Becoming an Army on Operations: Bundeswehr and the German Foreign Policy in the Post-Cold War Period

Year 2023, Volume: 7 Issue: 1, 106 - 139, 29.05.2023

Hazal Can Murat Önsoy

Abstract

The present study analyses the increasing involvement of the Bundeswehr in international military operations since the re-unification in 1990 with the aim of displaying the gradual loosening of the civilian power concept and the deeply engrained culture of military restraint in German foreign policy. It is argued that after the reunification, Germany gradually breaks free from the cultural restraints that hindered the utilization of military power in foreign policy. In this regard, the first step was Bundeswehr’s involvement in multilateral, non-combat, peace-keeping and peace-making operations under the auspices of the NATO and the UN throughout the 1990’s. The second step came with Bundeswehr’s involvement in the Kosovo War, which was Germany’s first ever participation in a large scale combat operation since the World War II. Since then, the limits of the German culture of military restraint have been pushed further and the Bundeswehr has been actively deployed across the globe, signaling a more assertive role for Berlin in international affairs. This article finally asserts that, as evident in the Zeitenwende (historic turning point) speech of the German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, the Russian occupation of Ukraine in early 2022 has opened a new era in German foreign and security policy, in which the Bundeswehr is likely to play a greater role.

Keywords

Germany, Foreign Policy, Bundeswehr, Post-Cold War, Civilian Power

References

• A New Era: Germany Rewrites its Defence, Foreign Policies. (2022). France 24, https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20220227-a-new-eragermany-rewrites-its-defence-foreign-policies.
• BANCHOFF, T. (1996). Historical Memory and German Foreign Policy: The Cases of Adenauer and Brandt. German Politics&Society, 14(39), 36–53.
• Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany in the Revised Version Published in the Federal Law Gazette Part III, Classification Number 100-1, as Last Amended by the Act of 28 June 2022 (Federal Law Gazette I).