The Unwinding: Reflections on the Munich Security Conference
The cauldron of crises on display at the recent Munich Security Conference may have been familiar to some who have been engaged in transatlantic relations over the past fifty years. After all, the post-World War II era was marked by conflicts overshadowed …
Afghanistan: A Difficult Year Ahead
Afghanistan will confront and challenge Germany in the coming year. It will require close collaboration between the United States and Germany as well as the coalition allies, as the ability …
A Security Agenda for the German-American Relationship
The shorter-term security agenda for the German-American relationship this year is likely to focus on the intertwined crises of ISIS, Syria, and refugees. We should expect more ISIS-inspired or directed …
Europe Must Save Itself
Former German foreign minister Joschka Fischer is right: The European project is in trouble. In a recent article in Sueddeutsche Zeitung he even fears that a European suicide is a …
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Support Our WorkA New Assertiveness? Germany wades into the Syrian conflict with vote for anti-ISIS military mission
Introduction Three weeks after the terrorist attacks in Paris, the German Bundestag approved a military deployment to provide protection, reconnaissance, and logistics to the military campaign against the Islamic State, …
Will Michel Go to War for Marianne?
The reactions to the attacks in Paris have demonstrated the special character of the German-French relationship—but how far does this friendship go? The attacks in Paris have resulted in an …
Playing with Fire: Eventually, Extremism Burns
It’s difficult to ascertain the best course of action in dealing with the Islamic State. The Middle East and the actors are convoluted, at best. One certainty is that the …
Bypass Operation
On 18 June, during the annual St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, an agreement was signed to build a controversial new “Nord Stream 2” pipeline under the Baltic Sea that would …
Time for a Helsinki 2.0?
In this two-part series, DAAD/AGI fellow Liana Fix explores both the potential and the challenges Germany faces when it embarks on the journey to reform the Organization for Security and …
German Unification and European Security
How has German unity impacted the U.S. in terms of its policies and its expectations of Germany as part of that evolving Europe in which it has become so critically important? How have the following years impacted the shaping of U.S. foreign policy, its goals, and its application? What expectations emerged about the global role of the U.S. and our expectations of a unified Germany? The questions above are the ones on which AICGS has asked commentators in this series to reflect upon as the 25th anniversary of the unification of Germany approaches on October 3. They are all significant questions but, given the space constraints, I would like to limit this brief comment to one particular aspect on which I have some modest expertise: the extensive overlap between the process that yielded German unification and the process that yielded expansion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
Germany and America
Taken as a whole, the 25 years following the fall of the Berlin Wall have in the West been an unquestioned success. Two parts of Germany merged hostile systems without drama or dangerous economic strain. To ensure that nationalism will not be reborn, the former Western Europe of the European Communities has expanded into a continent-wide Union of 28 democratic nations, some of which had not known true freedom in their entire histories.
