The myth of the ‘German Way’: German foreign policy and transatlantic relations

Abstract

Those critics who warn of a new German unilateralism have read too much into the Iraq crisis. The core components of Germany's traditional foreign policy conception include a general strategic preference for embedding German foreign policy into multilateral frameworks; the goal of a civilised international order; and a preference for non-military means and strong aversion to the use of military force. German policies regarding the Iraq war may have been at odds with one or more of these core components; however, there were cross-cutting pressures that made it very difficult to be entirely faithful to those traditions. Neither the foreign-policy discourse in Germany with respect to the transatlantic relationship nor actual policies in the wake of the Iraq crisis indicate a profound change in the orientation of German foreign policy. But we can expect the strains of further adjustment and non-adjustment to a changing transatlantic framework.