Germany and Libya
With operations to enforce a no fly zone in Libya underway, one major EU country is noticeable in its absence from operations - Germany. Germany's decision to abstain in the United Nations Security Council vote along with China and Russia, set it apart from its EU and NATO partners on the issue - France, the UK and the USA.
Germany's decision to abstain is in some ways not surprising. Germany remains extremely cautious about deploying aggressive military force. Germany clearly does not want to repeat the mistakes of the first half of the twentieth century and it has become used to seeking alternative non-military solutions to some of the international system's most pressing challenges.
Since unification Germany has, however, begun to play a more active role in crisis management within NATO and the EU. Germany's involvement in Operation Allied Force in 1999 to stop Slobodan Milosevic from attacking Kosovar Albanians and the German armed forces deployment in Afghanistan have been demonstrations of greater German willingness to burden share alongside EU and NATO allies.
Yet, for some, this decision to not participate in policing a no fly zone in Libya has lacked credibility. Former Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer has been especially scathing of Germany's refusal to take part, stating that the German government's refusal to act to protect civilians paints German foreign policy in a bad light (for readers of German, Fischer's argument can be found here).
There remain many unanswered questions concerning the aims and scope of the no fly zone mission in Libya. Nevertheless, Germany's abstention on UN Security Council Resolution 1973 highlights a number of issues relating to Germany foreign and security policy. First, Germany remains extremely hesitant to use military force, even in instances where some of the ideals which it upholds discursively - human rights, democracy, the rights of citizens - are being challenged. Germany is not alone in finding humanitarian intervention a difficult topic. Second, Germany's reluctance continues to have a reverberating effect within the multilateral institutions it holds in such esteem - the EU, NATO and the UN. Failure to agree an EU position with the EU's leading military actors - the UK and France - has greatly limited the EU's ability to play a leading role in addressing events in its region. Within NATO, Germany despite its size and economic clout, is not a central player. Frustrations over Germany's reluctance to consider more dangerous operations in Afghanistan remain, and the USA's ability to NATO-ise the Libya no fly zone become more difficult to address given Germany's scepticism, however valid. Third, Germany has long coveted a permanent seat on the UN Security Council. Germany's abstention may set that aim back further.
Germany's foreign policy has remained remarkably consistent since unification - particularly when it relates to the use of military force. The problem exists however, that whilst Germany's concerns and reservations often have solid reasoning behind them, its calls for greater multilateralism in the EU and NATO on foreign affairs can often sound hollow due to this continued hesitancy.
Dr Alister Miskimmon
4 Comments
Reader Comments (4)
I too think that Germany have stepped up quite well in joining to help better the world against world wide terrorist threats but they could do with playing ball a little more on all things to do with it not just the parts they want. Just my opinion, not sure if its right and sorry if it sounds a little biest, if that's the right word lol
First are the countries selling weapons to this country and then they say: Please don t use them... funny thing. I guess we have to ask the people in this country... if they love Gaddafi they should live with him. If they don´t like him and he is still the C.E.O. of the Libya Mafia then they should be a change, even with weapons. Because of the danger of terrorism it is a clever decision not to come with tanks to this country from Germany....
No country has not right to interfere the internal matter of another country. Germany has taken the right decision. I do not find any reason why France is so aggressive on Libya.
The government’s approach has also met with sharp criticism in the German press. In Die Welt, Richard Herzinger—for years the most articulate critic of the foreign policy consensus represented by Westerwelle—criticized “the shameful way that Germany emerged as the party seeking to delay action” on the part of the Americans, British, and French. Daniel Brossler declared that the decision had eliminated Germany as a serious candidate for permanent Security Council membership, in a piece for the liberal Süddeutsche Zeitung titled “On the side of the dictators.” In the mass circulation tabloid Bild Zeitung, Michael Backhaus referred to the West’s military action as a “just military intervention against Colonel Qaddafi, who has terrorized his own people and the whole world for far too long.” Backhaus offered a remarkable historical comparison: “Just as the resistance against Hitler and his band of murderers hoped for the Allied landing in Normandy, so the rebels in Benghazi hope for fighter jets from the democracies.”
German public opinion, meanwhile, seems to have settled into an awkward place somewhere between these two competing narratives. According to a poll conducted by the mass circulation Bild Zeitung, while 62 percent of Germans supported the use of military force against Qaddafi, only 29 percent supported participation by German troops. Germans, in other words, seem to accept that force can be necessary to avert catastrophe; but they don’t want to use it themselves.
For many decades, the world feared a Germany that forgot its Nazi past or had visions of reviving old dreams of empire. But as Berlin’s current stance makes clear, the true problem—at least for those of us who believe that overseas intervention is sometimes necessary—is not that Germans fail to remember the past; it’s that a particular interpretation of the past (and present) has led one side in this debate to entertain illusions about the diminished role of force in international affairs and thus to rigidly oppose its use for humanitarian ends.