Lessons (to be) learned? Germany’s Zeitenwende and European security after the Russian invasion of Ukraine

ABSTRACT

In Germany, the Russian war on Ukraine is widely perceived as a “Zeitenwende,” a watershed moment undermining key foreign policy beliefs. Despite mounting evidence contradicting them, German elites previously failed to adapt core beliefs regarding Russia and the use of force because these beliefs were not only deeply embedded in largely uncontested identity constructions but also shaped the definition of economic interests, which in turn made ideational adaptation more costly. Moreover, Germany’s extraordinarily beneficial geopolitical situation in the post-Cold War era meant that the country could afford not to learn. Although the “Zeitenwende” will trigger significant change, it is unclear which lessons exactly Germans will now be learning and how far that adaptation will go. Given Germany’s key position in Europe and its previous role in shaping the European and transatlantic policy toward Russia, the results of these learning processes will significantly shape the emerging European security order.

KEYWORDS:

• German foreign policy
• post-Cold War era
• foreign policy beliefs
• Russia-Ukraine war
• European security

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the editors and the two anonymous reviewers for very helpful suggestions to improve this contribution. I would also like to thank the participants in the Perry World House workshop on “The Global Order after Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine” at the University of Pennsylvania on April 14, 2022, for constructive feedback and discussions that informed this article.

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Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1 Obviously, these two elements are merely examples of a broader and more complex foreign policy belief system or worldview. For reasons of space, I use these two particularly striking elements to illustrate a broader point that should be specified in more fine-grained analyses of Germany’s discursive terrain.

2 These terms stem from the identity framework developed by Abdelal et al. (2006). The two ideational elements discussed here can be understood as informed by, respectively, a cognitive model and a relational comparison as part of a largely uncontested identity construction.

3 Future research will be able to evaluate the results of this ongoing reassessment, perhaps looking in more detail into the dynamics of specific subsets of the German elites, the role of party politics and ideologies (Hofmann, 2021; Raunio & Wagner, 2020), or coalition dynamics (Oppermann et al., 2017).

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Tobias Bunde

Tobias Bunde is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Hertie School’s Centre for International Security in Berlin. He is also Director of Research & Policy at the Munich Security Conference and lead author of the annual Munich Security Report. His research focuses on German foreign and security policy and security cooperation among liberal democracies.