The White House via flickr
Germany’s Strategic Challenges after a Turbulent Month
Jeff Rathke
President of AGI
Jeffrey Rathke is the President of the American Institute for Contemporary German Studies at the Johns Hopkins University in Washington, DC.
Prior to joining AICGS, Jeff was a senior fellow and deputy director of the Europe Program at CSIS, where his work focused on transatlantic relations and U.S. security and defense policy. Jeff joined CSIS in 2015 from the State Department, after a 24-year career as a Foreign Service Officer, dedicated primarily to U.S. relations with Europe. He was director of the State Department Press Office from 2014 to 2015, briefing the State Department press corps and managing the Department's engagement with U.S. print and electronic media. Jeff led the political section of the U.S. Embassy in Kuala Lumpur from 2011 to 2014. Prior to that, he was deputy chief of staff to the NATO Secretary General in Brussels. He also served in Berlin as minister-counselor for political affairs (2006–2009), his second tour of duty in Germany. His Washington assignments have included deputy director of the Office of European Security and Political Affairs and duty officer in the White House Situation Room and State Department Operations Center.
Mr. Rathke was a Weinberg Fellow at Princeton University (2003–2004), winning the Master’s in Public Policy Prize. He also served at U.S. Embassies in Dublin, Moscow, and Riga, which he helped open after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Mr. Rathke has been awarded national honors by Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, as well as several State Department awards. He holds an M.P.P. degree from Princeton University and B.A. and B.S. degrees from Cornell University. He speaks German, Russian, and Latvian.
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German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and his national security team visited the United States July 9-11, and their engagement highlights the strategic challenges that Berlin must confront as the United States election season intensifies and Germany’s European options shift in response to new political realities.
The Chancellor has consistently prioritized Germany’s security partnership with Washington. Since taking office in December 2021, Scholz had to recalibrate German foreign policy in view of Russia’s looming invasion of Ukraine, a prospect in which the United States was confident, but which many in Europe found hard to imagine. Scholz quickly visited President Biden and made clear that Germany would not let the country’s energy dependency on Russia stand in the way of a strong response if Moscow invaded.
Since the Russian invasion, and the harsh reality of a deteriorating security situation for the European Union and NATO’s European members, Scholz has doubled down on the defense partnership with the United States, declaring a sea change in German security policy, (the “Zeitenwende” announced on February 27, 2022) and staking Germany’s defense on a massive reinvestment in the Bundeswehr. The chancellor likewise pushed through in 2022 a special defense fund of €100 billion with the goal to make Germany, as he put it, the best equipped force in Europe, commensurate with its economic weight and leading role in Europe. Germany has placed special emphasis on American systems like the F-35 aircraft, to anchor Germany’s nuclear role within NATO for decades to come, along with air/missile defense systems and helicopters from U.S. producers.
A rash pivot in German security policy would be as unwise as turning a blind eye to the prospects for change in the United States after November.
As Germany has carried out these steps to begin restoring its military capabilities, Scholz has made his country the second largest provider of support to Ukraine, trailing only the United States. His decisions on key issues, such as the provision of main battle tanks and other weapons, have been closely coordinated with Washington, a fact that Scholz regularly underscores. This represents a divergence from the paths taken by Germany’s European partners, such as the United Kingdom and France, which decided earlier than Germany and the United States to provide not only their most advanced tanks but also cruise missiles— the latter of which Germany and the United States have refrained from providing. Germany and the United States have also been the most prominent skeptics toward efforts to clarify and accelerate Ukraine’s path toward NATO membership. When pressed by his opposition at home or by others in Europe who wish for a more forward-leaning position, the chancellor has highlighted the close coordination with President Biden to deflect critics.
That was unavoidable in a way since the Russian invasion of Ukraine because Germany depends irrefutably on the United States for security in Europe, and its European partners did not have at hand the resources and industrial capacity to close the gap urgently. In those circumstances, staking Germany’s security on its European partners in the short term would have been foolhardy, and a longer-term European option was unattractive to Berlin as well.
The close connection with Washington has been a core component of German foreign policy since the founding of the Federal Republic in 1949. It has been complemented, however, by a close partnership with France and an emphasis on European integration, which forms the second pillar of Germany’s approach to its international challenges. The security policy relationship between Germany and France has languished for several years, a situation that predates Scholz’s ascent to the chancellorship in 2021. Germany declined under Chancellor Merkel to engage meaningfully with French President Emmanuel Macron’s proposals on European security, and Scholz continued that studied distance.
The sharpening American electoral contest puts those considerations in a different light. The growing questions about President Biden’s ability to win a second term in the November 5 presidential election have enormous consequences for Germany. Former President Donald Trump’s views of NATO, Germany, and alliances as a burden on the United States do not appear to have changed. Were he to win the election, Germany would have an unhedged bet on the partnership with Washington. At the same time, President Macron’s ability to define and resource an ambitious European vision has been diminished by this month’s early elections, which have resulted in a fractured National Assembly in which he does not have a clear majority. Indeed, decisionmakers in Berlin might feel that the impulsive approach by Macron vindicates their caution about putting Germany’s strategic eggs in the same basket with France.
How can Germany bolster its options in these changing circumstances? One key may lie in the new Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Kier Starmer. The election of a Labour Prime Minister in the UK presents opportunities for Berlin with a country that has historically been an important European ally for Germany. Another key may be in Brussels, as a new European Commission takes shape under the leadership of Ursula von der Leyen, whose proposals for a stronger EU role on defense industrial issues could provide a new way for Germany to engage its European partners and balance the strategic dependency on the United States. Germany’s partners in the Nordic countries, along with security-minded allies in central and eastern Europe, also provide opportunities for strengthened cooperation that would spread political risk and forge a higher degree of European unity if transatlantic security dynamics become more contentious.
A rash pivot in German security policy would be as unwise as turning a blind eye to the prospects for change in the United States after November. The new risks that the past month’s developments have introduced into Berlin’s security calculus are likely to induce a new attention to balance and be prepared for any eventuality.
