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Germany Between the Superpowers
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15635 |
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CURRENT ISSUES
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2 / 1989 |
3,271 Words |
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Jed C. Snyder
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It seems a truism to argue that the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) has been and remains the most important U.S. ally. It should be equally obvious that the United States is West Germany's most important Western partner as well. Consensus, however, on the importance of the relationship does not extend to discussions of its health--to the state of this strategic partnership.
Statesmen and security specialists on both sides of the Atlantic now believe that growing uncertainty about the FRG's ultimate East-West orientation has become the central problem for the Western alliance.
Germany's position between the United States and the Soviet Union and among its European neighbors complicates the formulation of security policy for both the Soviet Union and the United States. A succession of Bonn governments have moved Germany to a point on the East-West spectrum that is equidistant from Moscow and Washington. Taking notice of this slow but certain drift, many American observers argue that the next decade will test the strength of Germany's political fiber in ways for which Bonn's leaders are unprepared.
As the United States finds its NATO partners less willing to support Washington on a number of key alliance issues (such as nuclear modernization, East-West credit, and technology transfer), the pressure on Germany to affirm Washington's security policies will increase. This will occur, however, as the left-leaning Social Democratic Party (SPD) in Germany moves to solidify its position in anticipation of replacing the current conservative governing coalition in the 1990 national elections. Chancellor Helmut Kohl's Christian Democratic Union/Christian Social Union partnership is looking feeble, in light of recent key regional election losses and the death of longtime CSU leader and Kohl ally Bavarian Franz-Josef Strauss.
As the Soviet Union faces the prospect of internal political upheaval, Mikhail Gorbachev's domestic policies of perestroika and glasnost will most likely build upon a sympathetic foundation among increasingly giddy European leaders and publics. In the process, however, Europe is unwittingly aiding Gorbachev's goal of projecting a more benign image abroad for his foreign policies, particularly in the NATO capitals. The foreign policy and defense aspects of this new Soviet approach will affect West Germany more directly than any other Western state, including the United States, because Germany's continued status as a divided nation remains the strategic wild card in Moscow's effort to move NATO's European members away from Washington's influence and leadership.
Sources of strain
The Bonn-Washington axis is in many ways the heart of the transatlantic security covenant. It is the dominant alliance relationship for both nations; each has an enormous investment in the common NATO security effort, regardless of how it is measured. But even as the United States and Germany acknowledge their mutual strategic reliance, there are strains in the relationship.
It is too facile to explain U.S.-German tensions solely by leveling criticisms against clumsy American handling of European affairs, though that has surely been an irritant. Washington has on occasion been less than sensitive to Europe's security concerns in
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