Germany and the use of military force: ‘total war’, the ‘culture of restraint’ and the quest for normality

Abstract

For most of the past century, Germany's attitudes towards and practices of war have deviated from those of other Western countries. After the conduct of war had been pushed to new extremes during the Third Reich, following the Second World War Germans turned into zealous proponents of antimilitarism. Since the late 1980s, the discrepancy between Germany and its Western partners has, however, been shrinking, as Germany has shown a growing readiness to contribute to international military operations. This study examines these changes, paying particular attention to the interplay of public attitudes, political discourse and concrete foreign policy behaviour. Many observers maintain that the development of Germany's foreign policy behaviour on this issue has largely been a response to both (mostly international) structural incentives and (mostly domestic) structural constraints. In contrast, others view it as driven by a deliberate strategy of re-militarisation adopted by a small group of decision-makers. We argue that neither the structure- nor the actor-centred perspective is sufficient alone to understand the development of the German position on the use of military force. Thus, we assume a third perspective, stressing the co-constitutive effects of public and elite discourse, public attitudes and foreign policy behaviour. We substantiate our argument by examining the interplay of these three factors since the 1980s, paying special attention to the two most important conflicts of the 1990s, the Gulf War and the Kosovo War.