AGI

Foreign & Security Policy

The AGI Foreign & Security Policy Program addresses German security policy, the foreign policy cooperation between the U.S. and Germany, and the transatlantic defense relationship.
Reset

Leadership Profile:  David McAllister, Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, European Parliament

New European Parliament Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman David McAllister is expected to play a prominent role in shaping the European Union’s relations with the new U.S. Administration and with a …

A German Blueprint for Europe

German leadership has been crucial to the efforts to hold the EU together—while also trying to articulate Berlin’s vision without alienating its neighbors. The domestic debate over German foreign policy …

In a Post-Truth World, Can Cybersecurity Save Democracy?

The Munich Security Conference this year was as much about who was in the main hall at the Bayerischer Hof, as who wasn’t. Lurking in the shadows of empty words …

From the AGI Bookshelf: What Is Populism?

With the ripple effect of Donald Trump’s election still being felt not only in the U.S., but all over the world, many are scrambling to find explanations for how that …

Donald Trump – Aggravator or Catalyzer of the European Crises?

This text was originally presented at a public lecture at the  University of Pretoria, South Africa, on February 15, 2017. Introduction One might reasonably ask what is actually special about …

Principle, Policy, and Purpose: The Balance of Values and Interests

The American theologian Reinhold Niebuhr once stated that the essence of statecraft is locating the point of concurrence between the parochial and the general interest, between the national and international common good.[1] Niebuhr emphasizes that realism implies an obligation to see the world as it actually is, not as we might like it to be. He warned that hubris can blind realism, finding expression in outsized confidence in both the power as well as the values of a country as being universal. Any country is susceptible to such temptations.

Demolition Enterprise Trump: A Manual for Saving the Transatlantic Relationship

Transatlantic relations play an important role in how the West reacts to the challenges of the twenty-first century, and certain measures must be taken to maintain the relationship under the …

Germany Cannot Replace the U.S., But Europe Can Live with Trump

There is ample evidence that there has been a major shift toward a greater international role for Germany and that the public is gradually accepting such a bigger role. Germany …

The Transatlantic Alliance: Between Reassurance and Renewal

There is a well-known warning to all politicians seeking to sound convincing to their audiences: if you have to explain too much, you are losing them. If there are too many ambiguities in a message, you trip yourself up justifying them. The platform of the Munich Security Conference is a tough testing ground for all politicians given the enormous concentration on what is discussed there. This year’s meeting was no exception.

The New Parameters of German Foreign Policy

The election of Donald Trump threatens to radically change the parameters of German foreign policy that go back to the foundation of the Federal Republic in 1949. Germany has benefited …

MSC 2017: The World at a Crossroads

The Munich Security Conference has had many memorable milestones over the last half century; I have been privileged to experience several. The famous “I am not convinced” exchange between Joschka Fischer …

Dangerous Silence

It is not the first time the Bundeswehr is engaged in the Baltic States. For a number of years, the German air force has participated as a rotating member in …