January 24, 2025

Don’t Talk About the War

By: Franz-Stefan Gady

Nothing better illustrates the German political establishment’s lack of seriousness about strategy and defense than Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s reelection campaign. He portrays himself as a friedenskanzler, or chancellor of peace, who has successfully kept Germany out of the Russia-Ukraine war. To emphasize the peacemaking theme, one of his first acts after launching his campaign was to call Russian President Vladimir Putin—to the consternation of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Germany’s Western allies, who have begun to exclude Berlin and its lame-duck chancellor in their deliberations.

The conversation with Putin went nowhere, of course. Almost three years since the start of the war, Scholz and his circle of advisors appear unwilling to face a simple truth: Confronting aggressors and getting them to the negotiation table requires both carrots and sticks—in other words, diplomacy and military power. For many decades, Germany’s leadership, opinion-makers, and much of the policy establishment have primarily seen security policy through the prism of diplomacy, dialogue, and economic exchange. This remains a profound problem for Germany because it impairs Berlin’s readiness for the return of large-scale war to the continent—both the hybrid war that Moscow is already fighting against Europe today and the hot war that Western intelligence chiefs consider increasingly possible.

Confronting aggressors and getting them to the negotiation table requires both carrots and sticks—in other words, diplomacy and military power.

This raises the risk that Berlin reaps the opposite of what it intends. By avoiding any semblance of preparation for the eventuality of war, Germany has stripped itself of the ability to deter one. That makes war in Europe more likely, not less.

Scholz and much of the German elite seem to have precious little understanding of what a future war with Russia could look like. They appear to grasp neither how a war would be fought, nor the need for preparedness on the home front. This includes dealing with everything from the effects of missile and drone strikes to cyberattacks, assassinations, and widespread sabotage against German civilian and military infrastructure.

Read the full article on Foreign Policy.

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