European Security and the German Problem

European Security and the German Problem Christoph Bertram I f at the beginning of the 1980s, there is again a question about Germany's role in Europe, it is for a variety of generally unexplored reasons. The composite picture of that changing constellation of relationships is rife with the possibility of misinterpretation , and along with the many correct indications of an evolving new German role, there are others which are false. Foremost among the latter is the erroneous belief held by many outside observers of the German state that Ostpolitik, the "eastward-opening" foreign policy inaugurated a decade ago by Willy Brandt, will not settle the "German question, Though such a view is in conflict with the belief of a large majority of Germans, recent debates inside Germany on the merits of Ostpolitik have encouraged its detractors to wonder when the logic of history might push aside the artifacts of national division. For the Federal Republic to actively encourage such an end would certainly entail a drastic overhaul of its present chosen role, visa -vis both its European neighbors and the superpowers. But such a policy, given the complex calculus of German national interests, is an unlikely outcome on the policy horizon, for reasons which I will elaborate below. On the other hand, there are good reasons to see a new Germany on the rise in Western Europe. The Atlantic Alliance in which Europe takes part is in transition, and in the face of a disputed and wavering American leadership role, Germany has had new power thrust upon it. The result is not only that Germany must raise its self-image to the occasion, but that its European neighbors must learn to look amongst their own for their cues. In order to fill the vacuum that a faltering United States has left in matters of European and Western security, the Federal Republic of Germany must become comfortablewith the responsibilitiesof a leading nation, a role to which Germany has shown a less than enthusiastic inclination. The democratic and federal Republic of Germany has, nearly 35 years after the Second World War, come to grips with its past; it is now trying to come to grips with the present and the future. Reunification:the Wrong Zssue National reunification is not in any way an operational objective in the Federal Republic. It is not even an object of nostalgia. This may be difficult This article is appearing simultaneously in French in Politique Etrangere, No1 (Me Annee) Christopher Bertram is Director of The International Institute for Strategic Studies, and a Geman citizen. 105 international Security I 206 to understand in countries that have been shaped by a long-standing tradition of identifying the nation and the state; but the German tradition is one of several states in one nation. The division of Germany into East and West is an affront to German national sentiments not because there are two states on German soil, but because the Eastern half of the country is ruled by a regime that owes its power to the endorsement of the Soviet Union and not of the population, and because it creates artificial and petty barriers against the communication between Germans in one nation. If any proof were needed that national allegiance cannot be commanded by the state, it was provided in the German Democratic Republic: its attempts to generate a sense of separate nationalism in the Eastern half of Germany have failed dismally. Among Germany’s neighbors in East and West there are many who identify German nationalism with a unitary German state-but this is an assumption based on their, rather than on German, historical experience. In the Germany of 1980, just as in that of 1880, it is possible to be a patriot without being a ”reunifier.” This is, moreover, a demand imposed by political reality. There is no way, in the foreseeablefuture, in which German reunification could be achievedunless there were a collapse of the Soviet empire. The Soviet Union has for too long identified its national security with control of Eastern Europe and the ideological conformity of the region’s political regimes to tolerate either a neutral united Germany or a Germany divided by opposing...