Follow us on social

2021-12-06t142001z_1638800396_dpaf211206x99x278320_rtrfipp_4_parties-federalgovernment-coalition-green

Are the hawks taking flight over Berlin?

The elevation of Green Party co-leaders Annalena Baerbock and Robert Habeck to key ministries should trouble restrainers.

Analysis | Europe

Two months after the German federal elections of September 26th, a governing coalition has been formed: Social Democrat Olaf Scholz will succeed Angela Merkel as Chancellor; Christian Lindner of the pro-business Free Democrats will take over the finance ministry; and Green Party co-leader Annalena Baerbock will become foreign minister.

Advocates of realism and restraint should greet this last appointment with dismay. Given Baerbock’s limited foreign policy experience and past statements, including support for arming Ukraine and for humanitarian interventions generally, she may become an obstacle to the policies of detente and strategic autonomy currently being pursued by French president Emmanuel Macron. She may also emerge as an opponent of U.S. president Joe Biden’s stated policy of “stability and predictability” with Russia.

Baerbock, a 40-year-old diplomatic novice, had been the Green Party candidate for chancellor in the German federal election. Worryingly, and in a break with recent German government policy, she has consistently espoused interventionist views that one leftist American magazine has described as a combination of “aloof complacency, ignorance and aggressiveness.”

This stands in contrast to the foreign policy of the outgoing Chancellor Angela Merkel who, back in 2015, helped put the brakes on president Obama’s brief flirtation with the idea of arming Kiev. Merkel has also been an instrumental player in the four-power Normandy format which resulted in the Minsk Protocol. 

In another troubling sign, Baerbock’s Green Party co-leader Robert Habeck, who will serve as German vice chancellor as well as manage the government’s climate and economic and energy ministries, has also been an outspoken supporter of sending arms to Ukraine.

Retired U.S. Army Col. Douglas Macgregor, an expert on U.S.-German relations, tells me that in his view, Baerbock is “a crusader, the type of person you see in Washington all the time, the type that proclaims, ‘I am changing the world. I'm going to make everything new and different.’ And this would be a big break from the past for the German foreign office.”

Macgregor, who was nominated by President Trump to be ambassador to Germany, but ultimately served as senior advisor to the secretary of defense in the final months of the administration, sees a lack of strategic empathy within Baerbock's liberal internationalism. 

According to Macgregor:

 “In the old foreign offices of Germany, people spent a great deal of time trying to understand the interests that shaped behavior in the international environment. They’d ask: What are Russia's interests? What are the interests in Prague? What are the interests in Paris, in London? That's a very different approach to foreign affairs that we've heard from Ms. Baerbock, who seems to have no sense of the interests that drive things in these major capitals. Everything is about reshaping the world to conform to some sort of ideologically pure and good and morally upright picture that always fails in the end, frankly.”

Given the high level of tension between Russia and the West, Baerbock’s moralizing approach seems ill-suited to the moment, not least because it discourages both sides from pursuing diplomacy. And not pursuing diplomacy would seem a grave mistake, given that the balance of power in the region overwhelmingly favors the Russian military. 

According to Macgregor, the Russians “are telling us that unless we are willing to sit down and come to arrangements that recognize the limits of our interests and theirs, which essentially means no more expansion of NATO beyond the current limits in the East, then they are going to take military action.”

This becomes all the more of a concern now that Germany has a new chief diplomat with seemingly little interest in diplomacy. 

Robert Habeck, (Bündnis 90/Die Grünen) designated Federal Minister for Economic Affairs and Climate Protection, and Annalena Baerbock, (Bündnis 90/Die Grünen) designated Foreign Minister, speak during the announcement of the results of the Green Party members' ballot on the coalition agreement with the SPD and FDP to form a federal government. With 86 percent of the 71,150 valid votes, the Green Party members were in favor of the joint government program and the appointment of the Green Party cabinet positions decided by the party executive.
Analysis | Europe
US flouts international law with Pacific military claims
The aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN 71) transits the Pacific Ocean Jan. 25, 2020. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist Seaman Alexander Williams)

US flouts international law with Pacific military claims

Asia-Pacific

In defiance of international norms and rules, U.S. officials are laying claim to the large oceanic area in the central Pacific Ocean that is home to the compact states.

Now that they are renewing the economic provisions of the compacts of free association with Palau, the Marshall Islands, and the Federated States of Micronesia, U.S. officials are insisting that the compacts provide the United States with exclusive control over an area of the central Pacific Ocean that is comparable in size to the United States.

keep readingShow less
Not leaving empty handed: Zelensky gets his ATACMs
President Joe Biden and First Lady Dr. Jill Biden greet President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Mrs. Olena Zelenska of Ukraine at the South Portico of the White House. (Photo by Allison Bailey/NurPhoto)

Not leaving empty handed: Zelensky gets his ATACMs

QiOSK

So it looks like Ukrainian President Zelensky did not leave Washington empty handed this week after all. According to reports this afternoon, the Biden administration has relented and will transfer long range ATACMs, long considered too escalatory for the conflict, to Ukraine in the “upcoming weeks,” according to POLITICO.

The ATACMs variant that the U.S. is reportedly considering, according to the Washington Post (which, unlike POLITICO says the administration is "nearing an announcement") uses controversial cluster munitions, another old "red line" for the administration in this war, instead of a single warhead. This is not exactly what the Ukrainians had hoped for.

keep readingShow less
Wall Street Journal

Editorial credit: monticello / Shutterstock.com

WSJ conceals Saudi funding of pro-Saudi nuke deal source

QiOSK

The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday that “Israeli officials are quietly working with the Biden administration on a polarizing proposal to set up a U.S.-run uranium-enrichment operation in Saudi Arabia as part of a complex three-way deal to establish official diplomatic relations between the two Middle Eastern countries,” according to U.S. and Israeli officials.

The article, authored by Dion Nissenbaum and Dov Lieber, largely showcases Israeli opposition to the deal. Mark Dubowitz, CEO of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a group whose mission includes providing “education to enhance Israel’s image in North America…” was quoted opposing a uranium enrichment program on Saudi soil. He warned that “we’re one bullet away from a disaster in Saudi Arabia,” adding, “What happens if, God forbid, a radical Islamist leader takes control?”

keep readingShow less

Ukraine War Crisis

Latest