Atlanticism — not nationalism — is driving German rearmament
The policies now being implemented — from massive rearmament to the escalation of conflict with Russia — are not rooted in a cold pursuit of German national interests, but in their negation
I’ve written for UnHerd about Germany’s massive rearmament plan and aggressive anti-Russia posture, and why what we are witnessing is not a return of German nationalism, but its opposite:
The policies now being implemented — from massive rearmament to the escalation of conflict with Russia — are not rooted in a cold pursuit of German national interests, but in their negation. They are the expression of a political class that has internalised the Atlantic ideology so thoroughly that it can no longer distinguish between national strategy and transatlantic loyalty.
This is the long-term consequence of how the German question was “resolved” after the Second World War: not through the restoration of sovereignty, but through the absorption of Germany into the “collective West” under US strategic guardianship. As noted, throughout most of the postwar period, German leadership attempted to balance this with the pursuit of the national interest, but in the years following the coup in Ukraine, the “American” wing of the German establishment began taking over — and with Merz, a former BlackRock representative, it is firmly in the driving seat.
Now the leadership thinks only in terms of alignment with a Western project whose priorities are often defined elsewhere. In an op-ed published yesterday in the Financial Times, for example, Merz and Macron once again reaffirmed their commitment to the transatlantic relationship and NATO — which has always entailed Europe’s strategic subordination to Washington — despite their recent rhetorical gestures toward a more autonomous European policy.
It is telling in this sense that Merz, while publicly critical of Trump, is in fact executing Trump’s vision: pressuring Germany to drastically increase defence spending, take over leadership in the Ukraine war and sever energy ties with Russia. And yet they are presented as expressions of German and European sovereignty. Contrary to Schröder’s courageous stance against the US invasion of Iraq 20 years ago, Merz has also offered a full-throated endorsement of Trump’s recent attack on Iran.
The problem today then, is not German ambition, but German submission. And the tragedy is that this submission is being dressed up as strategic autonomy — a grim parody of sovereignty in an age of ideological dependency. If German leaders once understood that peace with Russia was in Germany’s fundamental interest, today’s leaders act as if permanent conflict is a condition of responsible statecraft. That reversal is not only dangerous for Germany, but for Europe as a whole.
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Thomas Fazi
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I think you are skipping over valuable lessons of European history, if you dismiss local competition.
Germany has since WW II been bascially a vassal of the US on a continent that was basically still militarily occupied, including Germany, deliberately disarmed and kept under it's thumb, while Britain and France, on the victorious side in WW II were more armed, and even have nuclear weapons.
Now not only is the US scaling down its presence, but what is happening? The us is platforming slavid countries like Ukraine and Poland to be its military bulwarks in Europe. The US even stripped Germany of its cheap Russia gas via the Nordstream. Now Norway is the energy powerhouse in Europe, and its gas terminal on the contient is......Poland. Poland is also now the biggest army in Europe:
https://www.thomasfazi.com/p/atlanticism-not-nationalism-is-driving/comment/129390175
These are countries that Germany traditionally considered to be its inferiors.
Germany is now determined to be armed and to, as its leaders keep saying "take its rightful place in Europe".
But yet Germany can never dominate a nuclear armed Russia that has a close alliance with China, although Russia is given as the supposed excuse. So ultimately what we are left with its an increasinl belligenrent and armed Germany seeking to show its nearby neighbours that IT is the top dog around here. Sounds familiar? Do we know how this ends?
It's absolute folly and overlooking history to ignore when Germans start using such terms and rearming. As a famous philisopher once said: history maybe doesnt repeat exact lines, but it sure rhymes a hell of a lot!
The piece contains interesting points, in particular, on the material and above all manpower constraints on the planned German re-armament.
However, as the piece itself acknowledges, Russia’s actions have created the “new post-Ukraine geopolitical reality’. Chancellor Scholz may have failed to act upon his proclaimed Zeitenwende, but this does not mean that a Zeitenwende has not occurred, and the piece does not deny it. Could one seriously maintain that, in the new geopolitical conditions created by the invasion of Ukraine,a cold-blooded pursuit of German national interest would suggest relying on the self-proclaimed peaceful intentions of Russia (actually, not even self-proclaimed, as there is no lack of voices in Russia calling for an expansion of the ‘Russian world’)?
I am afraid that if the two main premises of the piece - inescapable new post-Ukraine reality and unfeasible German conventional rearmament- are correct, then the implicit suggestion is that Germany should consider nuclear armament.