business of fighting Covid-19.
Today, Germany is as aggressive as a sloth. Yet in the run-up to its reunification 30 years ago, angst wafted through Europe. “We don’t want a united Germany,” growled Britain’s Margaret Thatcher: “We beat the Germans twice, and now they are back.” Italy’s Giulio Andreotti jibed, “I love Germany so much that I preferred two of them.”
Wouldn’t a reunited Germany metamorphose into a “Fourth Reich,” as an overused shibboleth had it, and make another stab at European hegemony? As U.S. and Soviet troops pulled out of the country, German power was being liberated on a cleared stage.
But the feared predator instead became a lamb, thanks to the American gift of guaranteed security for Western Europe. The U.S. was the godfather of today’s liberal German state. Under the Pax Americana, Germany’s mortal rivals could no longer threaten the exposed country in the middle that had tried twice to escape from insecurity by subjugating Europe once and for all. Nor could Germany threaten anybody else. Its military was fully integrated into NATO, the U.S.-led alliance. With German power defanged, Western Europe could tackle the grand project that blossomed into the European Union.
Suddenly, Germany was encircled only by friends. In this benign setting, the “Fourth Reich” was just an angst-ridden fantasy. A nation beset by enemies offers magnificent opportunities for aspiring Fuhrers who would sacrifice freedom on the altar of the total security state. The enemy at the gate is the worst foe of democracy inside; demagogues grow fat by feasting on fear and encirclement. But America’s lasting intervention lifted that curse, and democracy at last sunk roots in a detoxified German soil.
Ironically, today Germany’s problem is too much goodness. Thousands of panzers have dwindled to 350. The army numbers 180,000, down from the 670,000 fielded by West and East Germany during the Cold War. Defense spending has shrunk from 3% of GDP to just 1.3%, and pacifism is Germany’s secular religion. If Berlin does act militarily, it does so behind others and with symbolic contingents only.
After all, why pounce when you can rack up trade surpluses? Welfarism beats militarism hands down. In its new career, Germany touts itself as a “power of peace” while celebrating its strategic “culture of reticence.” German overreach has turned into underreach.
But that doesn’t nourish stability in these perilous times. In the West, both Barack Obama and Donald Trump have cut the U.S. military presence in Europe, which is down to 35,000 in Germany from a Cold War peak of 250,000. America’s security blanket is fraying.
In the east, Russia’s Vladimir Putin is on an expansionist roll. Deploying commercial weapons, China is forging its way into Europe. Iran keeps working on a nuclear option, and it threatens shipping in the oil-rich Gulf. Yet mighty Germany, the world’s second-largest exporter, won’t dispatch its frigates to safeguard the freedom of the seas. It remains what it has been while hundreds of thousands U.S. troops stood guard throughout Europe: a net consumer of security, not a net producer. Abstention is just too lucrative.
This time, the problem isn’t German imperialism but German isolationism—shunning the kind of responsibility that would match the country’s vast resources. Thirty years ago, Germany’s neighbors trembled about a Fourth Reich; today, they worry about too little German commitment.
But the problem transcends Germany. Look at Europe’s political culture as a whole—a continent that used to be peopled by ruthless warrior states roaming the planet. The reform-schooled Germans went first, and the European Union keeps polishing the model. Its 27 members pride themselves on being “civilian powers.” Nationalism and heroism are verboten, and “leave me out” is the best part of valor.
Alexis de Tocqueville saw it coming when, in “Democracy in America,” he attributed to bourgeois society “that coolness of understanding which renders men insensible to the violent and poetical excitement of arms [and] quenches the military spirit.” Specializing in compromise and co-optation, pacified Europe will study war no more. Yet the turn in Europe’s political culture depended on a sturdy American umbrella. Today, as Ms. Merkel puts it gingerly, “We have to go some way toward taking our destiny into our own hands.” Yet how, when brute power keeps devaluing Europe’s fabulous civilian assets?
This is the ultimate irony. Berlin failed twice to conquer Europe. Now it has won without “iron and blood,” as Bismarck had it. France and the U.K. occasionally show strategic reflexes, but the others are “German” now—Tocqueville-style “lovers of peace.” The U.S., China and Russia are taking notice. In this new three-power world, the EU—the world’s second-largest economy—is doomed to punch below its weight.
Born-again Germany is now the great model of strategic dwarfism, but Europe has seen this show before. The rapacious Swedes of the 17th century now stick to shooting elk. The Habsburg Empire once stretched across Europe, but Austria now stands for Mozart and Sacher torte.
“It could be worse,” Prince Otto of Bavaria might muse 150 years after that fateful ceremony at Versaille. Prussia’s 21st-century heirs burnish their Beemers and Benzes, not their tanks. Germany is no longer on probation. The Berlin Republic stands for peace über alles. Given Europe’s past horrors, Teutonic meekness is hardly the worst outcome.
But it carries an obvious downside. The strategic arena belongs to the superpower trio and lesser pugilists like Iran and Turkey. With Germany in the vanguard, Europe is out of the power game.
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