Germany, Europe and the Persistence of Nations by Stephen Wood

Author:Stephen Wood [Wood, Stephen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, General, Europe, Germany, Social Science, Sociology
ISBN: 9780429850875
Google: UvmADwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2018-12-20T17:43:33+00:00

Military Questions: The Gulf, Yugoslavia and NATO

George Bush's 'Partners in Leadership' speech set the tone for a reorganising of US priorities in Europe.147 Divergences that appeared between the Germans and Americans as the European project revitalized during the 1980s began to narrow after 1989.148 Common interest regrouped despite the diplomatic fracas over the Gulf War. After the Cold War Germany's ruling coalition has worked to ensure that shifts in US priorities do not cause a dealignment with German political and strategic imperatives. If, in particular regard to Germany, 'Europeans have good memories', Americans are prone to 'forgive and forget more readily'.149 It was combined American and German statecraft that persuaded Gorbachev to facilitate reunification, marginalizing the French and British in the process.150 Germany has and is 'Americanising' as much as it is 'Europeanising'.151 Bonn-Berlin is accepting of American economic penetration and an associated cultural presence in Europe which Paris by comparison sees as altogether undesired adjuncts to the United States' role in military security. Conversely Washington regards Germany as Europe's political, as well as economic, pacemaker. Germany's interests and Europe's are 'increasingly deemed to be the same thing'.152 Clinton's 'America is at your side, now and forever' was the type of pronouncement German governments want to ensure in practice. The present coalition relentlessly stresses that the US remains an imperative partner for Europe.153

Polls consistently reveal the US to be considered Germany's most important ally especially in terms of defence and security, but also politically. In a survey published December 1994, 42% of Germans polled named the US as their country's most reliable ally with 27% citing France.154 Many of Germany's political establishment think the same, notwithstanding the effort spent sustaining the image of a cosy Franco-German affinity. German officials working at the American Embassy in Bonn are in no doubt that the relationship with the US is the most crucial for Germany and is perceived as such by those who count.155 In a typically sober analysis Josef Joffe argues that the relationship to the US is auspicious, and becoming more so, because it is devoid of historical enmities common to European nations and based on complementary interests. Without the US presence, post-war Franco-German relations would not have succeeded.156

United Germany's propulsion into the world of fully sovereign states brought with it criticism for early foreign policy initiatives that would unlikely have attracted the same response were it not a 'newcomer' to such situations and particularly were it not 'Germany', Germans were expected to complete a massive psychological transformation and fight in an overseas war before it had registered on the 'mental maps of its politicians and citizens'.157 Opting out of the operational theatre during the Gulf War was then followed by castigation for policy on a crumbling Yugoslavia. Being 'criticised for both abroad confirms the contradictory nature of the expectations and fears which relate to Germany'.158 Not deploying troops in the Gulf cost the FRG DM70 billion 'compensation' and had one commentator describing it as a 'teutonic, double-headed European ostrich'.159 Accusations of 'cheap excuses' were joined by questioning of whether Kohl had any advisers.

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