In the spirit of Chancellor Willy Brandt’s Ostpolitik, Germany prioritised commercial ties with Russia and China over the geopolitical risks they carried. Eventually—it hoped—the autocratic economic partners would liberalise and ‘change through trade.’ Now, winds of change have been blowing in Berlin for almost a year.
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The reaction of German society to Russia’s unprovoked, illegal and brutal war of aggression against Ukraine reveals a culture which it likes to boast internationally as a champion of remembrance, but which in its basic understanding is based on false assumptions and remains ineffective in the face of true aggression and fascist invaders.
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Estonia’s climate neutrality commitments and its simultaneous pursuit of national security mean that it will need to develop and cultivate new zero- or low-carbon, affordable, secure and safe domestic sources of energy. Nuclear energy is increasingly regarded as one of the critical ingredients of successful transition to climate-neutral energy system and as a viable part of the future decarbonised mix of energy supply. Therefore, Estonia is officially considering the possibility to adopt nuclear energy generated by new-design Small Modular Reactors (SMR).
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Russia’s war in Ukraine, Germany’s Zeitenwende, Finland and Sweden’s likely accession to NATO, and Denmark’s opting into the EU’s Common Security and Defence Policy have produced fundamental shifts in the Baltic region.
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Has Germany’s foreign policy undergone a fundamental and permanent shift? The answer might be found in six tests.
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On 18 February, I posted a commentary intended to wrap up a series of ICDS briefs on various aspects of Germany’s role in the security of the Baltic region. Its title was “The Baltic States Would Wish Germany’s New Government to Step Up in Defence and Step Back from Russia”. This weekend, Chancellor Scholz has done just that.
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As a new government takes power under Chancellor Olaf Scholz, it is opportune to ask what the Baltic states want from Germany in terms of their security, and what might they realistically expect?
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In the fifth and final brief in our Germany and Baltic Security series, Kalev Stoicescu examines another of Germany’s key bilateral relationships—with Russia.
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Just a week after the parliamentary elections in Russia, Germans also voted for their future parliament. For Ukraine, Germany’s relationship with Russia is the most interesting aspect of its foreign politics.
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Moscow’s resurgent foreign policy and the undemocratic rule of President Vladimir Putin ended the relatively friendly relations that had been possible between Russia and the West in the 1990s. In the seven years since Russia annexed Crimea and started a war of attrition against Ukraine, the security situation in the transatlantic region has continuously deteriorated. The Kremlin has demonstrated hostility towards the West, crises and security issues have continued to multiply instead of being resolved, and the risk of outright conflict has come close to Cold War peaks. There is an obvious and urgent need to lower tensions, but Moscow prefers to demonstrate its readiness to escalate.
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