Germany and the US: End of an Era

It is not often that the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung publishes articles in English, so when it happens it is worth taking note.  Today they published a piece by the American writer and journalist James Kirchick on the state of the US -Germany Alliance under Donald Trump.  The news is not good.   Kirchick points out that it was always the dream of the former Soviet Union to drive a wedge a between Germany and the United States:

Throughout the Cold War, a longing for strategic nonalignment, pacifism, deeply-ingrained cultural anti-Americanism and postwar guilt towards the Soviet Union all provided fertile ground for Kremlin efforts at neutralizing West Germany. Due to his policy of Westbindung, or binding Germany to the West, Konrad Adenauer earned himself the sobriquet “Chancellor of the Allies” from his political opponents. The Federal Republic’s joining NATO was hotly contested; many Germans preferred reunification with the East and neutrality on Josef Stalin’s terms to taking the Western side in what JFK termed a “Twilight Struggle.” Mass German resistance to American foreign policy came to a head with the Euro-Missile crisis of the early 1980’s, when the German Bundestag barely approved the positioning of nuclear-tipped NATO warheads on its territory. To this day, the largest demonstrations in postwar German history were those protesting this deployment.

The efforts to alienate Germany from the West have only intensified with Putin's Russian.

And as it once again seeks to divide the West against itself, post-Soviet Russia has revived its efforts to split Germany from the United States. The most sophisticated, recent example of this strategy was the Edward Snowden imbroglio, which, while intended to harm the reputation of the United States generally, was aimed specifically at arousing anti-American sentiment in Europe’s biggest country and economic powerhouse. Of all the nations in the world where the National Security Agency conducts operations, it was those in Germany (like the alleged hacking of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s cell phone) that elicited the most outrage. This outsized reaction was explainable not only by unique German sensitivities concerning surveillance matters, but a deliberate strategy on the part of Snowden’s handlers in Russia to ensure the maximum possible damage to American interests.     

None of these efforts were successful.  And with Angela Merkel Germany has the most pro-American chancellor since Adenauer.  Merkel grew up under Soviet domination and, more so than other European leaders, is wise to Putin's machinations.  But what Merkel - or, indeed,  anybody else - never  envisioned was that Putin's dreams would be realized by a US president.

Generations of American statesmen, spies, businessmen, non-profit executives, academics, Jewish leaders, and countless others (this author, a recipient of fellowships from two leading German foundations, included) have worked tirelessly to maintain and strengthen the German-American partnership through good times and bad. Those efforts are now in serious jeopardy thanks to President Donald Trump, who has repeatedly gone out of his way to alienate Germany. Throughout the campaign, Trump gratuitously attacked Merkel, who is very popular among her countrymen, stating that she had “ruined” Germany through her refugee policy. Shortly before swearing the oath of office, he said in an interview that the European Union is a “vehicle for Germany,” when, in reality, it was created largely to tame it. Key members of his administration have repeatedly accused Berlin of currency manipulation.

After his disastrous European visit when Trump refused to endorse Article V, NATO's collective defense clause, and basically accused Germany of being a deadbeat in defense spending, even the pro-American Merkel had seen enough and told her nation that Germany - and Europe - would have to move forward without the bedrock support of the US.

Kirkchick sums up the current situation in his devastating final paragraph:

Of course, Germany still needs America for its security and economic prosperity, and that will continue regardless of who is in the White House. But Angela Merkel’s distancing of her nation from America is only the natural, and tragic, response to an historically illiterate, amoral president unable to distinguish ally from an adversary.

Comments

[Zyme]

"the European Union is a “vehicle for Germany,” when, in reality, it was created largely to tame it."

Given that two tenses are used in this sentence, I would say both can easily be true :-)

The same would apply to the Euro currency, to an extent. Seems like those ideas backfired considerably. I wonder what Charle de Gaulle or Francois Mitterand would have to say to the current state of affairs in Europe.