Leon Mangasarian and Jan Techau provide an interesting critique of German foreign policy at Handelsblatt:
One of the problems with German foreign policy today is that it is strategically frivolous. This frivolity is a stance of comfort and convenience. Germany prefers to leave the tough decisions and dirty work of foreign and defense policy to others, in order then to criticize its allies from a moral high horse in a tone of smugness and complacency.
You know, I’d like for the United States to be in that position and I think that most ordinary Americans would, too. The irony is that the reason the U. S. can’t do that is Germany.
My own critique of German foreign policy would be somewhat different.
- I don’t think that “soft power” means what the authors think it means. Both military force and economic pressure are hard power.
- Germany has shown no reluctance to use economic pressure to further its foreign policy objectives.
- Far from being frivolous German foreign policy has had the same strategic objectives for the last 150 years (or, possibly, the last millennium depending on how you reckon things) and has pursued it systematically and consistently, primarily using hard power. From 1870 to 1945 they used military power. Since then (and since recovery) they’ve used economic power.
- The problem with Germany’s foreign policy objectives is that they are injurious to the rest of the world, particularly Europe and within Europe especially for small countries that want to preserve their own cultures.
