Allies Question Germany’s Ukraine Approach
As the United States continues to pursue diplomacy amid a Russian military build-up near Ukraine’s borders, recent developments have put NATO’s ability to present a united front in question.
On Friday, it emerged that Germany was blocking NATO ally Estonia from transferring German-origin howitzer artillery to Ukraine, while off-the-cuff remarks from Germany’s navy chief Kay-Achim Schönbach—saying that Crimea would not return to Ukraine and that Russian President Vladimir Putin deserved respect—forced his resignation over the weekend.
German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock made no secret of the country’s hesitancy to provide arms that may be used in a future war. “Our restrictive position is well known and is rooted in history,” Baerbock said last week. The speedy departure of Schönbach also shows Germany has no desire to be seen as a Russian catspaw.
Still, the relative reticence of Germany to follow its NATO allies in supporting Ukraine has raised questions over Germany’s position should a Russian an invasion occur, and how far the country would be willing to go in supporting a Western sanctions campaign. German officials have privately said they are ready to shelve Nord Stream 2, a gas pipeline direct from Russia to Germany, in the event of Russian military action, although such a threat has yet to be made explicitly.
The issue of arms transfers remain a difficult issue for German policymakers to follow their NATO counterparts on, Liana Fix, a resident fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States, told Foreign Policy. “Weapons deliveries are very clearly seen in other countries as a deterrence measure, whereas in the German political discourse they are seen as contributing to further escalation,” Fix said.
While arms transfers may be off the table politically, Fix doesn’t rule out further actions to reassure allies, like when Germany led a NATO battalion to Lithuania in 2016.
Constanze Stelzenmüller, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, said Germany’s prevarications stem from a domestic politics that is yet to grasp 21st century realities. It can’t be blamed on the small number of explicitly pro-Russian elements in the country, but rather a cognitive dissonance among mainstream politicians, making them “unwilling to look reality in the face because it would force them to reconsider their position.”
When it comes to Ukraine, Stelzenmüller said, that dissonance plays out in Germany’s decision to help fund a field hospital in Ukraine while other allies provide arms: “I don’t know how we could say more obviously that we expect there to be bloodshed, but then we’re not going to do anything about it except co-finance an Estonian field hospital.”
If the United States is disappointed in Germany’s level of coherence, it is not showing it publicly. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken told NBC on Sunday that the Germans “very much share our concerns and are resolute in being determined to respond and to respond swiftly, effectively, and in a united way. I have no doubts about that.”
“German foreign policy is always slow and incremental,” GMF’s Fix said, citing the country’s initial soft approach to sanctioning Russia over its annexation of Crimea in 2014 which then grew into much stronger measures. “I think it’s perhaps too early to judge yet whether Germany is really the weak link.”