The foreign policy transition of the German Scholz government in the context of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict and its causes

Abstract

Following the outbreak of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, German Chancellor Scholz delivered the Zeitenwende speech on February 27, 2022, announcing a series of measures including the supply of weapons to Ukraine and the strengthening of its own defense forces. This was a historic transition for Germany's foreign and security policy, which has always been pacifist. This paper will take the transformation of the German Scholz government's foreign policy in the context of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict as the object of study. And it is the purpose of this paper to analyze the reasons why this historical transition in foreign policy occurred in Germany at this time. In general, this paper specifically analyzes the Scholz government's foreign policy transition based on the analytical model of foreign policy transition proposed by Jakob Gustavsson, and argues that international factors, domestic factors, policy makers' factors, and the stimulus of the crisis are the four main factors that led to this foreign policy transition.