Matt Gurney: A sea change in European politics

I have a bruise that’s older than the new reality in German security planning.

Monument of the Berlin Wall with photos of people and visitors.

There’s an old joke, old enough that some of you might not even get it. But it goes something like this: the purpose of NATO is to keep the Germans down, the Americans in and the Russians out.

Get it?

Alright, some of you probably don’t. It’s a bit of wordplay based on the three things Europeans circa 1949, inhabiting a blasted, bankrupt continent laid waste after the Second World War, wanted out of the new North Atlantic alliance between the Western European democracies, Canada and the United States. First, they didn’t want the Germans rebuilding and going bonkers again, as the two world wars they had already started a generation apart was plenty enough for everyone. Keeping the Germans down proved pretty easy — its territory was carved up, with the Soviets absorbing some, a huge area being transferred (brutally) to Poland, a little slice being broken off as French protectorate, and the rest being divided up into the allied occupation zones that became East and West Germany. As for the Americans, of course, they had rolled in to the rescue after 150 years of isolation and reinforced (with men and money) the allies at the end of the First World War. But they were slow getting into the Second, and that second go-round proved the much nastier affair for Britain and France, among others. Keeping the Americans in — in Europe, obviously, and engaged with global affairs more generally, was another obvious European priority.

As for keeping the Russians out, that part ought to be self-explanatory.

I was thinking a lot about that joke over the last few days, as I’ve tried to keep pace with some astonishing geopolitical developments unfolding in the aftermath of Russian president Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. Most of the attention has thus far been on the impact on Ukraine and Russia themselves, and that makes sense.

Because the effects are huge.

A friend of mine, involved in global finance, quipped to me earlier this week that watching the Russian economy completely implode on her terminal was like watching a critically ill patient flatline. It’s far from clear that the Russians even fully understand how badly screwed they are; it’s more clear that Putin and his inner circle definitely don’t. And as for the Ukrainians, there is no way to overstate the terror of what is coming at them. Even in the time it took me to write this column, Kyiv and Kharkiv have been savaged by fresh volleys of artillery. The worst is very much likely still to come, as Russia compensates for its military incompetence and lack of capacity by relying more heavily on what it can do: blow the ever-living shit out of stuff with massed artillery, rocket and, perhaps, thermobaric weapons fire.

I'm still praying it won't happen. But a glance at Syria's ruined cities, or at any article about the fate of Grozny after two conflicts with Russia, doesn't inspire a lot of optimism.

So yes, keep the people of Ukraine close in your thoughts, and keep an eye on the Russian economy's obliteration. But also spare a moment, if you can, to ponder the enormity of what we are seeing in European politics — and especially, in Germany's.

I feel lucky, in a small way, to have fallen briefly down into a German history rabbithole over the summer. Nothing exhaustive, I admit, but a pretty good refresher for that country's wild history. Most of you will be generally familiar with the era of the world wars, and I've already capped off the basics of its post-war partitioning above: the Europeans, traumatized by two devastating conflicts, actively sought to limit Germany's power, which is how both the country and its historical capital, Berlin, ended up divided between Cold War enemies. But if you really want to understand what the hell is happening right now, and why it’s a big deal, you have to know at least the broad outlines of what has happened since the Berlin Wall so suddenly came down and German reunification became possible.

As the Soviet Union and its satellite states were falling apart in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s, and especially after the East Germans began letting people cross back-and-forth through the Wall, there was an opportunity for the West Germans to absorb the East Germans into a united country. This was a spectacularly fraught political process. The East Germans had fallen hopelessly behind West Germany economically and politically, and to be blunt, were in a state of effective economic collapse by 1989. But they still had their pride, and simply couldn’t be conquered by some triumphalist West Germany. The Soviets were terrified of NATO advancing closer to their disintegrating country (sound familiar?), and there were unresolved land disputes going back to the Second World War — the West Germans had never recognized the annexation of some of its territory by Poland and the Soviets. The British and French weren’t particularly wild at the prospect of a reunited Germany, either. Reunification required a series of compromises by the West Germans, as well as incredibly careful and delicate negotiations with the Western allies, and equally fraught dealings with the Soviets, combined with some outright bribes in the form of economic assistance loans. Once unification was achieved, though, the entire order of Europe was changed.

And the Germans leaned into that more than most. The post-Cold War security and political order, designed by the French and West Germans, replaced the military balance of terror via mutually assured nuclear destruction with a peaceful European Union. The co-leadership of Europe by Germany and France was a benign thing (at least to French and German eyes), in stark contrast to the two armed camps of the prior generation.

After 1990, the newly combined German military largely evaporated. Manpower levels plummeted; huge quantities of equipment were mothballed or sold off. German military spending fell well below that of other large European NATO allies. Indeed, despite their military history and economic clout, Germany, on a per capita basis, is more a Canada to NATO than a France or Britain.

And not by accident. Germany’s partial demilitarization was driven by a series of considerations, all of which reflected deliberate choices. Germany is still haunted by its Nazi-era history, and even its peacekeeping contribution to Afghanistan was controversial, marking the country’s first major foreign mission since 1945. A smaller, little-used military is a balm to the nation’s wounded psyche. Further, a small German military, and a Germany broadly and overtly uninterested in military affairs, did much to ease concerns of wary allies with living memories of life under the Luftwaffe and Wehrmacht.

And, well, yeah: the Germans also cut their force levels like crazy because, as noted in my recent column here, it saved them a ton of money.

It’s important to understand, though, that it’s not just about the German military, though that’s perhaps the most stark symbol. The country has emerged as a leading force for European unity and liberal-democratic values. Not for nothing was recently retired chancellor Angela Merkel touted as a leader of the free world during the rocky Trump presidency in Washington. Under Merkel, the country tried to live the ideal of the modern Europe, including by letting in a million refugees fleeing fighting in the Middle East, a decision that has opened up political fissures in Germany that remain a problem today.

Much has also been made of the country’s decision to shut down its nuclear plants and rely instead on imports of Russian natural gas for energy. Dismissed by many as foolhardy — and it was foolhardy — it’s also not hard to read a whiff of almost pathetic desperation into the move. If we are just nice enough, if we buy enough Russian gas, if we perfectly model the new amiable European ideal, maybe, just maybe, could Germany cast off some of its historical taint?

If that was the plan, it hasn’t worked, and gosh, it hasn’t worked with a vengeance. Since the Cold War ended — paused? changed? — the Germans have remained minimally armed and resolutely affable and committed to European unity. The country did increase military spending after Putin’s 2014 annexation of Crimea, but it almost had to — the German military had fallen into a state of neglect and non-functionality that any Canadian would find instantly recognizable. Hundreds of billions of Euros were budgeted, and tens of thousands of new enlistments authorized, in the first expansion of German military power since reunification. Even while embarking on this effort, though, Germany continued to shut down its nuclear plants and increase its use of Russian energy imports.

That’s over. Deader than East Germany, as much as a relic as the bits of the Berlin Wall that tourists now collect (I have a fragment myself somewhere in a file in my office, though damned if I could find it when I went searching today while procrastinating on this column). On top of the many billions of Euros already pledged to military modernization, Chancellor Olaf Scholz has committed a supplemental fund of a further €100 billion for immediate shoring up of military capabilities, and has also committed to substantially raise Germany’s baseline defence spending to the two per cent NATO target — an effectively permanent annual boost of roughly a third over the already higher level achieved since 2015.

Meanwhile, the country is embarking on a major review of its energy policies, with an aim to making its energy supply more secure — and that includes possibly keeping nuclear power as part of its energy mix.

These are absolutely gigantic sea changes in German and European affairs. It is a massive break with carefully made and diligently executed German decisions that formed the foundation of the entire post-Cold War European security and political architecture. What’s most astonishing is how delighted everyone is. The allies seem to be viewing the prospect of a more assertive, militarized Germany with relief and excitement. Most interesting of all, it’s polling extremely well with Germans themselves. Almost 80 per cent of Germans supported the rearmament, and Scholz’s own political standings have improved as well.

The changes aren’t a bad thing, necessarily. They’re probably even, on balance, a good thing. But they’re a big thing in any case, and they happened in days. Days! One of the bedrock truths of European politics has been blown completely out of the water and replaced with something radically different since this all began, and Russia’s invasion is only now entering its eighth day. I have a bruise that’s older than the new reality in European geopolitics.

And yet, amid all the other headlines in this wild era in history, it’s only getting passing mention. No one has time to care about this and what it might mean, not when Putin is hitting Kyiv with some of the deadliest weapons in his arsenal. But one thing is for sure: Putin isn’t just killing Ukrainians with this war. He took the post-Cold War political order in the Western world, dragged it around the barn, and murdered it in cold blood. One suspects he’s not going to like what replaces it — a rearmed Germany, a unified NATO and even growing interest among Swedes and Finns in joining the alliance is about the last thing he’d have wanted, yet here we are.

Nice job, Vlad.

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