Guest article by Gabor Steingart - Scholz and Baerbock are just followers of history - this has fatal consequences

FOCUS online Guest article by Gabor Steingart - Scholz and Baerbock are just followers of history - this has fatal consequences Article by guest author Gabor Steingart (Berlin) • 3 hours • 4 minutes reading time There were once chancellors who confidently made history. Those times are over with Scholz and his traffic light government. Four examples show how the chancellor is shrinking Germany with it. Even your own country can be alien to you. For example, when it only represents its interests in the world in a whisper. Or not at all. Here we are referring first to the chancellor who let the confident tradition of his predecessors be torn down. As a reminder: Chancellor Brandt ended the Cold War in Europe and implemented his policy of détente - even against the initially hesitant John F. Kennedy. Chancellor Kohl completed German unity by surprising the Americans with his ten-point plan and outmaneuvering the French and British. Chancellor Schröder was the first to refuse military support to the Americans, to the horror of George W. Bush: "Under my leadership, there will be no German involvement in a war in Iraq." Olaf Scholz is a follower of history This foreign policy independence has been lost - in strategic thinking as well as in practice. Olaf Scholz is not the creator of history, but a follower of it. But Scholz - and this is why the problem extends beyond him - is not alone in his following. He is part of a team. The foreign minister, important business leaders and also some of the presidents of business associations are moving in lockstep with him. The unflattering findings: subservience to the USA, passivity in dealing with Russia, arrogance towards China and quiet-footing in Brussels. The sum of these results in a loss of reputation and not inconsiderable damage to the German economy and its employees. Here are the facts in detail: #1 No diplomatic peace offensive in the European war The Ukraine war has reached the point where Western Europe would have to launch a diplomatic offensive. The starting position is favorable, as the Ukrainian army now also occupies Russian territory. It is clear to all military experts: thanks to the Western brotherhood in arms, aggressor Russia can never occupy the whole of Ukraine, just as invaded Ukraine cannot, on its own, kick out the Russians in the Donbass and in the Kherson and Zaporizhia regions. The conflict is frozen. This solid ground is the foundation on which peace negotiations must now take place. Scholz is not responsible for the aggressor Putin. But he is responsible for the fact that he himself does not develop a diplomatic idea to end the war on our doorstep. Anyone who waits for the Americans is disempowering themselves. #2 No contradiction to American decoupling The policy developed by Donald Trump of decoupling the West from the Chinese economic cycle has been adopted by Biden and Harris. Their calculation is politically understandable: Since Trump is playing the strongman, they don't want to appear compliant. Different rules apply to Germany. The decoupling desired by America violates the fundamental interests of the German economy. The Federal Republic's business model is export. Germany lives by selling automobiles, power plants, mechanical and plant engineering products and valuable chemicals - also and especially to a nation made up of 1.4 billion people whose purchasing power is growing at a rapid pace. Nodding along with the American anti-China policy is costing German industrial workers dearly. #3 German arrogance towards China It is undisputed that the People's Republic of China is a communist autocracy with associated state capitalism. But since Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger's trip to China and the opening policy under Deng Xiaoping, the West had come to terms with this emerging world power. Trade flourished. The fact that Germany is now not only following the American turnaround, but has also begun to lecture the Chinese on morals, must be disturbing. A country that started two world wars is starting to give global ethics lessons 70 years later. On the right-wing populist Fox TV in the USA, of all places, Annalena Baerbock calls Chinese President Xi Jinping a "dictator". BDI President Siegfried Russwurm and Olaf Scholz have recently refined American decoupling to "de-risking". The association head even thinks it is good that politicians are recently "emphasizing geopolitical risks". #4 No resistance to the combustion engine ban The passivity of politics and business in Germany weighs most heavily at this point, because the decision to phase out combustion engines could never have been made without the approval of the Germans. Federal Environment Minister Steffi Lemke even rejoiced: "The decision is a clear sign of effective climate protection in transport." The ban on a fossil-fuel-powered technology that is in demand all over the world, was invented in Germany and has so far formed the core of German prosperity, remains the mystery of German politics. The approval of e-fuels, achieved at the urging of the FDP, has mitigated the severity of the decision, not cured it. It is the greatest destruction of industrial capacity in peacetime. Especially since the decision of the European Parliament (February 2023) and the Council of Europe (March 2023), which criminalizes the registration of new fossil-fueled combustion vehicles in Europe from 2035, led to strategic mistakes at Volkswagen, which are partly responsible for the planned job cuts in Wolfsburg and elsewhere. Conclusion: Subservience to the USA and cowardice in Europe are not ennobled by invoking national security. Community bought through acts of renunciation of sovereignty is not worth much. Or to put it in Thomas Jefferson's words: "A nation willing to give up a little freedom for a little security deserves neither."