About the🇩🇪🐆wars,🇺🇦FM @DmytroKuleba says this: "First they say no, then they fiercely defend their decision, only to say 'yes' in the end. We're still trying to understand why the🇩🇪government is doing this to itself." Let me try an explanation on grounds of political culture. 🧵
In many countries, governing politicians need to appear strong when it comes to their willingness to defend against a perceived foreign threat. 2/
An 🇺🇸 President will say: "All options are on the table." A 🇩🇪 chancellor will say: "Our path to a solution is diplomacy. But diplomacy also has to work." Essentially, they are saying the same thing, but to different audiences with different political cultures. 3/
Post WWII🇩🇪 will want to make sure that all, really all avenues have been explored, all options are exhausted before the use of force is even contemplated. 4/
There are🇩🇪s, and then there are SPD-followers. They see the SPD as a "peace party" in the tradition of Willy Brandt. They want🇩🇪to ensure escalation is avoided. They want🇩🇪to always bet on a solution by dialogue. To them, "detente" is the🇨🇭army knife of🇩🇪foreign policy.5/
Some of them overlook that Brandt's "detente" was grounded in nearly 4% defense spending and based on an 🇺🇸nuclear umbrella. 6/
They also overlook that Brandt, as mayor of West-Berlin when the wall was built, was a hawk who saw Kennedy as a dove. His "Ostpolitik" initially wanted to induce a "change" in Eastern Europe and East 🇩🇪 that Brandt did not believe 🇺🇸 was willing to stand for. 7/
Today's Social Dems are at least as status quo minded as the country became in 1990 when unification satisfied revisionist aspirations. 8/
Fast forward to 🐆deliveries to 🇺🇦: Social Dems need to reassure their own constituency that they have resisted long enough, have tried all other avenues before one of their own, the chancellor, consents and accepts the ugly reality. 9/
They find this self-reassurance of their own peaceful intentions more important than the 🇩🇪 foreign policy embarrassment that comes with constantly saying "no" before saying "yes." 10/
Do I agree with this approach? No, I don't. On several grounds: it misunderstands the nature of power, the logic of war, the mindset of Putin, and the path to settlement and peace. 11/
As a foreign+security policy hand, I am concerned that this approach undermines 🇩🇪leverage, even on unrelated questions. It will lead to a loss of power and influence. Actually, it already has. 12/
But I would like to ask 🇩🇪's friends and partners: do you pound on 🇩🇪because🇩🇪 does not do what you want it to do? Or because you would like to see this political culture changed? 13/
Are you interested in 🇩🇪 being more hawkish? Are you interested in 🇩🇪moving faster on all things military without consulting with🇺🇸🇬🇧🇫🇷 first, without staying in the middle of the pack? Really? 14/
I am certainly not interested. Staying in the middle of the Western convoi is an insurance policy against some other traits in 🇩🇪 political culture. 15/
While I accept 🇩🇪 not being a leader on all things military, I do not like to see 🇩🇪 as a laggard. On 🐆, it all depends on 🇩🇪. There is no hiding. And it seems, chancellor Scholz is hiding behind perceived or exaggerated 🇺🇸concerns, especially behind President Biden. 16/
My guess: Scholz will come around. He can do more even within the constraints of his party's traditions and within the confines of consultations with🇺🇸. I wonder whether Scholz will insist on agreement with🇺🇸in the same way once a more hawkish🇺🇸president takes office one day. END
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