Cowardly Eagle: Germany’s Geopolitical Weakness despite Economic Dominance

By all economic measures, Germany should be the unquestioned European superpower, with all the nations of the world rushing to court or accommodate it. However, Germany’s lack of political and military engagement have made it a frustrating ally and a tempting target. This article shall analyse the nature, reasons and implications of this geopolitical weakness and tragic under-performance.

In many ways, Germany is the opposite of the Russia as characterised in an earlier article. It is not a desperate weak power vying for superpower status through elaborate strategy that allows it to far over-perform its meagre tangible assets. Rather, it possesses absolutely massive economic resources with twice the GDP of Russia, is empowered by substantial technological leadership and has strong historically rooted ties with the international system through its membership in NATO and leading position in the EU. How then, can the world’s fourth largest economy with a strong political system under-perform so badly? As will be evident in this article, it is not a question of poor resources, but of consistently bad strategy.

Rotting Eggs, All in One Basket: NATO Reliance and Institutional Atrophy

There have been many, many, many recorded instances of the astounding decay and hollowing of the Germany military, across the different services. In 2014, cancelled purchases and general underfunding meant that only 42 out of 109 of the critical Eurofighter jet were ready for use due to a lack of spare parts. In 2017, the German military had 21,000 unfilled positions, despite an overall shrinking of the military since the Cold War. In 2020, a leaked Bundeswehr report indicated that out of 152 military helicopters, only 20 were ready for use. These problems can broadly be attributed to a lack of political will to expand defence spending stemming from a complacent over-reliance on the NATO alliance and NATO allies (primarily the US) for German security.

This problem, however, goes even deeper beyond the material equipment possessed (and not possessed) by the German military. Civilian and military power projection overseas have been lacking, and the respective institutions behind these processes have withered greatly. While Germany should theoretically be the de facto leader of the EU due to its economic clout, France has managed to dominate instead, especially with regard to pioneering EU military centralization, taking the initiative in attempts to rescue the Iran Deal and controlling the debate on EU expansion. In Germany’s very backyard of Central Europe, it has merely watched as the Eurosceptic (and occasionally eerily pro-Russian) bloc known as the Visegrad Four (consisting of Hungary, Poland, Czechia and Slovakia) emerged. In characteristic German fashion, it has refused to consider using its massive economic leverage in the form of investment in these countries to call for any sort of political shift away from increasing populist authoritarianism. Thus, German investment has failed to contain, and ultimately served to fuel the growth of states hostile to German interests right on German borders through providing them with the cash needed to sustain significant economic growth. In the military institutional sphere, observers have noted an intense civil-military gap, with civilian leaders and populations completely uninterested in military strategy of any kind, resulting in a lack of strategic culture or any sort of public debate and scrutiny over military leaders and policy. To put it simply, when the public doesn’t care about the quality of military leadership, equipment or strategy, it is far harder to bring in political accountability mechanisms to eliminate bad leadership, equipment and strategy or push political and financial investment into good leadership, equipment and strategy.

This institutional degeneration and reliance on NATO proved toxic to not just Germany’s strategic autonomy and actions, but also Germany’s role as a NATO ally. To ensure that the alliance remains militarily strong without relying too much on sole US participation, NATO obligates all members to grant their militaries funding of at least 2% of their respective GDPs. In this respect, Germany has failed terribly, with only a 1.2% GDP commitment (and is even struggling to follow a commitment to reach 1.5% by 2025).
Of course, it could be argued that budget numbers are not everything and that states can contribute in different ways not reflected in military funding, such as the Lithuanian private sector’s pioneering efforts against fighting Russian disinformation (though worth noting that Lithuania can still hit the 2% commitment even with this other effort). However, even by this standard, Germany has failed to produce any new significant tools. In real exercises, German performance has been even more dismal. In a February 2019 NATO military exercise, Panzergrenadier Battalion 371 (part of NATO’s Rapid Response Force) found itself lacking pistols and night vision goggles. It also found itself lacking machine guns, and as a result was forced to paint broomsticks black as simulated machine guns in order to continue with the simulation. It lacked so much equipment, that even after borrowing more than 14300 pieces from other Bundeswehr units, it still lacked equipment. This is worth repeating:

This is the German elite, stealing equipment from the rest of the Bundeswehr, and still failing to meet equipment standards.

This military void, combined with a declining civilian foreign policy posture which could otherwise be used by the alliance, has had several negative outcomes. Firstly, it has made NATO far weaker than it could be, especially if one considers how much Germany could bring to the table in even only material terms due to its massive GDP. A weaker NATO has created a NATO with a less credible deterrent against Russian aggression, and thus has likely contributed to growing Russian aggression. Secondly, it has set a bad precedent as a noncompliant, skiving NATO member, dividing NATO into effective security makers and security takers. While it certainly is not the only state (others include Belgium and Luxembourg), it is by far the biggest offender and this prominent example has justified and incentivized tardiness in these other states. This split between makers and takers has alienated the Americans, who have to make up the security balance to ensure NATO security, which arguably contributed to the anti-alliance anti-multilateral sentiment which birthed the Trump movement.

Once again, it is worth remembering Germany’s position- it has tied its life to NATO. It is not France with a well-developed network outside NATO and a strong leading and charismatic position as the foreign-defence policy architect of a new EU, as detailed in a previous article. It is not the UK with its own separate special agreements and defence-intelligence cooperation with partners outside the NATO framework such as the Five Eyes network. It is in a bizarre, ridiculous and stupid scenario- Germany has effectively demilitarized because it thinks it can rely on NATO while Germany’s demilitarization has made it a bane to the overall health and strength of NATO.

Feeding the Bear: Russian Appeasement and Chinese Infiltration?

However, German foreign policy failings do not stop at the double disaster of overreliance and undermining of NATO. In its single-minded focus on the economy, it also found its way into directly effectively appeasing its principal security threat – Russia.

German need for Russian oil is nothing new to both political scientists and historians. Arguably, it was the impetus for both the non-aggression pact as well as the war between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany. However, Germany’s refusal to consider the overlap between economic trade and geopolitics has allowed Russia to compartmentalize its aggression into Europe away from its profitable natural gas trade, thus allowing Germany to fuel the Russian advance. In spite of an increasing pattern of Russian aggression everywhere from Abkhazia and South Ossetia in the Caucasus and the Crimea and Donbass in Ukraine to recent moves towards Belarusian integration and likely future full annexation, Germany has sustained and increased its purchase of Russian natural gas, through constructing the new Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline.
This is dangerous for three reasons: Firstly, German purchase of Russian gas fuels the Russian war machine, granting Germany moral complicity in the usual reptilian skulduggery of the Russian state. Secondly, continuing to purchase cheap Russian gas prevents the growth of the German and broader European energy industry, thus serving to prevent Europe from attaining genuine energy security and tying Europe’s survival (especially during the winter) with the Russian gas industry. Lastly, German purchase of Russian gas has worsened the already bad German-NATO and German-US relationship, with the latest development being US sanctions on firms related to Nord Stream 2, weakening the security relationship that protects Germany from the very Russian aggression that its gas purchases support.

For these very same reasons, it is also worth examining Germany’s ongoing response to China 4G infrastructure proposals. The same question and consequences await Germany: the iron choice between cost savings and (at least partial) security compromise through dealing with Huawei or having to develop domestic or at least European alternatives like Ericsson and ensuring relative security of Germany as well as the greater EU-NATO networks. While debate over its response still echoes within the German halls of government, its track record with the Russians does not look particularly promising for German and European security and sovereignty.

Trade-Tinted Glasses: Pacifist-Neoliberal Fantasies and Resultant Miscalculations

It is clear that Germany has neglected to reinforce its position in Europe, and it is clear that this neglect has been ongoing for a very long period. To understand how Germany got into this unenviable position, it is critical to understand the running psychology and ideology behind its policies. For obvious historical reasons, the Germans are not fond of war or armies. Thus, it is perfectly understandable that Germany sought the neoliberal path, of focusing on economic expansion and trade liberalisation to ensure security and the spread of ideas and cultures, in order to facilitate the removal of racism and authoritarianism. Keeping in mind that additional economic interdependence from trade could reduce conflict, it was hoped that this would secure the future of not nations and empires, but a greater humanity.

On this logic, they made several incredibly flawed assumptions. They believed that if they expanded trade liberalisation across the world, then expanded exchanges of goods, services and ideas would result in a sustainable global democratic revolution of globalism and individual rights over nationalist collectivist authoritarianism in a spectacular final liberal triumph. Of course, this mistake is not a uniquely German mistake. It was this same line of reasoning that convinced the United States to fight for China’s integration into the world economy and specifically 2001 entry into the World Trade Organization despite no clear indication of significant Chinese will for political or economic reform. However, perhaps due to its horrific past with theories of national, race, class and great power struggle, Germany has invested far more of its overall grand strategy into this flawed theory than other great powers, which still ensured that their geopolitical postures were well-rounded in military, political, economic and broader social power projection. As made evident throughout this article, Germany made very few direct political or military efforts towards promoting democracy or German interests, instead preferring to hope that political and wider societal reform would naturally flow from expanded, liberalised trade. This allowed Germany to overestimate its contribution to regional security, while deceiving it (or allowing it to delude itself) into participating economic activity that would strengthen rather than reform dangerous regimes, in the process also allowing these same institutions that would normally promote national interests to rot.

Conclusion

Germany’s strategy is unsustainable. It possesses great wealth, yet relies on others to protect its wealth, while accommodating those who wish to feast upon its flesh. It irritates its security partners by courting its security threats. It is gripped by a global narrative of Germany as a passive loser, as a perfidious leech and as an easy victim. Even if inaccurate, these narratives are not likely to work to German advantage. It is doubly troubling that the individuals who oversaw (or at least proved unable to stop) this material and institutional decay are now assuming the highest of offices, with former Defence Ministers von der Leyen and Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer becoming European Commission President and heir apparent to the ruling CDU party of Germany respectively. Time will tell if Germany can correct this disturbing direction and reconstruct its institutions to build a path back to international respectability and glory.

UnderStated

Cowardly Eagle: Germany’s Geopolitical Weakness despite Economic Dominance

Rotting Eggs, All in One Basket: NATO Reliance and Institutional Atrophy

Feeding the Bear: Russian Appeasement and Chinese Infiltration?

Trade-Tinted Glasses: Pacifist-Neoliberal Fantasies and Resultant Miscalculations

Conclusion

Further Reading

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Cowardly Eagle: Germany’s Geopolitical Weakness despite Economic Dominance

Rotting Eggs, All in One Basket: NATO Reliance and Institutional Atrophy

Feeding the Bear: Russian Appeasement and Chinese Infiltration?

Trade-Tinted Glasses: Pacifist-Neoliberal Fantasies and Resultant Miscalculations

Conclusion

Further Reading

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