Why doesn’t Germany leave NATO and instead join the Russian-led Collective Treaty Security Organization?
I ask that question with semi-seriousness.
In a quite stunning submission to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s aggression, Chancellor Olaf Scholz abandoned his Western allies on Tuesday. Scholz did so by breaking from the sacrosanct post-World War II principle of democratic sovereignty — namely, the principle that democratic governments have the sovereign, inalienable right to make policy in the best interests of their people.
It bears specific relevance to the Ukraine crisis. After all, Russia is demanding that Ukraine and the rest of NATO commit, via treaty or another legally binding document, that Ukraine will never be allowed to join NATO. While Ukraine’s membership in the alliance is not a serious prospect at present, the Biden administration has rightly insisted that neither the United States nor NATO nor Ukraine can be expected to agree to a timeless legal commitment to that effect. To do so would subjugate democratic sovereignty to the whim of the aggressor. It would be to shred everything that the post-World War II order stands for and what so many sacrificed for.
History would suggest that a 21st century German chancellor would have more respect for this principle.
Alas, no.
Just consider what Scholz told German reporters following a press conference with Putin on Tuesday. The New York Times’s Anton Troianovski posted the pool report of Scholz’s quote.
https://twitter.com/antontroian/status/1493637928769183750Scholz’s meeting with Putin was never a good idea. But this quote is truly something else. Indeed, let’s not mince words. Scholz has offered a clear-cut betrayal not just of Ukraine but also of Germany’s supposed commitment to the Western values of freedom and democracy. The chancellor has now thrown his support behind Putin’s demand for a legal mechanism to ensure that Ukraine’s people and those of other NATO member-states not be allowed to set their own future foreign relations as they choose. It is at once pathetic and immoral.
Still, it is predictable. Germany’s disinterest in the democratic international order is now defining. It’s a pattern that has been borne out by three successive German chancellors. Gerhard Schroder laid the framework for Russia’s energy extortion of Europe, then prostituted himself to that effort. Facing Putin, recently departed Angela Merkel always ultimately put trade before European security. And now we have Scholz.
President Joe Biden might insist Germany is a reliable ally, but Germany’s own leader has proved it is anything but.
How Putin must chuckle.
