The Paradox of German Power de Hans Kundnani

Abstract

again, as in the years before World War i and ii, Germany seems to be too big to be a european state like any other, but too small to be a hegemon of europe. about 150 years after the foundation of the German reich that once led to a substantial shift in europe’s balance of power, the “German question” – believed to be solved decades ago – re-emerges once again “in a new form”. Germany, appearing both powerful and weak at the same time, has become a political paradox again that is challenging the european community. in his book “The paradox of German Power” the British author Hans Kundnani analyzes the development of German foreign policy since it came into existence as a state. according to him, there has been a fundamental transformation of the political priorities since the early 2000s, causing a new disturbance of balance inside of europe. The modern imbalance, though, is not so much introduced by Germany’s military potential, as was the case in the late 19th and the first half of the 20th century, but by its economic strength and its dominant role in the eU. The problem is thus not a geopolitical one, but what could be described, in line with edward Luttwak, as a “geo-economical” one. By means of its economic power, on the one hand Germany forces the members of the euro zone into austerity policy and thereby creates an “instability culture” (110). On the other hand, recent German foreign policy seems to be influenced more by economic interests than by alliances, which induces fear of the onset of a new “sonderweg” in Western states. Kundnani characterizes this policy as a “strange mixture of economic assertiveness and military abstinence” (103). The author develops his position by illustrating the classical “German question” that evolved with the creation of a German nation in 1871. The large state in the middle of europe disturbed the balance of power by its mere existence, but even more by the aggressive expansionist politics of colonization. although Germany was considered a powerful threat by its neighbors, it perceived itself as vulnerable because of its “Mittellage”, being surrounded by other european powers. it was partly because of this paradoxical situation, that european powers built a complicated system of alliances in an attempt to create a security balance, which ultimately led the continent into World War i. This imbalance problem was not solved before the end of World War ii, when Germany was divided into a western and an eastern state – both significantly smaller and less powerful than the former German nation. Due to its new geopolitical position at the very edge of Western europe, the newly created federal republic of Germany strongly depended on the security guaranteed by natO, which made it a reliable western ally