Helga Haftendorn. Coming of Age: German Foreign Policy Since 1945. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2006. xii + 448 pp. $44.95 (paper), ISBN 978-0-7425-3876-4.

Ryan C. Hendrickson. Diplomacy and War at NATO: The Secretary General and Military Action after the Cold War. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2006. viii + 172 pp. $16.95 (paper), ISBN 978-0-8262-1635-9.

Kerry Longhurst. Germany and the Use of Force: The Evolution of German Security Policy 1990-2003. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2004. iv + 224 pp. $79.95 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-7190-6708-2.

Hans Maull, ed. Germany's Uncertain Power: Foreign Policy of the Berlin Republic. Houndsmills: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006. xvi + 288 pp. $79.95 (cloth), ISBN 978-1-4039-4662-1.

Reviewed by Thomas Maulucci (Department of History,American International College)
Published on H-German (May, 2007)

New Books on German Foreign Policy and NATO since the End of the Cold

As the Cold War began to wind down in the early 1990s, it became obvious that international politics was entering a new era whose basic characteristics remained to be determined. As a result, a debate broke out between political scientists who work on German foreign policy. One group predicted that the newly reunited Germany would start to behave like a "normal" state, by relying less on multilateral cooperation and pursuing its own interests more assertively. Another thought that Germany would continue its traditional policy of acting as a "tamed power" or a "civilian power." As Hans W. Maull points out in the introduction to Germany's Uncertain Power, by the late 1990s it looked as if the latter had won the debate and continuity had indeed prevailed. Then came the terrorist attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001, and the Federal Republic under the Gerhard Schröder government seemed to pave a new path that included a brusque public refusal to support the plans of its American ally to invade Iraq. "It is too early to tell, but signs of change are clearly in the air," Maull writes (pp. 3-4). New monographs by Helga Haftendorn on German foreign policy since 1945 and Kerry Longhurst on German security policy since 1990 also recognize that German foreign policy has undergone some significant changes since reunification. However, continuity is a central concern for all three works as well. For Haftendorn, a return to traditional multilateral cooperation is a desideratum; for Longhurst, German strategic culture is still fundamentally shaped by the past; and for Maull and his collaborators, continuity has come too often in the form of the avoidance of policy reforms that respond to the post-Cold War international environment.

Coming of Age: German Foreign Policy Since 1945 focuses on the question of how "the two German states [were] able to overcome their 'triple-bind:' the legacies of German history, the dependence on the Four Powers, and the constraints of the East-West conflict" (p. 399). Although the book is divided up into ten "case studies," two of which focus on Germany since reunification, it is as much an example of contemporary history writing as of political science. Haftendorn follows a longstanding tradition established in the old Federal Republic by preeminent scholars like Hans-Peter Schwarz, Arnulf Baring, and herself. An expanded version of Deutsche Außenpolitik zwischen Selbstbeschränkung und Selbstbehauptung 1945-2000 (2001), this title is to be welcomed as the first major overview of postwar German foreign policy in English since Wolfram F. Hanrieder's Germany, America, Europe: Forty Years of German Foreign Policy, which first appeared in 1989.

Haftendorn's case studies focus on the role of the German states in the Cold War, their respective alliances, and, in the case of the Federal Republic, European integration and the world economy. They are well-chosen to illustrate how the Federal Republic and the German Democratic Republic moved towards more freedom of action, even if this movement was uneven. For example, West Germany's economic recovery and commitment to cooperation with the western powers allowed it to play an important role in European recovery and the Atlantic Alliance and to overturn the Occupation Statute already during the 1950s. But in the realm of security policy it only became a member of NATO's Nuclear Planning Group during the 1960s, after unsuccessfully attempting to acquire, but not to produce, its own nuclear weapons. Its military forces largely remain fully integrated into the alliance to the present day. Haftendorn draws a parallel between this situation and East Germany's economic and military role in the Soviet Empire. Only after reunification in 1989 would Four Power rights to determine the political future of that nation lapse. Despite these gains in sovereignty and a more assertive foreign policy since reunification, for example, in the form of participation by the armed forces in international peacekeeping and peacemaking missions, the author concludes her study with the warning that "there is no central German interest that can be realized without joining forces with other states" (p. 412). This is a reaction to what she sees as Schröder's counterproductive foreign policy of "enlightened self-interest," as well as Germany's recent preoccupation with domestic reforms (p. 410).

Several criticisms of Haftendorn's work are in order, however. The first of the above-mentioned "binds" on the ability of the two Germanys to conduct foreign policy, the legacy of the past, receives very little attention compared to the Cold War and Four Power rights. This legacy influenced a variety of specific issues ranging from relations with Israel to basic attitudes about the use of force in international relations. The German past contributed not only to West Germany's "culture of restraint" but also to latent suspicions harbored by the outside world towards both Germanys, even on the part of each one's allies, which bubbled up repeatedly in international diplomacy as late as 1990. The case study approach also distracts from the fact that one can make a strong argument that the foreign policies of both Germanys already "came of age" after the successful completion of the Eastern Treaties, especially if one does not overweigh the right to reunify as an element of sovereignty. In this regard, little is said about the role of the Germanys in the United Nations, which they formally joined in 1973, or their policies towards the developing world, whether before or after that date. Finally, although the book provides a sound overview of its topic, specialists in international history will find more of interest in the later chapters, which cover the period from the mid-1970s to the present.

Germany's Uncertain Power provides an outstanding overview of the Federal Republic's foreign policy during the era of the Red-Green Coalition (1998-2005). Seventeen essays by nineteen contributors, framed by Maull's extensive introduction and conclusion, fall into several thematic areas. These include the domestic context for foreign policy, international security issues, Germany's relations with its European and transatlantic partners, international economic and environmental policies, and, finally, what the volume calls "the outer circle of German foreign policy" as represented by its positions on developing countries, the Pacific Rim states, and the Arab-Israeli conflict.

The volume's overriding message is that Germany's ability to influence its international environment has become increasingly limited due to a variety of factors. These include a major paradigm shift in U.S. foreign policy introduced after 2001 by the George W. Bush administration, persistent weaknesses in the German economy, and its decreasing influence in the European Union as that organization has expanded to include twenty-seven states. Many of these developments were beyond Germany's control, as several examples indicate. In their contributions, Marco Overhaus, Stephen F. Szabo, and Peter Rudolf emphasize that the structure of this transatlantic relationship has fundamentally changed due to the end of the Cold War, a new and more critical American perspective on the virtues of multilateralism, and generational change. Tensions in the German-American relationship during the Schröder chancellorship arose not because of a striking German departure from traditional multilateralism--Rudolf even denies any "profound change in the orientation of German foreign policy" (p. 147)--but from German attempts to adapt old policies to a changed international context. For Overhaus, the 2003 Iraq War was not the cause but a symptom of a "structural crisis in the transatlantic relationship" (p. 67). In his essay on Franco-German relations, Hans Stark likewise writes of a "malaise" dating from the Helmut Kohl era and makes the interesting point that economic and demographic growth in France has made that country feel less dependent on its partnership with Germany (p. 120). Reinhard Wolf argues that the replacement of the D-Mark with the euro has contributed to Germany's decline to merely "average" rank and influence within the G-7 (p. 206).

These limitations on German power have been aggravated by a reluctance to undertake major policy reforms or set a definite course in certain areas since the end of the Cold War. The Federal Republic's lack of initiative and even "path dependency" is a leitmotif in the volume's various contributions on international economic and environmental policy and on "outer circle" issues. For example, Friedemann Müller warns that progress is quite overdue in the area of energy security (p. 182). Many of the other authors also argue that economic and financial weakness also has set limits on the Federal Republic's ability to promote European security cooperation (p. 41-42), Bundeswehr reform (p. 88-89), and European Union expansion (p. 104). Maull concludes that if there is a "German problem" today, it is because of the Federal Republic's weakness, not its strength, and at least some of this weakness has been self-inflicted. Moreover, when new policy initiatives have been attempted in recent years, they have tended to be reactive and defensive instead of positive and forward-looking (pp. 273-283).

The one area in which the Federal Republic clearly has undertaken some significant initiatives since the end of the Cold War is in its new willingness to deploy the Bundeswehr in international peacekeeping missions, even those that involve combat situations. Kerry Longhurst's book is a brief but elegantly written survey of this development through 2003 that also deals with the overall context of the debate over Bundeswehr reform and conscription. Historians will find themselves on familiar ground with her use of the concept of "strategic culture"--defined as "a distinctive body of beliefs, attitudes and practices regarding the use of force, held by a collective and arising gradually over time through a unique protracted historical process" (p. 17)--as the framework for her analysis. Nonetheless, her chapter on theories of strategic culture in political science is well worth reading.

Longhurst identifies four underlying foundations of German strategic culture since 1945: the premise of an "historical rupture" with the policies of the Third Reich coupled with the attempt to plot new directions; the rejection of the use of force as an acceptable policy option; a "redundancy of militarism" as reflected in a diminished status for the armed forces in West German society; and, finally, a rejection of the nation state as the sole or even the best means of organizing international society (p. 46). These foundations provided the basis for the Federal Republic's security policies; for example, its preference for multilateral action, restraint in the use of armed force, and full subordination of the armed forces to civilian control.

Longhurst concludes that although the 1990s saw a dramatic evolution in policy regarding the use of the Bundeswehr, which culminated in its participation in combat missions in Kosovo and Afghanistan, this post-1945 strategic culture continues to have "a decisive impact on Germany's thinking about the use of force" (p. 152). The Bundeswehr would not be sent to Iraq after 2003, since both political elites and the general public disapproved of what they saw as a case of American pre-emptive unilateralism. Bundeswehr reform has been hampered due to financial difficulties but also because of the persistence of Cold War notions about territorial defense. Likewise, although a transition to all volunteer armed forces seems sensible, Germany clings to conscription due to widely held perceptions about civil-military relations as well as the perceived benefits of Zivildienst or "alternative service" for young, draftable men in hospitals and social agencies.

None of these authors argue that the Federal Republic has finally abandoned its traditional role as a "civilian power," despite signs of a more assertive attitude in fields like security policy. But they all agree that the international and domestic context for German foreign policy has changed dramatically since 1989 and holds uncertain implications for the future. Some current problems, such as tense German-American relations and even Germany's economic weaknesses, may prove to have a short lifespan. There have been signs of improvement in both of these areas since Angela Merkel became chancellor. Other problems, however, such as more limited influence in the European Union, are almost certain to persist for some time. As Maull points out, one consolation is that many of the Federal Republic's partners have been affected by similar problems as they have tried to adapt to a post-Cold War world, so that the current "German problem" will not give rise to a debate about a new Sonderweg (p. 282).

Ryan C. Hendrickson's book describes the role of the first four post-Cold War NATO Secretaries General: Germany's Manfred Wörner, Belgium's Willy Claes, Spain's Javier Solana, and Britain's George Robertson. Little has been written about this office and its holders. Hendrickson's first chapter about the Cold War period provides a nice historical overview but also makes the key point that during this era the General Secretary's role was much less political. During the 1990s NATO was faced for the first time with the question of military action and participation in peacekeeping missions, even outside the "NATO area," in, for example, Afghanistan, and the William Jefferson Clinton Administration displayed an interest in using it as a policy coordination forum. This attitude opened up some new possibilities for the General Secretary to shape policy.

Hendrickson uses case studies--Wörner and the developing crisis in Bosnia, Claes and the 1995 bombing campaign against the Bosnian Serbs, Solana and the 1999 bombing campaign in Kosovo, and finally Robertson and the 2003 NATO guarantee of Turkey's borders--to explore the extent to which these men have actually shaped policy in situations involving military action. He concludes that on the "systemic level," the level of alliance politics, it is the states, and in particular the United States, that remain the decisive actors. Wörner is remembered and respected for trying to push NATO to intervene in Bosnia. But even this famous and in some ways exceptional initiative by a Secretary General did not achieve its goal immediately. Instead, the Srebrenica massacre of July 1995, which took place eleven months after Wörner's death, proved decisive in galvanizing NATO into action. On the other hand, despite their varied leadership styles all four of these men were effective at promoting consensus within the North Atlantic Council and in establishing close cooperation with the Supreme Allied Commander, Europe (SACEUR), who is in charge of the alliance's military operations. Hendrickson succeeds in proving that the General Secretaries have played an important role in coordinating NATO's military actions after the Cold War. If he had examined their role in shaping NATO's policies in non-crisis situations he could have shed more light on their ability to influence alliance politics as a whole and possibly revised his conclusions on their lack of influence on the "systemic level," but that would be the topic of another book.

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Citation: Thomas Maulucci. Review of Haftendorn, Helga, Coming of Age: German Foreign Policy Since 1945 and Hendrickson, Ryan C., Diplomacy and War at NATO: The Secretary General and Military Action after the Cold War and Longhurst, Kerry, Germany and the Use of Force: The Evolution of German Security Policy 1990-2003 and Maull, Hans, ed., Germany's Uncertain Power: Foreign Policy of the Berlin Republic. H-German, H-Net Reviews. May, 2007.
URL: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=13219

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