Germany Is a Great Power—It Should Act Like One

Mathew Burrows, Oliver Gnad

Politics, Europe

Berlin's national strategy must reflect its influence.

With Britain distancing itself from—if not leaving—the European Union, France increasingly self-absorbed and the United States possibly veering towards isolationism under a President Trump, it will be up to Germany to save Europe. But the signs so far are not encouraging. Germany’s ham-handed leadership of the euro crisis split Europe and paved the way for further backlash over Chancellor Angela Merkel’s impulsive diktat on refugees. From a Germany that once led from behind, we are now seeing a Germany awkwardly rocking the foundations of the European order. One is reminded of Churchill’s pejorative view of Germans as “always at your throat or your feet.” But the more apt quotation is from Twelfth Night: “some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them.”

The latter category is certainly what Germany faces and must now get right. Far from seeking greatness in the postwar period, Germans have done about everything to avoid leadership. Instead, they’ve been guided by two principles, justified in equal measure on moral and historical grounds: “No more war!” and “Auschwitz: Never again!” Every generation since the war has drawn the same instinctive conclusion: because Germany, in Kissinger’s apocryphal assessment, is “too big for Europe, [but] too small for the world,” it needs to outsource strategy to the United States, the EU, NATO or other supranational institutions. This worked well as long as there was consensus among Western democracies and little opposition to “an ever closer union” within Europe. Washington was committed to defending Europe, and there were no emerging new powers.