In 2024, Germany's foreign policy will work in crisis mode

In early December, the Association for the German Language chose the term Krisenmodus, or "crisis mode," as its word of the year. The term aptly captures the state of German foreign policy.

The ongoing war between Israel and Hamas — which is classified as a terrorist organization by Germany, the European Union, the US and other governments — is only the latest major crisis, albeit currently the most dramatic. The conflict could spread, with potentially devastating consequences.

Israel's security, as German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has often repeated, is Germany's "raison d'etre." For him, it is an obligation stemming from Germany's Nazi past. However, this has not stopped Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock from criticizing Israel's military operations.

In an exclusive interview with DW in November, Baerbock lamented the violence carried out by Jewish settlers in the occupied West Bank against Palestinians. "The Israeli prime minister must condemn this settler violence, it must be prosecuted, and this is also in the interests of Israel's security," she said.

In addition, Germany is also involved in discussions about how the Middle East should look after the end of the war. Like the EU and the US government, Germany remains committed to the idea of a two-state solution. This would mean a Palestinian state alongside the Israeli state.

Russia's attack destroyed Europe's sense of security

Probably nothing in recent decades has challenged German and European diplomats as much as Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Germany, along with other Western countries, has provided extensive military assistance, but still, almost two years later, Ukraine has made little progress in recapturing Russian-occupied territories.

The willingness to provide military assistance to Ukraine is now eroding in Western countries, even in the United States, by far its most important ally.

As the West grows weary of war, politicians are now under pressure to think about ending the war at the negotiating table. Political scientist Johannes Varwick from the University of Halle believes this is inevitable anyway.

"After a cease-fire, I think come difficult diplomatic negotiations over territorial changes in Ukraine, and over Ukraine's neutrality — all of which should be on the table," Varwick told DW.

Roderich Kiesewetter, a Bundestag member with the center-right opposition Christian Democrats (CDU), believes that all talk of negotiating a solution is dangerous and that a military victory in Ukraine is possible.

"It is the West that has hampered the liberation campaign because too little has been supplied too late," he recently wrote to DW. The strategy, he said, must be: "Supply everything [in arms] as quickly as possible."

China increasingly seen as a threat

Much has changed in relations between China and Germany since Angela Merkel was chancellor from 2005 to 2021. In contrast to Merkel's delicate handling of the Chinese government in the interest of trade policy, the strategy paper issued this summer by the current governing center-left coalition of Social Democrats (SPD), Greens and neoliberal Free Democrats (FDP) called China a "partner, competitor and systemic rival" for Germany and the EU. But recently, Berlin has increasingly emphasized the rivalry.

The German government is concerned about China's saber-rattling toward Taiwan, which China regards as a secessionist province, and about China's close relationship with Russia despite its war on Ukraine.

Yet China has been Germany's most important trading partner since 2016. This is why the German government's China strategy does not focus on disentangling the two economies, as this would cause too much damage in Germany, but rather on efforts to reduce its one-sided economic dependencies on China.

Values vs. business interests? 

The limits of a foreign policy based on values, as advocated by Baerbock, are particularly evident in the case of China. In April, the then-Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang responded to Baerbock's plea for greater respect of human rights: "What China needs least of all is a schoolmaster from the West."

"In a world in which the liberal West is coming under pressure, enemies are easy to make if you constantly insist on values," wrote journalist Morten Freidel in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung on November 30. "That doesn't mean that values are dispensable. It just means that they shouldn't be constantly bandied about." Freidel said Germany should "rather formulate interests."

 

Henning Hoff of the German Council on Foreign Relations, on the other hand, takes a more positive view of the German government's foreign policy. "If we completely ignore values, as we did with Russia, then this will have catastrophic consequences, and we are seeing this in Ukraine," he told DW.

Searching for allies

The war in Ukraine has taught the German government a hard lesson: In the global search for allies willing to support sanctions against Russia, numerous developing and emerging countries have turned their backs — intent on continuing trade with Moscow.

Countries that are normally aligned with the West, such as India and Brazil, "are finding new leeway in this changing world order by exercising their freedom not to take sides," said Hoff. The Scholz government has, however, been reaching out to these countries and trying to engage with them on an equal footing. This is "an active extension of Germany's foreign policy so far, and on the whole, I think Berlin is on the right track," said Hoff.

Germans becoming weary of intervention

Germany, Europe's strongest and the world's fourth-largest economy, is expected to play a more active role on the global stage, not least by the US and the EU.

However, this does not seem to be very popular with most Germans. That is, at least, according to a survey conducted by the nonprofit Körber Foundation in September, in which 54% of respondents said that Germany should be more restrained when it comes to international crises. Only 38% wanted to see greater involvement — the lowest figure since the surveys began in 2017, when it stood at 52%.

In addition, a whopping 71% of respondents were against Germany taking a leading military role in Europe. It seems Germans want one thing above all else: Respite from the turbulence of world politics.

This article was originally written in German.

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