The Process of Strengthening by Germany Its Military-Political Presence in the World: the Concept of Regional Circles

Abstract

The article tries to conceptualize the process of creation by Germany its military-political presence in the world arena. The author explores this process based on the idea of “regional circles”. The key principle of it is the step-by-step spread of influence over the nearest regions and only after it over far ones. In this regard, the example of Germany is the most interesting. During the period of “first editions” of the Cold war Germany was led by senior partners in the military-political sphere. In the 1990s Germany had been going to the role of regional power, and from the beginning of the 21st century it has been going to the role of global actor. The statues of regional power was a result of playing a role of constructor of Post-Yugoslavian political landscape and parallel keeping of strong military-political positions in Eastern European countries in the circumstances when regional states was entering NATO and the EU. During the begging of the 21st century Germany tries to create strong military-political positions in the Central Asia (since the beginning of the 2000s), Middle East (since the middle of the decade) and Sahel regions (since beginning of the 2010s). The article also explores the question of exceptions from the concept of “regional circles” in German security policy and the reasons of them. The paper also investigates the problem of zigzag character of strengthening and the loss of German military-political positions on the regional levels first of all since the middle 2010s. The author concludes about the reasons of this dynamics.