Ostpolitik: Europe in Hindsight, Europe of Foresight
Im Nachhinein, im Vorausblick.
Prologue
After the Berlin Wall fell in 1989 and reunited East and West Germany in the backdrop of an imploding Soviet Union and a then-democratizing Russian Federation, Europe pursued an aggressive rapprochement policy championed by the newly formed German Republic led by Chancellor Schröder. This was part of a two-pronged approach designed around the “weaponization” of economic interdependence to increase the cost of conflict within Europe to disincentivize conflict, and a push modernize the Russian economy through trade with its richer Western European neighbors in the hopes that a more prosperous and socio-politically stable Russia would further democratize.
In Hindsight, Of Foresight
Given the present day’s fruits of Europe’s “integrative rapprochement” policy with Russia, the world may be tempted to look back on Europe and Germany’s calculus with a critical eye. After all, siege has dawned on Kyiv and the once-unthinkable large-scale land war has once again beached onto the shores of a Europe that not too long ago swore Never again. But one cannot forget it was precisely the fear of another war that pushed a fractured Europe to pursue peace with her great sister to the East. In the backdrop of two catastrophic world wars and the Holocaust, Europe chose rapprochement instead of repulsion when confronted with the big Russian Question, and the very fact that it did so after more than a millennia-long precedence of war over peace should be reason enough for History to look back on her with a kinder eye despite Russia’s decision to carelessly juggle with the fragile eight decade long peace built on 85 million cadavers–much of whom were Soviet, a fact that Russia seems to forget. In fact, it was Germany that never forgot the 27 million souls the Soviet Union sacrificed to liberate it from the iron grip of Hitler, a guilt so deeply embedded within the German post-war psyche that it mobilized into advocacy for greater cooperation with Russia. Hence, after the Berlin Wall fell and Europe sought to repair its fragmented relationship with Russia, an undersea natural gas pipeline that would later be known as Nord Stream 1 presented itself as the ultimate symbolic manifestation of literally and figuratively binding Russia to Europe through its largest economy, Germany.
Ein Glücksspiel, eine Wahl
While the Europeans were fully aware that their rapprochement policy was a calculated gamble at best, it is also important to recognize that they were driven by a hugely successful precedent of peace-through-integration. Twelve years after World War II in 1957, six European nations signed the Treaty of Rome to form the European Economic Community that would later be succeeded by the European Union to establish a single market, open borders, and eventually a common currency–the Euro. That once-warring nations came together to form a supranational entity that bound members on all matters of social, political, and economic was unprecedented; once-unthinkable; and most importantly, wildly successful. Within the span of less than a century, a Europe that fought amongst itself for millennia had almost completely eradicated even the notion of war, at least within the confines of Western Europe and European Union. This hugely successful experiment of peace-through-integration was very much in the back of the minds of Germany and Europe when it sought to replicate that same success with Russia to the East.
That is not to say that Germany and Europe’s strategies did not have their shortcomings. In fact, Europe and Germany may well have invited the full-on invasion of Ukraine through its response to the Crimean Crisis of 2014, which was lukewarm and uncoordinated at best. That Germany continued to wean off nuclear energy, purchase gas from Russia through Nord Stream 1, and maintain its greenlight position on Nord Stream 2 under Chancellor Merkel despite stark opposition from its allies was a resounding endorsement of Russia’s attack on Ukraine’s sovereignty that practically ensured the events of February 2022. While Germany under Schröder may be forgiven for extending an olive-branch to Russia under the pretense of bridging European peace, the Germany under Merkel’s virtually unchanged diplomatic calculus towards Russia after Putin’s illegal annexation of Crimea was nothing short of weak. Perhaps in light of the Scylla of Nazi Germany’s legacy of catastrophic military ambitions, Merkel herself had fallen trap to the Charybdis of uninformed ‘pacifism’, and it remains to be seen how her legacy shall ever be judged kindly by History.
A Concluding Commentary
True enough it may be that Germany is taking steps to wean itself off of Russian energy, the three decades of the very economic integration and interdependence it championed has unfortunately succeeded–but in the favor of Russia. Germany now finds itself standing over a cliff facing an emboldened Putin armed with leverage that it, knowingly or otherwise, willingly handed over, however altruistic its intentions may have been at the time. Like it or not, Germany and its economy has drugged itself into its own addiction for the vein of gas flowing in from Russia, and the withdrawal will be painful should it ever decide to wean itself off of its energy dependency. The question now at hand that the world is waiting for Germany to answer is not how it will deal with the effects of cutting off Russian gas, but instead whether it will suck up that pain or continue to finance a war on the heartland of the very same Europe it ravaged 80 years ago.