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The policies now being implemented — from massive rearmament to the escalation of conflict with #Russia — are not rooted in a cold pursuit of German national interests, but in their negation.

Thomas Fazi Jun 25, 2025

I’ve written for UnHerd about #Germany’s massive rearmament plan and aggressive anti-Russia posture, and why what we are witnessing is not a return of German nationalism, but its opposite:

The policies now being implemented — from massive rearmament to the escalation of conflict with Russia — are not rooted in a cold pursuit of German national interests, but in their negation. They are the expression of a political class that has internalised the Atlantic ideology so thoroughly that it can no longer distinguish between national strategy and transatlantic loyalty.

This is the long-term consequence of how the German question was “resolved” after the Second World War: not through the restoration of sovereignty, but through the absorption of Germany into the “collective West” under US strategic guardianship. As noted, throughout most of the postwar period, German leadership attempted to balance this with the pursuit of the national interest, but in the years following the coup in Ukraine, the “American” wing of the German establishment began taking over — and with Merz, a former BlackRock representative, it is firmly in the driving seat.

Now the leadership thinks only in terms of alignment with a Western project whose priorities are often defined elsewhere. In an op-ed published yesterday in the Financial Times, for example, Merz and Macron once again reaffirmed their commitment to the transatlantic relationship and NATO — which has always entailed Europe’s strategic subordination to Washington — despite their recent rhetorical gestures toward a more autonomous European policy.

It is telling in this sense that Merz, while publicly critical of Trump, is in fact executing Trump’s vision: pressuring Germany to drastically increase defence spending, take over leadership in the Ukraine war and sever energy ties with Russia. And yet they are presented as expressions of German and European sovereignty. Contrary to Schröder’s courageous stance against the US invasion of Iraq 20 years ago, Merz has also offered a full-throated endorsement of Trump’s recent attack on Iran.

The problem today then, is not German ambition, but German submission. And the tragedy is that this submission is being dressed up as strategic autonomy — a grim parody of sovereignty in an age of ideological dependency. If German leaders once understood that peace with Russia was in Germany’s fundamental interest, today’s leaders act as if permanent conflict is a condition of responsible statecraft. That reversal is not only dangerous for Germany, but for Europe as a whole.

#Allemagne #hégémonie angloamericaine #OTAN #Europe #EU #UE #réarmement #Russie #atlanticisme #nationalisme