Were it not for the new foreign minister Annalena Baerbock, Germany would be a totally lost cause as a U.S. ally.
The facts are clear.
Berlin prioritizes cheap energy at the energy-and-security expense of its European partners. Berlin acts as a de facto outpost for the Chinese Communist Party, unable to signal anything but hesitant weakness even where it wants to appear resolved. Berlin hosts Russian chemical weapons facilities even as those facilities support assassination campaigns against Germany’s NATO allies. Berlin’s attempts to suggest it is a Western partner are often laughable. The only exception to this dynamic is the new foreign minister Annalena Baerbock. Recognizing that European values and sovereignty mean nothing unless they are defended, Baerbock is pushing for a more robust stance against Beijing and Moscow.
Unfortunately she’s a voice in the wilderness.
Indeed, in a gloriously ignominious feat, new Chancellor Olaf Scholz is now seeking to surpass even his predecessor Angela Merkel’s penchant for appeasing the West’s greatest adversaries.
Not even one month into office, Scholz’s government has abandoned the 2%-of-GDP basic minimum NATO defense spending target and has pulled German support for NATO’s nuclear deterrence posture. Now Scholz is taking the natural next step: calling for new appeasement of Putin even as the Russian president dangles war upon the European continent.
Bild reports that Scholz is seeking a “qualified new beginning” with Putin. According to the German newspaper, Scholz and Putin are likely to hold their first in-person meeting in January. The tenor and timing of this outstretched German hand says everything.
Scholz’s overture comes, after all, just as Putin threatens a new war on Ukraine and wages an energy war on Europe. It comes just as Putin demands that NATO end activity in eastern European member state nations, and commit not to expand in the future. It comes just as Putin reverses energy flows to Germany in order to pressure Scholz to expedite the approval of Nord Stream 2 pipeline. There is thus only one way to describe Scholz’s “qualified new beginning” overture to Moscow: that of intentional and unapologetic appeasement.
It’s proof of the Biden administration’s disingenuous delusion in claiming that Germany is a valued ally. The Biden administration has given Germany a great deal since entering office. It canceled a planned U.S. military relocation out of Germany and removed sanctions on Nord Stream 2. The White House has even claimed that Nord Stream 2 actually gives the West leverage against Putin.
But what is Putin to make of Scholz’s call for a “qualified new beginning?”
One would assume that he’ll only become more confident that those “massive” Western sanctions Biden has threatened will follow any re-invasion of Ukraine might not be so massive after all.
Scholz’s government might not be pulling the trigger this time around, but once again, a German Chancellor is helping to destroy the principle of democratic sovereignty in Europe.
