How can Europeans remain independent actors in an increasingly multipolar world? German Chancellor Scholz's article for Foreign Affairs

“The ‘Zeitenwende’ goes beyond the war in Ukraine and beyond the issue of European security. The central question is this: How can we, as Europeans and as the European Union, remain independent actors in an increasingly multipolar world?”

The German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has written an article for the Foreign Affairs journal presenting his government’s position on multiple urgent challenges the world is facing: the war in Ukraine, European solidarity and the changing dynamic with China, as well as elaborating on the now-famous term “Zeitenwende”, defined by Scholz as an epochal tectonic shift, which he incorporated into his well-known speech in February 2022, a couple of days after the beginning of the Russian military attacks on Ukraine.

“Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine has put an end to an era. New powers have emerged or reemerged, including an economically strong and politically assertive China. In this new multipolar world, different countries and models of government are competing for power and influence.

For its part, Germany is doing everything it can to defend and foster an international order based on the principles of the UN Charter. Its democracy, security, and prosperity depend on binding power to common rules. That is why Germans are intent on becoming the guarantor of European security that our allies expect us to be, a bridge builder within the European Union and an advocate for multilateral solutions to global problems.

Germany and Europe can help defend the rules-based international order without succumbing to the fatalistic view that the world is doomed to once again separate into competing blocs. My country’s history gives it a special responsibility to fight the forces of fascism, authoritarianism, and imperialism. At the same time, our experience of being split in half during an ideological and geopolitical contest gives us a particular appreciation of the risks of a new cold war".

He recalled on the words of former German Chancellor Willy Brandt, who said “what belongs together could grow together” after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the afterwards following changing dynamics in Europe, in which “former members of the Warsaw Pact chose to become allies in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and members of the EU.

In this new era, it seemed possible that Russia would become a partner to the West rather than the adversary that the Soviet Union had been. As a result, most European countries shrank their armies and cut their defence budgets. For Germany, the rationale was simple: Why maintain a large defence force of some 500,000 soldiers when all our neighbours appeared to be friends or partners?

Germany’s business communities drew their own conclusions from the new course of history. The fall of the Iron Curtain and an ever more integrated global economy opened new opportunities and markets, particularly in the countries of the former Eastern bloc but also in other countries with emerging economies, especially China. Russia, with its vast resources of energy and other raw materials, had proved to be a reliable supplier during the Cold War, and it seemed sensible, at least at first, to expand that promising partnership in peacetime.

The Russian leadership, however, experienced the dissolution of the former Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact and drew conclusions that differed sharply from those of leaders in Berlin and other European capitals. Instead of seeing the peaceful overthrow of communist rule as an opportunity for more freedom and democracy, Russian President Vladimir Putin has called it ‘the biggest geopolitical catastrophe of the twentieth century’. The economic and political turmoil in parts of the post-Soviet space in the 1990s only exacerbated the feeling of loss and anguish that many Russian citizens to this day associate with the end of the Soviet Union”.

Chancellor Scholz recalled on the aggressive military actions that followed after Putin’s speech at the Munich Security Conference in 2007: the war against Georgia, the annexation of Crimea and Russian troop deployment into the Donbas region.

“The years that followed saw the Kremlin undercut arms control treaties and expand its military capabilities, poison and murder Russian dissidents, crack down on civil society, and carry out a brutal military intervention in support of the Assad regime in Syria. Step by step, Putin’s Russia chose a path that took it further from Europe and further from a cooperative, peaceful order.

During the eight years that followed the illegal annexation of Crimea and the outbreak of conflict in eastern Ukraine, Germany and its European and international partners in the G-7 focused on safeguarding the sovereignty and political independence of Ukraine, preventing further escalation by Russia and restoring and preserving peace in Europe.

The approach chosen was a combination of political and economic pressure that coupled restrictive measures on Russia with dialogue. […] Despite setbacks and a lack of trust between Moscow and Kyiv, Germany and France kept the process running. But a revisionist Russia made it impossible for diplomacy to succeed”.

“Imperialsm had returned to Europe”, is how Scholz refers to the new reality that emerged after February 2022 and the “unspeakable suffering” that Russia caused in Ukraine.

Scholz cautioned in his article, that “Mariupol, Irpin, Kherson, Izyum: these places will forever serve to remind the world of Russia’s crimes—and the perpetrators must be brought to justice”.

“For the last three decades, decisions regarding Germany’s security and the equipment of the country’s armed forces were taken against the backdrop of a Europe at peace. Now, the guiding question will be which threats we and our allies must confront in Europe, most immediately from Russia.
The transatlantic partnership is and remains vital to confronting these challenges. U.S. President Joe Biden and his administration deserve praise for building and investing in strong partnerships and alliances across the globe. But a balanced and resilient transatlantic partnership also requires that Germany and Europe play active roles.

One of the first decisions that my government made in the aftermath of Russia’s attack on Ukraine was to designate a special fund of approximately $100 billion to better equip our armed forces, the Bundeswehr. We even changed our constitution to set up this fund. This decision marks the starkest change in German security policy since the establishment of the Bundeswehr in 1955”, Scholz said, referring to the major policy changes announced in his speech to the Bundestag on February 27 following the Russian attack on Ukraine, including changes to the defence industry.

Elaborating on his coined term, he wrote, that "In today’s densely interconnected world, the goal of advancing peace, prosperity, and human freedom calls for a different mindset and different tools. Developing that mindset and those tools is ultimately what the 'Zeitenwende' is all about".