1/8/2024 0 Comments Free Pacifist![]() ![]() The authors of the 2019 book Reluctant Warriors write that West Germany’s founding document “implicitly permitted wars of self-defense,” enabled the introduction of conscription, and provided for the country’s participation in military alliances. The 1949 West German Constitution struck a very different chord: It forbade “wars of aggression,” but it did not say anything about other forms of war. The 1945 Potsdam Agreement that ended World War II called for the “complete disarmament and demilitarization of Germany.” But this was a short-lived goal that soon gave way to the demands of the nascent Cold War. Meanwhile, real German pacifists have usually clashed with their government rather than sit in it. But Bonn-and then Berlin-has always prepared for war, including nuclear war. In the postwar era, Germany has indeed been more reluctant to use force than the United States, Britain, or France. These critics usually do not explicate what they mean by “pacifism,” which can refer to different things but is always rooted in principled opposition to the use of force. Rather, the pacifist label has been abused and misrepresented by those criticizing German foreign policy. In reality, Germany has not been a pacifist power at any moment since 1949. Since the 1990s, critics have seen Germany’s supposed pacifism as preventing Europe’s largest economy and most important power from accepting its share of responsibility for upholding the liberal world order, which sometimes includes the use of force. These arguments rely on a popular historical narrative that usually goes like this: After Nazi Germany’s defeat in 1945, (West) Germans reeducated themselves to become a “ peaceable nation,” eventually earning readmission into international society. Some German voices joined in, proclaiming the awakening of “ Europe’s pacifist giant” and lamenting the “ pacifist mistakes” of the past. Soon after Scholz’s speech, international pundits rushed to argue that Germans had “ turn their backs on pacifism,” portraying the country as having been “ hocked out of its post-World War II pacifist zeitgeist” by Russia’s invasion and shedding pacifism as the “ underlying doctrine” of its foreign policy. As a part of this commitment, Scholz created a special fund of $113 billion to upgrade Germany’s cash-strapped army, the Bundeswehr-the announcement of which supposedly stunned even senior cabinet members. The big revolution, though, was Scholz’s promise that the government would finally meet its NATO obligations and start spending at least 2 percent of the country’s GDP on defense. Berlin would now deliver arms to Ukraine, a small revolution in itself: The Scholz government had previously resisted Ukraine’s requests for support, citing a long-standing policy of not delivering weapons to conflict zones. Scholz announced fundamental changes to Germany’s approach to military power. ![]() 27-just days after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine-he broke this mold to give a speech ushering in what analysts have correctly described as an “ epochal shift,” or even a “ revolution,” in German foreign policy. Yet, speaking to the German parliament on Feb. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz does not have a reputation as a man of big words. ![]()
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