The Test of Strategic Culture: Germany, Pacifism and Pre-emptive Strikes

Abstract

Germany was the first country to issue a categorical refusal to support the US-led war in Iraq. Some have interpreted this as the result of a clash between the strategic cultures of Germany and the USA, others as a sign that a more nationalistic and assertive Germany is emerging. This article explains the apparently contradictory aspects of Germany’s stance on Iraq by identifying two competing strands within Germany’s strategic culture. It concludes that the German refusal signals neither a reversion to a pacifist stance nor that Germany is in a process of shedding the bonds and alliances that have so far framed the reunified Germany’s military policy. Iraq simply showed that Germany, like most other countries, has conditions that have to be met - in Germany’s case, conditions flowing from the coexistence of two competing schools of thought within Germany’s strategic culture.

Germany's Unnecessary Hegemony: Berlin's Seeking of ‘Tranquility, Profit and Power’ in the Absence of Systemic Constraints

“…This, however, has little to do with the systemic pressures that realists assume shape states' external behaviour. Absent pressing systemic constraints, one may thus join Anja Dalgaard-Nielsen (2005, p. 340) in concluding that Germany's security policy ‘illustrates how German policy did not respond directly to external events, but was moulded by domestic culture’. In attempting to understand the German security ‘debate’, it is crucial to bear in mind that German decision makers largely live in a world in which security policy is an option, not a necessity.…”

“…After 1949, in (West) Germany, ‘never again Auschwitz’ and ‘never again war’ were the defining principles, and this ‘never again’ was to be achieved by giving the German Bundeswehr a defence-only role, safely anchored within multilateral settings (see, e.g. Berger, 1998; Dalgaard-Nielsen, 2005; Duffield, 1999; Longhurst, 2004; Malici, 2006; Rittberger, 2001).…”

Characterizing the European Union's Strategic Culture: An Analytical Framework

“…In addition, and to complicate matters, some EU Member States' national strategic cultures are themselves plagued by internal tensions, with no single dominant political and strategic culture evident. Germany, some argue for example, refused to support the Iraq intervention not because of a pacifist or of an anti‐American strategic alliance, but because of the co‐existence of two competing schools of thought within Germany's strategic culture (Dalgaard‐Nielsen, 2005; Drent, 2008). In Sweden it is argued that a mental gap exists between military elites that view military operations (rapid, high tech, deployable, employable) as the primary mission of the future and a public opinion and a large segment of the officer corps that focuses on the notion of a people's army and concerns itself with territorial defence as the primary strategic mission (Åselius, 2005).…”

Demokratischer Krieg am Hindukusch? Eine kritische Analyse der Bundestagsdebatten zur deutschen Afghanistanpolitik 2001–2011

“…Maull selbst hat den Kosovokrieg als Ausnahme verteidigt, die zeige, dass das multilaterale (Allianz-)Engagement in extremis auch einen deutschen Kampfeinsatz zulässt, wenn zu den beiden genannten "nie wieder"-Maximen die dritte "nie wieder Auschwitz" tritt (Maull 2001). Empirische Arbeiten haben diese Interpretation unterstützt (Rittberger 2001; Buras und Longhurst 2004;Dalgaard-Nielsen 2005;Arora 2007;Leithner 2009). Auch Peter Katzenstein, dessen frühere Arbeiten über Deutschland bereits auf die enge Verflechtung zwischen politischer Kultur, politischen Institutionen und Außen-und Sicherheitspolitik hingewiesen hatten, sieht mehr Kontinuität als Wandel (Katzenstein 1997(Katzenstein , 2003.…”