Principles and Policies: Balancing Leadership in Partnership
By Dr. Jackson Janes and Eberhard Sandschneider

It is no secret that the White House is looking forward to welcoming the new Chancellor to Washington. The agenda for that visit will be one marked by a difference in style, but the substance may not be much different than with Chancellor Merkel's predecessor.

Changing Style and Substance
President Bush and Chancellor Merkel have both signaled their intentions to change the atmosphere between Berlin and Washington. With her recent statements in Brussels about the primacy of NATO in the transatlantic relationship and in her inaugural speech in the Bundestag, Chancellor Merkel has underlined her goal of promoting "a close, honest, open and trusting relationship in the trans-Atlantic partnership." President Bush has also been very public with his enthusiasm about wanting to intensify the German-American dialogue.

All the prerequisites for a positive new start for German-American relations seem to be in place. But there is always room for the unexpected, as the December visit of Secretary of State Rice demonstrated. The furor over reports about the use of German airports to transport CIA prisoners around Europe overshadowed the exchange with the Chancellor in Berlin; this was not expected as a warm-up to her planned trip to Washington in January. What is expected on the German-American foreign policy agenda is a series of challenges that will require close cooperation and coordination in the immediate future. They are not new problems, but they will serve as illustrations of the need for Berlin and Washington to act as leaders in partnership, Germany in the European Union, and the United States with a vested interest in multilateral approaches. Some of these challenges are immediate; others are further down the road. But all of them are pressing.

The Agenda
The problem of confronting Tehran with demands to stop the developments leading to nuclear weapons capability remains unsolved. Dealing with unpredictable leadership makes the choices more difficult; Germany, together with France and Great Britain and the United States, will need to decide when the time for negotiations has been exhausted and when the need for UN Security Council sanctions is required.

While almost no one in the White House expects German troops to show up in Iraq in Merkel's tenure, the situation following the mid-December parliamentary elections will be no less urgent with regard to helping the fledgling government in Baghdad maintain stability and viability. German efforts to assist in the rebuilding of Iraqi infrastructure, training its police and armed forces, debt relief, and others forms of civil reconstruction have been forthcoming during the past two years. While the level of security and stability remains uneven throughout the country, there is no doubt that the immediate needs for assistance will increase following the elections if the government is going to have a chance to succeed. German contributions, directly, within the European Union framework or within the international financial institutions, will remain an important part of the agenda with the United States.

The situation in Afghanistan might look less dramatic, yet the need to maintain a strong presence there is as pronounced as it is in Iraq, if stability and security will be maintained. Here Germany has been playing a leading role, expanding its military presence and its aid programs for this year and into the next.

The tenuous developments following the Israeli pullout of Gaza will require continuing aid and assistance as the two sides of this difficult relationship work toward achieving a lasting peace. Here again, German and European Union support in cooperation with the United States can help keep the balance during the coming months.

There are many other areas in which Germany and the United States will find common cause, even if there are some disagreements about achieving shared goals. Maintaining momentum in the current Doha trade round will be difficult at a time when the fears of globalization are rising on both sides of the Atlantic. Apart from ironing out the details of the agreement, Chancellor Merkel and President Bush will both be challenged to lead their respective countries in making the adjustments required by the need for an open global marketplace. The dangers of a failure to reach that goal are as great today as they have been in the first eight decades.

A decisive part of that strategy must include China as both a competitor and partner. Germany and the EU need to define what that equation will mean in the coming years with regard to transatlantic interests.

As the largest economy in the European Union and a third of the economic output from the Euro zone, German economic growth is of paramount importance for the health of the EU as well as for transatlantic economic relations. The fact that the German economic motor is not running on all of its cylinders is a problem for Germany, Europe and the United States. Germany's anemic growth is straining its ability to deal with high levels of unemployment, government debt, and the increasing pressure on the social welfare system built up during the past five decades. Germany's economic weight within the European Union makes its problems act as a drag on overall growth in the region. A healthier demand within the German economy will have ripple effects throughout Europe, and as Germany's second largest trading partner, the United States has a vested interest in a stronger German economic rate of growth.

Chancellor Merkel is about to steer Germany through some tough reforms that can yield results in a few years. Her primary task is to address the high levels of unemployment by untangling the web of taxes and regulatory burdens. While Washington cannot help Merkel directly with those reform efforts, its own policies directed at getting a firmer grip on the mounting deficits threatening the fiscal future of the American economy will contribute to a more confident atmosphere on both sides of the Atlantic. Given the enormous economic stakes within the transatlantic trade and investment framework, working together on generating economic stability is of mutual concern.

Finally, the constant danger of terrorist threats and the need to find ways to combat terrorism at many levels remains - German-American cooperation has been intensive, despite the current clashes over the use of covert operations to deal with suspects.

These are some of the issues that will mark the agenda for Germany and the United States during the next few months and years. Yet the fact is that in most of these cases, Germany and the United States have not been significantly at odds. The very public clash over Iraq has been more the exception rather than the rule.

President Bush and Chancellor Merkel have an opportunity to set a new tone for a German-American dialogue which will require a candid and open exchange between them and their teams. It will also require developing an effective way of talking about each other to their respective publics. Both of these dimensions are of equal importance.

The Role of Public Opinion
The fact that the image of the United States in Germany has suffered during the past few years has been confirmed by many polls. In the wake of the Iraq war, efforts by the White House to improve perceptions have had limited success. The impact of the pictures from Abu Ghraib, the continuing debate over the prisoners in Guantanamo, and the constant violence in Iraq portrayed in the media daily has created a broad-based criticism of American policies, and in particular of President George W. Bush. Because the United States has such a dominant presence in the German public sphere, there is a great deal of room for such criticism in the media and in political debates at all levels. The United States is very much a part of the German domestic debate over its own policies. And as a consequence, the coalition treaty states that improving the U.S. image in the German public is of paramount importance for the new German government.

In the United States, the presence of Germany in the public sphere is much smaller. Yet, in both instances, the manner in which the subject matter is handled by political leaders or by the media shapes public opinion directly.

The challenge facing Angela Merkel in her effort to change the tone of the dialogue with Washington lies in her ability to convey to her own public that she is capable of representing German interests while not portraying them in basic conflict with those of the United States. The fact that Germany has significant weight in that dialogue need not be the same thing as presenting it as a counterweight.

At the same time, Washington needs to recognize that Chancellor Merkel's ability to engage in a mutually supportive dialogue will depend on understanding how she is perceived at home.

It is not necessarily the issues themselves that stand in the way of a healthy German-American dialogue, complete with occasional disagreements. Rather, it is the importance of maintaining a clear message as to why the dialogue is of mutual value and interests. That message begins with the two leaders and their ability to connect on that basis.

Clashes between Germany and the U.S. are nothing new, yet for more than four decades there was always a rationale that overrode the frictions in the longer run - the division of Germany during the Cold War. During the last fifteen years, a replacement for that rationale has been more difficult to define. Germany's need for the United States remains a multi-dimensional one, reflected in a vast web of security, economic, and political relationships.

Similarly, the U.S. has a set of connections with Germany that is unique among its European neighbors, be it in terms of foreign direct investment, the existence of the second largest U.S. military presence in the world, or the network of relationships at the federal, state and local levels.

Almost All Politics is Local
Thus, the German-American equation is one that reflects as much the domestic political debate about each other as it does the discussion and the dialogue between the two societies. Coming to grips with why these two countries need each other - and explaining it in public - is the responsibility of the respective political leaderships.

As Chancellor Merkel meets President Bush to discuss the future agenda, it will be necessary for both of them to move beyond platitudes and to emphasize the goals, interests and needs of the German-American relationship. The devil may be in the detail when it comes to hammering out agreements on specific policy issues, and the fact that disagreements may be part of that process should not surprise anyone. The important thing is how we deal with the disagreements in light of the goals.

Disagreements over principles can be more difficult to resolve than those over specific policies. The tensions emerging in the recent past, particularly since September 11, 2001, have been in part driven by differences over how to interpret threats and what we do about them. In most cases, it is not a debate over principles, but rather of policies.

The heated controversy over prisoner transport illustrates a debate about principles and policies. That mix makes reaching a consensus more difficult. We see other such clashes over issues such as the International Criminal Court.

Chancellor Merkel and President Bush have an opportunity to restate the principles we share and on which German-American relations have been built. This must be a process that involves talking to each other and to their respective publics about a shared agenda. A clear statement of both principles and the policies that should follow from them will help the consensus-building effort at all levels. It will not eliminate all disagreements but it will help clarify why we need to be talking about them openly and candidly. Leaders in partnership should be able to make that effort.

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Eberhard Sandschneider is the Director of the German Council on Foreign Relations.

This essay appeared in the December 16, 2005 AICGS Advisor and a version will appear (in German) in the January 2006 edition of Internationale Politik.

Please direct comments to: jjanes@aicgs.org