It's one of the great contradictions of German foreign policy, and has been for many years. Germany is one of the biggest arms exporters in the world: It currently sits in fourth place, after the United States, Russia and France. Last year, German arms manufacturers exported products worth more than €9 billion, primarily to Egypt.
Yet at the same time, the German government – both the new and the old – maintains the position thatit does not supply weapons to war or crisis zones. Not even now, amid the escalating crisis along Ukraine's external borders, where Russia's saber-rattling has reached alarming proportions and the US warns that Moscow may launch an attack on Ukraine within the next few days.
Germany's chancellor, Olaf Scholz, and foreign minister Annalena Baerbock are relying entirely on diplomacy. After weeks of peculiar hesitancy, they have instigated a veritable offensive of talks, culminating in Scholz's visits this week to Kyiv and then to Moscow.
Holding back in perilous situations
There are good reasons why Germany has adopted the stance of, on principle, not supplying weapons to war or crisis zones – especially when it concerns a region that, within living memory, has suffered the consequences of a terrible German occupation. The danger of further fueling conflicts if more and more weapons are supplied is not one that can be dismissed out of hand. And it is also true that there won't be any shooting as long as the parties to the conflict are still talking to each other.
Rather, the problem is that in Germany, especially in the governing parties, there is no serious debate about the point at which this position becomes no longer tenable. And this is in part because it is deeply ingrained in the German post-war mentality that, when a situation gets perilous, Germany should hold back.
Polls show that the majority of the population has opposed every foreign deployment of the Bundeswehr, from Afghanistan to Mali. The political parties have drawn their conclusions from this. Germany is happy to do business with the whole world, and that includes arms deals. Where conflicts are involved, however, it maintains its almost pacifist fundamental stance – even though repeated exceptions have been made in the past.
For the Social Democrats, the leading partner in Germany's governing coalition, this attitude goes back to the days of Chancellor Willy Brandt's policy of détente in the early 1970s. For the Greens, it originates in the party's roots in the peace movement of the 1970s and 1980s.
There are, however, those in both parties who have argued for some time now that this position cannot be maintained at all times and in all places. At the most recent Green Party conference, for example, there was a proposal that Ukraine should be provided with more military support, although the proposal did not win a majority. And during last year's election campaign the Green politician Robert Habeck, now Germany's vice-chancellor and economics minister, drew heavy criticism from within his own ranks when, on a visit to the combat zones in eastern Ukraine, he called for Kyiv to be supplied with defensive weapons.
The discussion, however, was not taken any further. It petered out, as it almost always does in Germany as far as this issue is concerned. A rare exception was Germany's participation in the Kosovo War in the Balkans, more than 20 years ago. And that decision almost tore apart the Green Party in particular – the German foreign minister at the time was the Green's own Joschka Fischer.
Decide on an individual basis
What is needed now is an honest debate about what role Germany wants to play – including in military terms – in today's changing geopolitical situation. It has been clear for some time, for example, that the United States is increasingly turning its attention to the Pacific region and urging Europe to take the conflicts in its own region into its own hands.
This will remain the case, even if US President Joe Biden is focusing more on Europe than his errant predecessor Donald Trump did. In the medium and long term, Germany can no longer rely on the Americans, or perhaps the British and French, to do the dirty work.
This is not suggesting that a case should be made for unlimited rearmament or unlimited arms exports without taking Germany's history into account. But although the government's current position is a reasonable one, there are also many good arguments that could have been made to the contrary in the case of Ukraine. There still are. Ukraine has just requesteda large number of German anti-tank missiles.
This is, however, an appeal for Germany to take an honest approach and make decisions around each conflict on an individual basis – always maintaining Germany's fundamental position of restraint. We should also, on the other hand, finally get serious about cutting the number of permits for arms exports. Restraint has long been needed here – especially with regard to countries where human rights are trampled underfoot.
This article has been translated from German.