The Carnegie Endowment published an excellent study of strategic changes in the United States’ foreign policy earlier this year with the goal of identifying what factors can best explain why some strategic changes are successful and others fail. The authors looked at reorientations of US strategy at the beginning of the Cold War, i.e. the crafting of NSC 68, the National Security Council document that outlined a strategy to counter the Soviet Union, the decision to withdraw from Vietnam, the failure of the Carter administration to remove US troops from South Korea, NATO enlargement, and the “Global War on Terror” following Al-Qaida’s 9/11 attacks.
This provides an interesting comparison with strategic change in Germany. Like the United States, the Federal Republic of Germany has gone through several important strategic changes since its founding in 1949. These include Chancellor Konrad Adenauer’s embrace of a Western strategy (“Westbindung”), including NATO membership, and the stationing of American troops on German soil, the Ostpolitik of Chancellor Willy Brandt, and the strategic changes which have occurred since German unification in 1990. The lessons drawn in the Carnegie study can be compared to the German case to see why it has been so much more difficult in Germany to reorient defense and foreign policy.
The Importance of Crises
“Crises can overwhelm existing beliefs with disconfirming information. In normal times, people tend to interpret facts according to existing mental frameworks rather than to revise the frameworks themselves. But a crisis can cause people to rethink assumptions if an existing framework has proven to be inadequate for understanding the world and generated harmful consequences.”
In every case on the US side a crisis was important in facilitating strategic change. This was the case at the beginning of the Cold War when the Korean War made dealing with the Soviet challenge paramount as it was after 9/11 with the reorientation of American strategy to deal with what was seen as a global threat of terrorism. In the case of President Jimmy Carter’s failure to remove US troops from South Korea, the absence of crisis was a key factor.
As the study points out, crises are a necessary but not sufficient condition in determining policy outcomes. In the German case, the shock of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 created a realization that the old paradigms no longer worked, and a major rethinking was needed. This was preceded by the realization after the first Ukraine crisis in 2014, when Russia illegally annexed Crimea, that the optimistic assumptions of German foreign policy were no longer valid. Still, the shock of 2022 was a necessary, but not sufficient condition for a major strategic reversal for a number of reasons.
The Importance of Bureaucratic Resistance
“Strong bureaucracies make the United States more powerful and more capable—but they are difficult to change and make change difficult. Foreign policy bureaucracies are highly complex organizations that enjoy a great degree of independence ... They also have strong internal values, cultures, and perspectives on foreign policy.”
One reason that crises alone are not sufficient is that they have to be filtered through a myriad of bureaucracies involved in foreign and defense policy. Different agencies have different interests and perspectives, yet without bureaucratic support, policies can be undermined. In the German case this is even more important than in the United States, given the role of ministerial competence and coalition politics in shaping policy. The presidential system is more centralized and allows more leeway for the executive to change the nature of policy. In the German case, the chancellor’s power is much weaker. He or she heads a coalition involving, in the current case, three parties over which he or she has very limited control.
In the US case the president can use political appointment to help overcome bureaucratic resistance and empower the National Security Council (NSC) staff to drive change. There is no NSC in Germany, and the chancellor has only a small number of staff to deal with foreign and defense policies, most of whom are seconded from the foreign and defense ministries. The limits to staff are a result of the resistance of the ministries to a centralized chancellery driving policy in their areas of competence.
There has been talk, after Germany’s 2021 election, about creating a National Security Council-type arrangement, but this has gone nowhere and it’s unlikely ever to happen, given the coalition nature German politics and the strong independence of the bureaucracy. There are very limited numbers of political appointees within each bureaucracy, limiting even the minister’s limited leeway, let alone the chancellor’s.
As the Carnegie study points out, even in a presidential system it’s very difficult to overcome bureaucratic resistance, although it is easier during periods of fiscal largesse when the budget allows for leaving zero-sum games behind. The insistence of the current German finance minister, Christian Lindner, on the “debt break” and excessive concerns over fiscal balance have limited the ability of the chancellor and allies in his center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) and the Green Party to push through more support for Ukraine and defense policy.
The Role of the Legislature
“Discussions of strategy too often ignore Congress’s crucial role in strategic change. Congressional support was an important factor in overcoming bureaucratic objections to NATO enlargement, whereas congressional opposition amplified bureaucratic resistance in the case of Carter’s failed attempt to withdraw forces from South Korea.”
The US Congress is always in a tug of war with the executive branch, although the president’s powers are greater in defense and foreign policy, especially in a period or time of crises. Congress has the power of the purse and can use congressional hearings to challenge the president’s power and defense policy. In addition, the Senate has power over treaties.
In the German case, given the nature and demands of a parliamentary system and disciplined parties, the role of the legislature in checking the executive is very limited. Rather, the legislative majority is seen as a means of enhancing the role of the government and supporting it. The opposition uses parliament as a debating forum, but cannot influence policy directly. This does not exclude the influence of key legislators and the parliamentary groups on the ministers from their party, but the Bundestag is not a vehicle for major changes in German defense and foreign policy.
The committees, given their specialized nature, can have a limited impact on details of policy but, for better or worse, hearings are less dramatic or influential in shaping policy. As in the American case where the US Congress has more of an impact from when the government is divided, the same holds true in Germany, especially in the current situation of a three party government.
Public Opinion
“Policies that do not directly affect large segments of the citizenry are less likely to activate public opinion. Most Americans have limited time for international politics, and the media focuses primarily on domestic politics and events. A foreign policy issue must break through the attention barrier in order to activate public opinion.”
In both the US and Germany, public opinion – especially on defense policy – is elite-driven. Partisan debate can activate public opinion, as has been the case of Russia’s war against Ukraine and the current war in the Middle East which started with Hamas’ mass massacre of Israeli civilians on October 7, 2023.
In the American case, 9/11 saw public opinion support and drive the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Issues break through the attention barrier when they attract media attention which in turn tells the public what to think about. In the German case the shock of the full-scale war and Russian atrocities shifted key aspects of public opinion, resulting in increased support for defense spending. The problem in the German case is that, despite extensive media coverage, there is still great division within the elites over defense spending combined with inconsistent leadership from Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who keeps sending mixed messages to the public.
The Psychology of Change
“Making major change in foreign policy requires many actors in the process to change a number of their beliefs. Strategic change often entails prioritizing some values over others, adopting new explanations for a problem, or even altering basic assumptions about how the world works. It means admitting at least some error. This makes change psychologically uncomfortable for many and extremely so for some.”
Politicians want to seem consistent and to avoid the “I told you so” critique if they change policies. The expert community does not want to admit its mistakes and careerism tends to dampen the will to challenge established interests, what some in the US have called “the blob,” resulting in a tendency toward conformism and the status quo. In order to overcome this resistance, an emphasis on gains over losses is essential.
In the German case the expert community, especially in defense policy, is much more limited and less influential in shaping public opinion than its counterparts in the United States. Think tanks are fewer and less independent than in the in the American case. Given the years of neglect of defense policy, the strategic bench is very thin both on security and Russia policy. Ambitious politicians and policy analysts tend to focus more on economic and other domestic areas rather than on foreign policy and defense issues. Add to this the German aversion to think about defense given the legacy of the militarism of Nazi Germany.
In many respects Germans have subcontracted defense policy to the Americans and tend to follow the discussions in the US think tank and media world. We have seen this to be the case regarding Ukraine policy, where Germany has followed the American discussion with a certain time lag. The Russia case is especially difficult as gains are not seen as offsetting losses. For the US, the economic and political relationship with Russia was very thin to begin with. In Germany there has been a long-standing close interlinkage, especially in energy policy, but also in broader economic relations with Russia, so that a large Russia lobby existed and the costs of a change in policy are much higher than in the United States.
In Conclusion
“Ultimately, it may be that American strategy is influenced at least as much by domestic context as by the pressures of global context, especially the institutional, political, and intellectual forces that act on the foreign policy establishment. Only the most adamant devotee of the neorealist school of international relations would deny that domestic affairs influence foreign policy. But internal factors may be even more important than scholars have thought.”
Strategic change is never easy even in a presidential system facing a clear crisis. As the Carnegie study concludes, presidents must be willing to spend political capital to achieve big changes. It’s much more difficult in contemporary Germany, given all the factors discussed above.
The crisis in Ukraine has brought about important changes in German strategic thinking and economic policy. The Zeitenwende is real and major changes have occurred. Yet the prospects for continuation of the changes needed does not look good and a key one is the lack of leaders willing to spend political capital to push change. And the obstacles are growing, as the recent elections in three eastern German federal states have made clear.
Consistent and determined leadership is key to strategic change. The Carnegie authors refer to presidents willing to take risks pushing for is. In the German case, strong leadership by Chancellors Adenauer and Brandt, but also by Helmut Schmidt and Helmut Kohl was central to policy change. But the decline of the all-encompassing Volkspartien and the rise of a splintered party system has made this type of leader very unlikely in a system designed to prevent a strong leader. The commendable efforts of Defense Minister Boris Pistorius have been muted by the lack of support from Chancellor Scholz. The United States has been an important external factor in pushing German leaders and the public to change positions. One case which comes to mind is the Kosovo war of 1998-99 where German leaders and the public were forced to reorient policy regarding the use of force out of area under pressure from the US and its NATO allies.
A key question concerns the future of US policies especially on Russia and Ukraine and the extent to which the next US administration and Congress will continue the pressures on the Europeans, and especially on Germany, to do more than has been comfortable on defense. Even in an Atlanticist US administration, this might be a time for tough love when it comes to German defense policy. Failing pressure from Washington, the prospects of Germany falling back into some sort of accommodation with “facts on the ground” will only become more likely.
Stephen F. Szabo is Senior Resident Fellow at the American-German Institute in Washington, DC.
