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Germany's turnaround changes everything for Putin

The 70-year-old era that favored Russia and protected the country from the West is over

Of:Sławomir Sierakowski

PUBLISHED: TODAY 04.00

This is a cultural article that is part of Aftonbladet's opinion journalism.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz gave a speech to the Bundestag on Sunday in which he announced the country's drastic changes in policy.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz gave a speech to the Bundestag on Sunday in which he announced the country's drastic changes in policy.

The entire network of influence that Putin has been weaving across Europe for twenty years took the Ukrainians three days to tear down. The consequence of this was that he punished himself. He got out of Europe, he got out of the world economy, he hung like a millstone around the neck of the Chinese.

He had a Germany that was kind-hearted and poorly equipped; a country that financed his state budget in exchange for gas, and annually went half-hearted on NATO.

Now he has a Germany that has made a complete turnaround politically, and in fact also in terms of his self-image. It is over now, the German era marked by pacifism, passivity zeal and pro-Russian Eastern politics - all that was so favorable to Russia and protected the country from the West for 70 years.

Almost overnight, Berlin took the lead

Germany's old line made a strong contribution to pumping up the Kremlin's pride and self-confidence; the new one evokes the deepest offense. In Russia, pride is no less important than territory. For Putin, who is as obsessed with things as any tsar before him, the drastic shift in Germany's course came as a severe blow. That is exactly why he put his nuclear weapons into combat readiness.

Almost overnight, Berlin took the lead in four key areas: the imposition of new sanctions on Russia, the formulation of defense policy, the counteracting of gas dependence, and the armed assistance to Ukraine. Germany is now responsible for the deadliest support: 500 Stinger robots and 1,000 anti-tank robots. By way of comparison, the decisive factor in the bloody war of the Soviet Union in Afghanistan was the 500 Stinger robots a year that the Americans shipped there, five years in a row.

Given how fast it is constantly adding countries that are willing to arm Ukraine, it can be a very long war, even if in the long run it would only be about defending the western parts of the country. Note that Poland is turning into a kind of backyard for such a war, which can be very demanding and dangerous for a country. A prerequisite for achieving this is a departure from the authoritarian ideals within PiS currents that have led to Poland losing funds from the EU Rescue Fund and preventing closer cooperation with allied states.

Germany's actions show that Ukraine already has time on its side. And every day entails enormous geopolitical, economic and financial costs for Russia. Before Monday, it was expected that the ruble would collapse until it was worth no more than the paper in the banknotes. On Saturday night, the EU had agreed that selected banks would be cut off from Swift; When he arrived on Sunday morning, Olaf Scholz announced that he wanted to cut off all of Russia from that system, and freeze the assets of every single oligarch. Vladimir Putin's dear friend, former Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, will probably do well in the future to never show up among people without pulling a paper bag over his head.

I do not remember hearing anything similar from a German politician.

Scholz's decision to sharply reduce its dependence on Russian raw materials is changing everything. Two large gas terminals will be built in Brunsbuttel and Wilhelmshaven. Germany seems to have realized that it does not make sense to just sit and wait for Moscow to shut off gas supplies on its own initiative.

Nor is it enough to go back to letting the Russians use the gas to manipulate the policies pursued in Berlin and, by extension, the whole of the EU. The dismantling of nuclear power means that Germany has been assigned a completely absurd role: a country that is completely left to Moscow's geopolitical dictates.

The most fundamental change - the one that shows that the entire global security architecture is being transformed right before our eyes - is nevertheless Germany's sharp drop from post-war pacifism to an active defense policy. It may be possible within the framework of a "strategic self-determination", which Emmanuel Macron has advocated for Europe, or in NATO as such, with the result that the organization would be revitalized.

The void left by the United States through its increasingly Pacific-oriented foreign policy has arisen where there were previously explicit defense guarantees, and it will sooner or later be filled by someone. Regardless of the outcome, it is for the time being once again the United States that must take responsibility for the security of the old world.

But Germany is now closing up. Scholz announced that Germany intends to defend every inch of NATO territory. I do not remember hearing anything similar from a German politician.

Germany's enormous capacity is evident from the fact that it decided to spend an extra € 100 billion on defense alone this year, and that the defense budget should have grown to 2% of GDP in 2024 (which is the level NATO sees as acceptable). . A similar political shift is taking place in many other European countries and around the world. If it went in Germany, it will be even easier in Italy, Slovakia and other traditionally pro-Russian countries.

In the same vein, NATO terminated its agreement with Russia not to establish any permanent bases in Eastern Europe, which means that the countries in the region finally do not have to be second-class NATO members.

In the meantime, the Finns have collected the 50,000 signatures required for a motion to debate NATO membership to be considered in the Riksdag, which probably would have happened anyway. The citizens' initiative did not have strong popular support until the day before the invasion, when it increased dramatically. If Finland joined, NATO forces would be a stone's throw from St. Petersburg. This would be another major geopolitical setback for Russia.

In the same way, one should interpret the Hungarians' agenda. The reason they have dropped their opposition to sanctions against Russia is that they are financially dependent on Berlin, not on Moscow. Berlin is responsible for the largest investments in Hungary, and it is no longer obvious that Russia intends to build a nuclear power plant in the country. In addition, Orbán would like money from the EU rescue fund. From being in Putin's pocket, he is now in Scholz's pocket. This is also an important change.

At the time of writing, Putin has failed to take a single Ukrainian city, and he has already lost the support of twenty countries that were previously close to him. His last hope will be extinguished by the Chinese, who remember very well who took the most land from them and who are their important trading partners. The Chinese never enter into long-term alliances; their loyalty is always conditional and time-limited.

It is not a natural law that there should always be sensible, restrained figures in the leadership for Germany in particular.

So far, Russia has been able to chart a course between China and the West. Now it's over. In Beijing, champagne is corked. Russia accounts for 1.5 percent of the world economy - a small difference, relative to China's position. That pimple lasted until this weekend in the west.

Finally, a word of warning. Do not forget that we recently experienced our Russian friend Trump in the United States and Brexit in the United Kingdom, that is, in both home countries of liberal democracy. It is not a natural law that there should always be sensible, restrained figures in the leadership for Germany in particular.

In other words, we must now gather all our forces to establish NATO bases with US troops on Polish soil. Above all, we must increase European integration as far as possible, so that Germany and Poland end up in a mutual dependence which means that they can never turn against each other.

Sławomir Sierakowski is a journalist and founder of Krytyka Polityczna, a movement of Polish left-wing intellectuals. He is the director of The Institute for Advanced Study in Warsaw. The text has previously been published on Krytyka Polityczna.

Translation: Thomas Engström