Tempered Liberalism

The West is not yet lost, the West must not be lost, because the world needs the West. This is the claim Thomas Kleine-Brockhoff makes in his new book of the same title, The World needs the West. With this book, Kleine-Brockhoff, vice president of the German Marshall Fund, intends to challenge the widespread pessimism regarding the current role of the United States and Europe in the world.

Kleine-Brockhoff coins the term "tempered liberalism," a term he says should become the West’s new leitmotif. Instead of striving for universality, the West ought to be aware of its limited reach. “Tempered liberalism considers the West from a different perspective, by cutting back excess ideas and by putting an end to the over-expansion of the liberal concept we have seen in the past decades, all while the hard core of the concept is being maintained, represented and defended.” To this aim, Kleine-Brockhoff evokes four concepts: liberalism, multilateralism, self-restraint, and preparedness.

Kleine-Brockhoff does not give up on the United States, as he expects the U.S.-European relationship will recover after Trump. His book, which will be published next week by Edition Körber, is a relevant and intelligent stimulus for the German debate on foreign policy.