In other countries such a statement would have been rather tame and pretty matter of fact but in Germany it means grounds for dismissal. So was the case yesterday when German President Horst Köhler remarked in an interview that a “country of our size with an export orientation” must sometimes send its armed forces “to defend our interests, for example open trade routes.”
So far, so good and so true. Yet this is where it gets complicated because Germany is a nation with a constitution, politics and society that is strictly pacifist. In Germany, war should be left to the football pitch or the race track. They recognise the nightmares of the Great War and Second World War and wish to ensure that they do not happen.
That is all well and good but still, what exactly are the grounds for Köhler’s resignation? The man simply told the truth and this belies a kind of schizophrenic attitude that pervades Continental Europe today. Happy to engineer some of the world’s biggest and powerful economies and pontificate on the diplomatic issues of the day but Europe’s power is of the soft variety as it resolutely refuses (save for the UK and maybe France) to deploy troops abroad unless either as part of a peace keeping task force or only under the most extraordinary of circumstances.
For the likes of Germany, France and Italy 9/11 was one of those extraordinary circumstances which meant (initially at least) that it would be quite difficult to turn down the invitation to send troops to Afghanistan.
But useless wars aside, Köhler does have a point because Germany is increasingly facing the prospect that it cannot have its economic super power cake and eat it. It is almost inevitable that either as part of an EU or NATO force or unilaterally on its own it must protect its interests.
The ongoing anti-piracy operation in the Gulf of Aden is an example of this. Germany luckily doesn’t pick all that many fights with people but that won’t stop a rouge country putting a stop to either all European trade passing through its waters or land or specifically picking on Germany itself.
Lets get one thing clear here: Köhler wasn’t talking about unilateral intervention or carpet bombing. He was talking about using soft diplomacy always as a first and second resort but to have hard power as a reserve or even as a threat.
Its a reality that Europe is increasingly waking up to: like America and China it must secure its trade and supply routes and it must do it quickly.
It’s a reason why the European Rapid Reaction Force has been so controversial in both the UK and Germany for largely different reasons. The UK because they fear a loss of sovereignty and even the possibility of being unable to make a unilateral decision when the time calls for it and Germany precisely for the opposite reasons. It fears that it may get dragged into a conflict it neither wants nor is prepared for.
I admire and respect Germany’s enduring pacifism but I also think its time to be pragmatic and work with NATO and the EU to have hard power ready when it is most needed and to not force people from office when they state the obvious.
