German foreign policy, Post‐Kosovo: Still a ‘civilian power?’

Abstract

In the Kosovo crisis, Germany for the first time since 1955 joined NATO military combat operations in a major way. While this has often been interpreted as a fundamental major departure ('normalisation') in Germany's post‐war foreign policy, this article argues that Germany's willingness to contemplate joining a NATO war even without a mandate by the UN Security Council represents an evolution, rather than a fundamental change in Germany's foreign policy orientation. This evolution can be explained best as a logical and consistent response of Germany's foreign policy identity which reconciled, through modification, its traditional post war foreign policy identity as a ‘civilian power’ to a radically different security environment.