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German Foreign and Security Policy after Kohl and Kosovo

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2014

Steve Wood
Steve Wood*
Affiliation:
University of Western Australia
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Extract

What Does A Government New To Office Do When The Idealistic principles that guided its members in opposition face the hard realities of power? Recent German experience in the realm of foreign policy provides an instructive case study – not least because Germany's history in the first half of the twentieth century has created tremendous sensitivities in this sphere. Following a history of opposition to German military participation in actions beyond the NATO area, the parties of Germany's political left were immediately confronted with the need to make decisions on foreign and security policy when they were elected to govern in 1998. Pacifist principles or aspirations proved unsustainable in practice, and a policy consistent with that pursued by the outgoing conservative-liberal coalition was adopted. The new government developed a pragmatic foreign policy, incorporating the use of military means, notwithstanding the existence of a domestic political culture suspicious of the employment of military force.

Type
Original Articles
Information
Government and Opposition , Volume 37 , Issue 2 , April 2002 , pp. 250 - 270
Copyright
Copyright © Government and Opposition Ltd 2002

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References

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2 On the post-Kohl era cf. Helms, Ludger, ‘Is there Life after Kohl? The CDU Crisis and the Future of Party Democracy in Germany’, Government and Opposition, 35:4 (2000), pp. 419–38.Google Scholar

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6 In the earlier 1990s, SPD foreign and security policy expert Karsten Voigt, one of few in the party, found himself ‘defamed as a militarist and warmonger’ for advocating Germany’s equal participation with its NATO allies. His policy orientation later became the official line. Perger, Werner, ‘Der Lernprozeβ’, Die Zeit, 18 06 1998, p. 4.Google Scholar

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22 ‘Wir müssen für den militãrischen Schutz der UN-Zonen sein’: ‘We see with great mistrust and concern, how on the side of the government and sections of the conservatives, it is attempted, step by step, to turn Germany back to a militarily supported, power-oriented foreign policy.’ Frankfurter Rundschau, 2 August 1995, p. 10.

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25 As argued by Christoph Bertram, continuity cannot include vacillation, to which the previous government was not immune. The direction should remain steady but imperatives and opportunities must be grasped and foreign policy ‘shaped’ not merely ‘administered’. Christoph Bertram, ‘Selbsbewußt auf dunnen Eis’, Die Zeit, 1 October 1998, p. 6.

26 Interview with the author, Munich, 2000.

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32 J. Duffield, ‘Political Culture and State Behavior’, op. cit., pp. 768, 770, 781, 787, 792.

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39 Joschka Fischer cited in H. W. Maull, ‘German Foreign Policy, Post-Kosovo’, op. cit., p. 7.

40 J. Duffield, ‘Political Culture and State Behavior’, op. cit., pp. 788–89.

41 Jörg Lau, ‘Bomben sind Feige’, Die Zeit, 17 June 1999, p. 12; H. W. Maull, ‘German Foreign Policy, Post-Kosovo’, pp. 10–11, op. cit.

42 Jeffery, Charlie and Handl, Vladimir, Germany and Europe after Kohl: Between Social Democracy and Normalisation , discussion paper 11, Institute for German Studies, Birmingham, 1999 Google Scholar. It is interesting that (covering more than foreign policy) their study’s conception is ‘post-Kohl’ while Maull’s is ‘post-Kosovo’. Maull’s account also comprises an extensive engagement with the domestic political context.

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50 C. Jeffery and V. Handl, Germany and Europe after Kohl, op. cit., pp. 28–39.

51 As a coincidental aside, the continuity, and the irony, in German politics even extended to Kohl, Fischer and the Greens’ — former revolutionary pacifist — Environment Minister, Jiirgen Trittin, simultaneously being foci of attention for varying, allegedly illegal activities.