All Quiet on the Eastern Front

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All Quiet on the Eastern FrontAuthor(s): Josef JoffeSource: Foreign Policy, No. 37 (Winter, 1979-1980), pp. 161-175Published by: Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive, LLCStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1148166 .

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The Germanies at 30 (2)

ALL QUIET ON THE EASTERN FRONT

by Josef Joffe

In April 1922 at Rapallo, a resort on the Italian Riviera, defeated ex-Imperial Ger- many and postrevolutionary Russia signed an agreement. Their treaty established diplomatic and trade relations between the two nations and renounced war damage claims against each other. Since then, "Rapallo" has become a diplomatic four-letter word. It stands for

Germany's betrayal of the West and for its sudden and sinister collusion with the despo- tism of the East. The specter of Rapallo will never stop haunting Europe and the United States.

Yet none of the conditions that spawned the sudden rapprochement of Rapallo exist today. While the Soviet Union has risen from pariah to superpower, the Federal Republic of

Germany (FRG) at age 30 can look back on a

period of democratic stability and international reliability unprecedented in the annals of German history.

When then Chancellor Willy Brandt em- barked on his new Ostpolitik 10 years ago, Secretary of State Henry Kissinger was quick to suspect unseeming haste in the West Ger- man initiatives toward East-West detente. U.S. doubts surfaced more recently in 1978 when National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski charged the FRG with "self-Fin- landization"-a policy of creeping neutral- ism that might ultimately push the country into the Soviet orbit.

Given the fundamental realities of Euro- pean and world politics in the last 20 years, both Rapallo and self-Finlandization are ab- surd metaphors. But far-fetched as they are,

JOSEF JOFFE is on the editorial staff of Die Zeit. This article is being published simultaneously in German in Europa-Archiv.

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these notions also reflect some abiding realities

-notably those of geographic propinquity and relative power-that impose the need for accommodation between West Germany and its Soviet neighbor. These realities.have re- peatedly claimed their due, and, no matter how strident the rhetorical exorcism, they will not go away.

Indeed, history seems to be on the side of the Cassandras. Modern Germany-begin- ning roughly with Prussia's ascendency in the second half of the eighteenth century- has collaborated more often with the East than with the West, for pernicious as well as

benign reasons. During the Seven Years War

(1756-1763), Frederick the Great's Prussia survived only because the Russians suddenly bolted from the all-continental coalition ar- rayed against the upstart king. Thereafter, Prussia's aggrandizement was fed by the vic- timization of Poland in collusion with the two great-power centers of the East, Haps- burg (later Austria-Hungary) and Russia.

Germany has colluded with the East only when abandoned or humbled by the West.

Prussia's short-lived and forced alliance with Napoleonic France ended in the dramat- ic about-face at Tauroggen in 1812 when the Prussian armies suddenly switched to the Russian side, foreshadowing the Hitler-Stalin pact of 1939. Bismarck's alliance system against France, kept alive until the end of the century through the "Reinsurance Treaty" with Russia (a highly complex nonaggression pact), rested on the cornerstones of St. Peters- burg and Vienna. Even the vaunted Locarno Pact of 1925 that was designed to promote European good will and to pacify a suspi- cious West was premised on a special relationship between Weimar Germany and the So- viet Union, ratified one year later in the Ber- lin Treaty.

In short, the FRG's exclusive post-World War II alignment with the West appears al-

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Joffe

most as a freak exception to a rule that had

Germany looking East for two centuries. Sig- nificantly, even this exception contains a

unique element of continuity provided by none other than Konrad Adenauer, the most Western-oriented statesman Germany has ever had and the Federal Republic's first chancellor. Adenauer was anti-Soviet to the core, but he established diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union in 1955, only months after the Federal Republic had been integrated into the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). He had been a fierce critic of Weimar Germany's Schaukelpolitik (a policy of ma- neuver and balance between East and West). To him West European integration was almost a religious quest. And yet it was Ade- nauer who heeded Bismarck's classic counsel: "Always keep a channel open to the Rus- sians"'-Germany's most powerful neighbors in Europe. Those who have forgotten this counsel, like Wilhelm II or Adolf Hitler, have done so at Germany's peril.

Out of the Cold War Trenches

But is there an inexorable force transcend- ing ideologies, personalities, and preferences that will always draw Germany and Russia together? There are just as many forces that have repelled one from the other and that have embroiled them in catastrophic wars. Reinsurance and radical collusion have marked the two extremes of a wide spectrum of choices. When Russia and Germany did join hands in cooperation, it was not neces-

sarily for heinous ends only. There is a world of difference between the reinsurance policy of Bismarck and the cynical collaboration between Hitler and Stalin.

If history offers any lesson at all, it is that

Germany has colluded with the East only when abandoned or humbled by the West. At Tauroggen, Prussia cast its lot with the Rus- sians in order to shake off Napoleonic domi- nation. At Rapallo, Weimar Germany turned toward Moscow because it was treated as a pariah by the West. Thereafter, Germany's isolation provided a domestic climate where

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the extremes on the left and the right could meet on the joint platform of an untram- meled, anti-Western nationalism that contributed to the rise of Hitler and his 1939 pact with Stalin. Conversely, postwar Ger- many's accommodation within a cohesive Western community, which offered the FRG a shelter and a role, has been a sturdy guaran- tee of democracy at home and reliability abroad.

Placed in its proper historical perspective, today's Ostpolitik clearly represents a circum- scribed form of German-Soviet cooperation in both scope and aspiration. It does not sig- nify an eastward drift (Brzezinski's fears or Soviet President Leonid Brezhnev's hopes notwithstanding) but a return to a more nor- mal stance. German foreign policy remained truncated, consisting of nothing but West- politik, during the Cold War. The Ostpolitik launched 10 years ago was not a solitary, secretive foray out of the blue like Rapallo, but part of the great Western push for detente. Indeed, the FRG was the last major Western power to climb out of the Cold War trenches and to join the eastward trek.

Ten years ago, the FRG had to go along or go it alone. For a country as sensitive to the specter of diplomatic isolation as the Federal

Republic, Ostpolitik was a matter of staying in the Western mainstream rather than leav- ing it, of following rather than leading. Brandt himself evoked Germany's ancient and abiding trauma to justify the embattled Eastern treaties of 1970, which entailed Ger- many's acceptance of the postwar status quo, just prior to ratification by the Bundestag in May 1972: "An anti-German coalition has been Bismarck's as well as Adenauer's night- mare. We, too, are confronted with this problem, and we should make sure that our own policies do not turn this problem into a burden."

Those who today are quick to pounce on the Federal Republic's apparent "drift" should remember that the West Germans had no choice but to enter into their own dialogue with the Soviet Union once its two major

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allies-the United States and France-had decided that arms control and detente were more important than German reunification. Ironically, it was Lyndon Johnson's "bridge building" between East and West-a policy advocated in the 1960s by none other than Brzezinski-that, along with French Presi- dent Charles De Gaulle's shift from Franco- German collaboration to detente, entente,

cooperation, shattered the foundations of Adenauer's foreign policy and forced the painful assembly of a new one.

The Eastern treaties of 1970 did not for- malize any new commitments; nor did they loosen West Germany's ties to the West. By affirming the inviolability of Europe's postwar borders and by recognizing the existence of a second German state, these treaties merely ratified the unavoidable. Yet in the process, West German foreign policy did change in two fundamental ways.

First, by resolving this "special conflict" with the East, the Federal Republic has also lightened the burden of its dependence on the West. The refusal to sanctify the postwar status quo and to recognize East Germany could only be sustained with the unflagging help of West Germany's Western allies. Their solidarity exacted a steep price. For over two decades FRG foreign policy was marked by a degree of loyalty, deference, and even submis- sion to the key Western powers rarely seen in the history of alliance politics.

Today, the Federal Republic will no longer automatically foot the bill for Euro- pean integration or accept American fiat in matters strategic, economic, and diplomatic because its dependence on the West has de- clined proportionately to the improvement of its relations with the East. And while the FRG's strength has soared in an international system where economic muscle translates more easily than ever before into political clout, the U.S. margin of usable power continues to shrink.

Perhaps De Gaulle was right when he re- marked, "Everyone has been, is, or will eventually be, a Gaullist." The transforma-

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tion is nicely reflected in the person of West German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt. A dyed-in-the-wool Atlanticist in the 1960s, he has become a latter-day Germano-Gaullist in the sense that he has taken on the Americans more frequently and forcefully than any of his predecessors. Without a great equalizer like the Cold War, national interests push to the fore, and when the strong seem to be fal- tering, the (formerly) weak feel not only free but also justified in securing their own claims.

This does not suggest that Bonn will henceforth proceed to flex its nationalist muscle a la franfaise. The difference is geography. De Gaulle could exploit his nuisance value to the hilt knowing that he was safely en- sconced behind a security barrier guarded by German and American troops. West Ger- many, on the other hand, still remains the most vulnerable member of the Western Alli- ance-regardless of its staggering strength. An abiding security problem will continue to impose limits on German Gaullism even as the country's own interests are being calcu- lated more carefully than in the community- oriented past.

Second, once the Federal Republic resolved its special conflict with the East, its interests were bound to change. Today, West Ger- many also has to protect its new relationship with the East, notably with the German Democratic Republic (GDR) and the Soviet Union. It is easy to draw the wrong conclu- sions and to assume new priorities where there are only additional stakes. There is not even symmetry, hence neither need nor temp- tation to balance a la Rapallo, simply because the FRG's Western links are vastly more important in scope as well as quality than the more recent and limited ties to the East.

A Silent, Stubborn Contest

But there is no denying that the ditente process has created new fault lines in the Alli- ance, first and foremost in the German-Amer- ican relationship. Schmidt's clashes with Jimmy Carter over the proper approach to East-West relations are not just a problem of

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Joffe

personalities. They reflect different stakes in the detente game that, in turn, grow out of stark differences in power and geographical position. (And it is an argument the United States can never win: If Washington is too cozy with the Kremlin, there is a hue and cry over superpower collusion. If, on the other hand, the Americans press Moscow too hard on human rights or Africa, the Europeans wring their hands over the threat to detente.)

This reflects the difference between a

global power-geographically and psycho- logically removed-and a regional power. As a superpower that shares few ties of interde-

pendence with the Soviet Union, apart from the existential link of mutual deterrence, the United States can afford to view East-West relations with a good deal of equanimity. As

Kissinger found out to his (and the West's) dismay, there is no seamless web of detente that forces the Soviets to live up to Western rules of good conduct around the globe. Thus, there is Angola (and Ethiopia and Yemen and Afghanistan) in spite of SALT.

Fortunately, however, the reverse also holds true: A partial tear does not rend the entire fabric. SALT continues despite Brze- zinski's "Arc of Crisis" along the shores of the Indian Ocean. The United States and the Soviet Union have learned to live with very minimal expectations since the downward slide from the great detente summits of 1972 and 1973. At this juncture, SALT has been carrying almost the entire burden of superpower detente without collapsing. Even though it has been wounded by Soviet troops in Cuba or U.S. domestic politics, a renewed or continued effort is more likely than a new cold war.

In other words, there is no all-encompass- ing mesh of interdependence on the superpower level, but only diverse strands of ditente that may hold or snap independent of one another. The West German-Soviet case is quite different. Far more vulnerable than the United States, the FRG also has more tangible stakes in the detente game.

Berlin remains an easily manipulated lever

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in Soviet and East German hands despite the

Quadripartite Agreement of 1972 among the four postwar occupying powers on the status of the former German capital. In spite of all but the FRG's de jure recognition of East Berlin, Bonn remains locked in a silent but stubborn contest with the GDR over the future of Germany ("two states in one nation," according to Bonn, vs. "two nation states," according to East Berlin) and the rules of coexistence (interaction vs. insulation). Es- pecially where Berlin is concerned, this is a contest where marginal leverage is frequently provided by Soviet good will translated into

pressure on East Germany. Also, in years of

dogged negotiations-by bribery, cajolery, and pressure-Bonn has exacted a series of hard-won concessions on humanitarian measures. They range from the facilitation of travel to the improvement of working conditions for journalists-measures that are all seen as helping to keep alive the idea of a joint nationhood despite political separation.

Why should any European government go out on a limb if... it will be sawed off by an administration that seems to regard consistency as a vice?

During the past seven years, approximate- ly 200,000 German ethnics were allowed to leave the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe; in the same period about 50,000 East Ger- mans were able to join their families in the West. No West German government will lightly endanger this continuing flow by provoking the East, especially since it is these gains-tangible rather than abstract-that provide the home front with the most vivid vindication of the concessions delivered in the violently opposed Eastern treaties.

Given these stakes, it is easy to see why Bonn has fought so hard to protect its "special detente" against the vagaries of superpower diplomacy in the Carter era. But the real crux is the domestic evolution in both

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Joffe

halves of Europe. The Social Democratic- Liberal government in Bonn-a coalition between the Social Democratic Party (SPD) and the Free Democratic Party-is so intensely committed to preserving a climate of accommodation in Europe because any rise in the level of confrontation will naturally accrue to the hard-liners on either side.

In Moscow, it would legitimate those who seek to tighten the Kremlin's grip on its East

European empire. In East Berlin 'it would undercut those who have given their grudging assent to the carefully controlled process of reassociation between the two Germanies- the fitful multiplication of cooperative ven- tures and interpersonal contacts. No matter how innocuous these humanitarian improve- ments may seem to the West, they constitute a fearsome challenge to the legitimacy of the East German regime. They will be the first to

go when the political temperature drops. In West Germany, the deterioration of

diplomacy will directly impinge on the foundations of domestic tenure. There is a simple historical correlation in West German politics: The Cold War was coterminous with the long-run tenure of the Conservative gov- ernments led by the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and the Christian Socialist Union (csu) from 1949 to 1969. Converse- ly, the easing of East-West tensions has paralleled the ascendancy of the Social Demo- crats (who joined the government as junior partner in 1966 and who have ruled in tan- dem with the Liberals since 1969).

Powerful Symbols

Foreign policy has always played a dominant role in West German electoral politics. From the Berlin Blockade to the Berlin Wall, the threat from the East was easily translated into rigid anticommunist consensus at home. It provided a political climate that enabled the CDU/CSU to taint anybody to its left as hand- maidens of Bolshevism and to discredit the Social Democrats as enemies of the Western communities. The electoral results were handsome: 20 years of CDU/CSU rule.

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The decline of the Soviet threat legitimated those (like the Social Democrats) who had always pleaded for negotiation and a modus vivendi with the East. After 20 years in opposition, the SPD could finally coast to power in 1969 as the party of detente. And when the Christian Democrats tried to topple Brandt in 1972 by denouncing detente as a sham and the Eastern treaties as a national sell-out, the SPD fought and won the subse- quent elections on the issue of Ostpolitik. Thus, past electoral behavior in West Ger- many suggests a strong link between the political climate abroad and political tenure at home. Even though Schmidt shares none of Brandt's visionary fervor, he is well aware that a new chill in East-West affairs would tip the electoral scales in favor of the CDU/ CSU, which even in opposition is still the largest single grouping in the Bundestag. Having staked its fate on detente, the SPD is condemned to demonstrate its viability over and over again.

Those who equate Bonn's new sensitivity toward the East with self-Finlandization misunderstand the complexity of West Ger- man foreign policy. There are stringent domestic limits to accommodation. In a country that shares a 1,000-mile border with the Warsaw Pact, security and alliance remain powerful political symbols. Also, the electorate's instincts are basically conservative, as evidenced by the fact that the CDU/ CSU even in opposition still commands the plurality of seats in the Bundestag.

There is no denying that West Germany has become a good deal more sensitive to Soviet pressures in the past decade. At times it has come close to granting the Soviet Union a partial veto power over some aspects of FRG policy making. The 1978 squabble over enhanced radiation weapons (the so-called neutron bomb) is one example; the current debate over theater nuclear forces (TNF) modernization (the idea of offsetting Soviet SS- 20s with Eurostrategic hardware stationed in Western Europe) might become another.

Before jumping to a jaundiced conclusion,

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however, it is essential to analyze all the fac- tors that contributed to the nondecision against the neutron bomb. To be sure, there was Soviet pressure and the vociferous resis- tance of the SPD's left wing, but there was also an American unwillingness to take a forceful lead and the studied disinterest of West Germany's European NATO partners. Both undercut the position of the Schmidt government, which was marginally in favor of enhanced radiation weapons but did not want to end up in a minority of one where the FRG would have to suffer the brunt of Soviet hostility.

As long as no one else in Europe is pre- pared to share the political burden of Euro- strategic modernization, Bonn's hesitation to go it alone appears to be an act of prudence rather than of disloyalty. There is surely less ambivalence when it comes to conventional modernization, which is politically less sensitive than the neutron bomb and may well be more relevant militarily. Bonn is spending more money on new equipment than anybody else in Europe, and it also has more money to spend.

Marching in Lock Step

After its initial collisions with the Euro- peans (from nuclear exports to human rights), the Carter administration has hon- ored Lyndon Johnson's exhortation "to sit and reason together" more earnestly than any of its recent predecessors. Yet consultation is not the magic solvent of conflict. Indeed, consultation is only a fancy cover for indecision if a sense of purpose is lacking. Why should any European government go out on a limb if there is a good chance that it will be sawed off by an administration that seems to regard consistency as a vice? Fence-sitting may be less comfortable, but it is more prudent.

Despite 30 years of well-tested reliability, the West Germans are still laboring under the legacy of their superimperialist past. And in spite of their formidable new-found strength, they feel most comfortable in a low profile role-shunning the solo part in favor of the

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chorus line. Hence, even "bigemonial" solu- tions that involve only the United States and West Germany are unlikely to overcome Bonn's instinctive penchant for the collective. The Federal Republic's hesitation on the neutron bomb and TNF has merely underlined an old dilemma: If the United States wants Bonn to assume a more active role, it must help to fashion a framework where German energies are harnessed to a communal purpose-where the Germans can lead by marching in lock step.

The TNF issue has a much better chance of successful resolution because the lesson of the neutron bomb debacle has sunk in. It could become more divisive, however, because the Soviets have learned their lesson as well. They do not merely bluster, they also beckon-as Brezhnev did last October when he suddenly proffered unilateral conventional force cuts (20,000 troops, 1,000 tanks) and the pros- pect of medium-range ballistic missile reduc- tions if NATO reneged on its TNF modernization plans.

The burden has again fallen on the Federal Republic-as it did in the late 1950s and then in the early 1960s, when the Soviet Union threatened retribution against the deployment of tactical nuclear weapons on German soil and the formation of the ill-fated multilateral force. The main difference between the past and the present is, of course, Ostpolitik. Hence, the threat was posed to the FRG as a choice: Refrain, or risk not only devastation in case of war but also your ties to the East. The result was predictable: The SPD left has warned against hasty arms de- cisions, the Liberals have urged steadfastness, and Schmidt has been trying to rein in both.

The dilemma is real, but it has a saving grace: It can be approached piecemeal because there is a four-year time lag between the decision to produce and the deployment of the 572 new systems (Pershing II and cruise missiles) envisaged by NATO. More- over, as a result of the neutron bomb fracas, the Alliance has at least agreed on a joint approach, tying the pace of TNF moderniza-

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tion to the progress on theater arms control. The Alliance's message to Brezhnev thus reads: We will move ahead on both fronts, but the more arms control that is negotiated, the less modernization will be needed. There- fore-and this is imperative-West Germany will not find itself alone, whether in modernization or in refusing new hardware options.

Any SPD government has to steer a fine course between detente and defense. While the current government is uniquely vulnerable to a surge of East-West tensions, it is even more vulnerable to the charge of "ap- peasement" and lack of vigilance vis-a-vis the East. Given its neutralist and pacifist leanings in the 1950s-a reputation that has never died completely-the SPD has to be almost holier-than-thou in matters of defense and security. Apparent softness would be a boon to the CDU/CSU, which is only too eager for an opportunity to re-enact its successful electoral strategy of the 1950s. No SPD government could move very far toward the East without risking its survival in power.

Those who worry about a replay of Ra- pallo forget that the domestic conditions that spawned the Weimar Republic's radical over- tures toward Moscow no longer exist. Ra- pallo and the secret Russo-German military collusion of the 1920s were the doing of the nationalist right, which was not so much pro-Soviet as it was anti-Versailles, hence, anti-Western. Their worst domestic enemies, the communist left, were pro-Soviet for ideo- logical reasons. Hence, Weimar's fierce domestic polarization stopped at the "water's edge." There was a tacit alliance in foreign policy matters between the two extremes (not unlike the hysterical compromise between the right-wing Gaullists and the Communists in

present-day France), whose common denom- inator was hostility against the West.

World War II was a watershed in German history. The right is no longer nationalist (indeed, the Federal Republic's integration into the West was accomplished under Con- servative auspices), and the left is anti-Soviet,

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communism having been discredited as the raison d'e tat of a foreign power that is re-

sponsible for Germany's partition. In other words, the extremes have been

lopped off the West German political spectrum. The three major parties are essentially centrist, competing for the same votes in a system that is no longer rent by fundamental cleavages of political faith. This suggests a firm foundation of political stability that will assert itself diplomatically as well as

domestically, whichever party is in power. Furthermore, the external conditions for a

Soviet-German bargain no longer exist. There is no deal to be had-as there was none when Stalin pretended to offer reunification-cum-neutrality for Germany in 1952. There is no offer-and there can be none- that could tow the Federal Republic from its Western moorings. Could a new reunification offer act as a lure today? It is hard to imagine a constellation that might induce the Soviet Union to give up the GDR, the single-most important brace of its shaky empire in East- ern Europe. As early as 1956, Khrushchev had already admitted that he preferred 17 million East Germans on his side to 70 million Germans in a reunited and neutral Ger-

many. This logic holds as true today, if not more so, than it did a generation ago.

Importer of Security

The dreamier part of the German left may well believe that the bipolar alliance system constitutes the main barrier to eternal peace, closer relations between the two Germanies, and theEuropean-wide triumph of "social- ism with a human face." Yet nothing the Soviet Union could offer would compensate for the loss of security that its acceptance would entail-militarily, economically, and

politically. The loss of alliance would even unhinge the modest reinsurance policy that inspires today's Ostpolitik. There can be no reinsurance without insurance; without the leverage and protection provided by the West- ern communities, there would only be weak- ness and dependence.

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Frictions between the United States and West Germany are clearly not only a matter of personalities or day-to-day political differences. They will outlive Carter and Schmidt because the power relationship between the two countries has changed over the past 10 years: The United States is less dominant, the Federal Republic has become less dependent. Yet the emphasis is on less: The United States is still the West's para- mount power, and West Germany is still the most exposed member of the Alliance.

For a long time to come, the FRG will remain what it has always been-a net importer of security from the United States. As Machiavelli pointed out, strong armies make for reliable allies. Even if there were nothing else to bind the two nations together, there would still be the security bond that would defy the squabbles and the strains, whether with Schmidt or Fianz Josef Strauss. And the dependence is mutual: If the FRG cannot do without the United States as the ultimate guarantor of its survival, the United States needs Bonn, the strongest nation on the continent, as the key to stability in Europe. These facts do not change easily, whatever the outcome of the elections in both countries next year.

Moreover, all of West Germany's political evolution in the past 30 years suggests that the values of freedom and democracy have consistently carried far greater weight than national unity. No matter how tempting Soviet blandishments, the FRG chose the West-and the partition that choice entailed. To be sure, there will be intra-Alliance as well as domestic contests over arms control and detente in the years to come as West Germany adjusts to its new and more tradi- tional role at the European center. However, with all their new-found strength and independence, the West Germans are not likely to forget that the United States, the Atlantic Alliance, and the European Community constitute the sine qua non of the Federal Repub- lic's political independence.

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Documents

All Quiet on the Eastern Front