This long report from Warsaw’s OSW (written before the Minsk II fiasco) asking whether Germany is a ‘weak link’ in the security architecture of the West is well worth reading in full:
An extract:
Germany’s policy of de-escalation in the Russian-Ukrainian conflict and its efforts to limit NATO’s military presence on the eastern flank, combined with the reports about the Bundeswehr’s problems with military equipment, is challenging the sense of security on NATO’s eastern flank. It gives rise to questions about how Germany would respond politically and militarily if Russia was to undertake more aggressive action in the Baltic Sea region and Central Eastern Europe. Moscow considers Berlin to be a partner who – facing Russian military pressure – might be inclined to negotiate a change to the European security architecture at the expense of the sovereignty of the eastern NATO members. This encourages the Russian leadership to pursue its strategic objective by testing and undermining NATO’s ability to meet its commitments in the region.
And that’s the danger. Contrary to what some like to claim, Putin is a reasonably cautious player. He takes what he thinks he can get away with, and for the most part, got away with it he has. Sanctions will fade, but ‘Novorossiya’ will survive (either annexed outright like the Crimea) or as an ‘independent’ state like Transnistria, and, as things are going now, it will likely survive within a territory rather larger than it has today.
The best way to limit the chances that the current mess, which is bad enough, does not pour across in NATO territory (specifically the Baltic states) is to reduce the danger that Putin is tempted to test the security guarantees (Article V, basically) that come with NATO membership. There are no surefire ways to do this, but a substantially larger—and permanent—NATO presence on the ground in the Baltic trio and neighboring Poland would be a useful step forward. ‘Trigger wires’ help.
In that context, signs of German ambivalence are extremely dangerous, and as this report indicates, they are not likely to go away any time soon. That’s not something that can put down alone to anti-Americanism, war guilt, pacifism and a belief in the protective powers of an emerging supranationalism, although all four of those things play their destructive part. The greater problem may be that Germany’s current position is derived from a cold-eyed calculation of where its economic and strategic interests really lie. I might disagree with how that calculation has been made, but Germany is well within its rights to make it, and having made it, is likely to stick with it.
This is not a problem that can be wished away. It is encouraging that is at least beginning to be acknowledged.