Why Germany Will Not Cross the Rubicon
By Dr. Anne-Marie Le Gloannec

Is there a red line, a Rubicon, which Germany will never cross? While trying to avoid any discussion on sending troops to southern Afghanistan, the bulk of the political class and Chancellor Merkel herself point to a no-go area. Certainly the south is a dangerous place, as it is where over 70 percent of the combat missions are currently taking place. However, it gives U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates ammunition to deride and decry the timidity and short-sightedness of some European governments that choose to ignore the threat posed by violent extremism.

Certainly Germany's dramatic evolution since the mid-1990s has not gone unheeded. At the beginning of the Yugoslav wars Volker Rühe, Chancellor Kohl's Minister of Defense, had forcefully promised that the Bundeswehr would never be stationed where the Reichswehr had committed crimes. After the judgment of the Constitutional Court, which gave German politicians a green light to send the Bundeswehr to so-called out-of-area missions - i.e. missions undertaken outside of the NATO area - medical and logistical support and later troops were sent from Cambodia to Somalia, from the former Yugoslavia and the Democratic Republic of Congo to Afghanistan and Lebanon. Correctly, Germany's allies hailed this remarkable sea change.

However, in the past few years, progress has stalled and German leaders have displayed obvious reluctance to station troops in areas where they might be involved in combat. German Special Forces have been fighting alongside the allies in the north of Afghanistan, and the Bundeswehr will most likely take over the Quick Reaction Force once Norway withdraws from it this coming summer. Nevertheless from the Democratic Republic of Congo to Lebanon and Afghanistan, caution is the buzz word. Two interrelated evolutions may account for it.

Firstly, German public opinion still shuns the use of force. Though well documented, the nuances of German support of or opposition to the use of force have been lost in translation. At one end of the spectrum, most Germans opposed the war against Saddam Hussein, as most other Europeans did; we all remember Chancellor Schröder's re-election, which owed much to his standing up to President Bush. At the other end, most Germans support humanitarian interventions. Yet when it comes to peacekeeping and peacemaking and to the blurred merger between both types of action, German public support has markedly declined in the past few years. A majority of Germans now opposes the allied intervention in Afghanistan. With the passage of time and the death of 26 German soldiers (Germany ranks fourth in this respect), it is understood that Germany's involvement in Afghanistan is a robust intervention and not the stabilizing mission needed to help rebuild the country as the political establishment often presented it. The fact that Robert Gates has dared to use the "W" word in Munich, calling the intervention in Afghanistan NATO's first ground war, is certainly going to pour some more cold water on already-tepid advocates! To put it bluntly, Germans are not ready to go to war - even to defend principled positions. Thus, according to a poll taken by the Bundeswehr's Institute for Social Sciences, a majority of Germans deem it unjustified to resort to war even in order to enforce justice, while a majority of Poles, Dutch, Brits, and Americans hold the contrary opinion.

Secondly, the political leadership has failed to educate the public in this respect. This is for two reasons. For one thing, by a curious twist, the country has lost its strategic thinkers with the end of the Cold War. There used to be fabulous strategists in the fifties, in the sixties - including one who was to become Chancellor, Helmut Schmidt - or again in the seventies; with the demise of the Soviet threat, their ranks have thinned out. Some have retired, such as one of the most brilliant politicians in the conservative party, Volker Rühe, a former Minister of Defense. Others have been more or less sidelined by their own party: Hans-Ulrich Klose for instance, a social-democrat who supported the war against Saddam Hussein and now advocates sending German troops to the south of Afghanistan. The pool of journalists who specialized in asking these questions is more or less drying out. In other words there are very few experts around who can enlighten the debate.

Moreover, leadership is failing. It is not that there are no superb politicians in Germany; Angela Merkel herself has displayed a number of impressive qualities ever since she came to the helm of her party and of the country. Yet leadership is blunted by the evolution of party politics. With the rise of new parties, what used to be a stable three-party system which allowed either large party, the CDU/CSU or SPD, to enter a stable coalition with the smaller liberal party, has turned into a five-party system calling for unpredictability. Coalition patterns are and will be more varied and, owing to the dwindling power of the two main parties, coalitions will encompass more participants, unless a grand coalition is formed. In any case, short-term compromises will prevail over grand visions. The fact that one of the two new kids on the block turns out to be Die Linke, partly made up of former East German communists who revel in populist, notably anti-military, stances, skews the debates. It is stealing voters and members from the SPD, which understandably will have to adjust its message. In other words, the mix is ready for one more excruciating debate over the country's military role. Yet the last thing that the chancellor's party needs is a replay of 2002 for the next general election in 2009.

Dr. Anne-Marie Le Gloannec is a senior research fellow at CERI-Sciences Po, Paris, and is a frequent participant in AICGS events and conferences.

This essay appeared in the February 22, 2008, AICGS Advisor.