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Germany's rearmament and the death of NATO

By Philippos Tentolouris                                                                             03-03-2022

         According to the famous saying of Ismay Hastings, NATO was established to keep a) the Americans in, b) the Germans down and c) the Russians out. Also, according to the relatively recent saying of French President Emmanuel Macron, NATO is brain dead (since there is no longer a Soviet or communist threat to the Western world). Then, although many believe that the Russian invasion of Ukraine rallied the European Union and NATO, another approach argues that the Russians were outside and with their invasion they also remained outside the sphere of influence and security zone of the West. And this is because if in Ukraine there are vital interests for European and Western politics in general, in the case of Russia the interests are basic and major for its security and survival as an independent and self-illuminating geopolitical entity.

         In other words, all this fuss about the threat to the security of NATO and EU countries is more likely a communication firework, which mainly serves the interests of the Anglo-Saxon powers of the North Atlantic. Sooner or later, its intensity will fade and it will simply remain in the collective memory as yet another flagrant violation of International Law by Russia, similar to that of 2008 in the case of the invasion of Georgia and that of the illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014.

         On the contrary, what in the author's opinion constitutes the most important geopolitical turning point of the current century is the rearmament of Germany, which was announced, on the occasion of the events in Ukraine, for the first time by official lips since the end of World War II. This earlier hesitation of the Germans to allocate 100 billion euros for the reconstruction of the armed forces – an amount negligible for the country's economic data and its profits in contrast to other EU countries in recent decades – is largely due to the following factors: a) It would shake the geopolitical balances in its relations with its neighbors, as it would awaken nightmares originating from the previous century. b) It would redistribute geopolitical power and balance within the EU, as it was and is based on France's primacy in the defense sector, complementary to Germany's respective economic primacy. In fact, the gap between these two pillars of the EU would become even greater if we consider that Germany's economic primacy has been supplemented – for at least the last decade – by politics, as it is informally at the helm of the Organization and controls its decisions to a significant extent. c) It would create strong reactions among the electorate within the country, as the view that Germany should remain underequipped is widely held. d) It would undermine one of the three main pillars of NATO's role, as mentioned above, namely that the Germans remain "with their heads down".

         Consequently, Germany found the right opportunity with a government belonging to the so-called "center" and "center-left" political space (as indicated by the composition of the ruling parties) and on the occasion of an illegal invasion of a neutral country by a traditional enemy of Germany in its long-standing effort to consolidate its influence in Central Europe (Mitteleuropa) and increase it in Eastern Europe (the "Drang nach Osten" doctrine), to achieve what it lacked: its re-emergence as a major military power. The need for military force was also exacerbated by the Russian leadership's indifference to negotiations with EU countries, with its exclusive focus on discussions with the USA. -the supra-systemic military hegemon of the West- as well as the non-fulfillment of the promises for a peaceful settlement of the differences with Ukraine that the Russian government gave to the corresponding German, French and Greek ones. So the argument that Germany, after its rearmament, will "re-enter the Western fold" does not seem so solid.

         Finally, since a) the Russians' claims remain outside the European Union, even in its expanded form after its expansion to the countries of the former USSR, b) the Americans are present in Europe - but with much fewer military forces compared to the previous century - they are moving away or have a tendency to move away from it, as happened with the reinstatement of the "neo-isolationism" doctrine of their previous government and the current government's shift towards the Indo-Pacific and the containment of China as its main priority, and c) the Germans are "raising their heads" and intend to gradually displace France (with a bold reading, we could also say the USA) from the first place in the defense-military sector in the European space, it is reasonable to conclude that the "brain-dead" NATO will soon It could even be said jokingly that Germany's rearmament will cause its mechanical life support to be permanently cut off.

         Finally, it is worth noting that along with the exclusively “pacifist” dimension of German power projection (economic and political) in the European space, the postmodern utopia of the end of history or the collapse of nation-states and the post-national evolution of international issues also collapsed. This, of course, is a separate chapter and the subject of a subsequent article. However, one thing has been confirmed: history takes its revenge, geopolitics returns.