The crisis in German-American relations may be quieting down, but it has left a radically altered landscape in its wake. While the personalities of George W. Bush and Gerhard Schroeder certainly played an important role, they were simply catalysts, which ignited deeper changes already in play since the fall of the Berlin Wall.

The hinge year, which ran from the summers of 2002 to 2003, also reopened the German question. The increasing fluidity of the international environment combined with the changing political culture and leadership of the Berlin Republic means that many of the constants of the comfortable Bonn Republic are gone, and the Berlin Republic faces, to paraphrase John Foster Dulles, an "agonizing reappraisal" of its foreign policy options. This places the leaders of the Berlin Republic back into a Bismarckian strategy of shifting coalitions and risks reopening the old German question about an unanchored Germany.

There have been three fundamental circles to German foreign policy, the Atlantic, the west European and the central European (or Mitteleuropa) circles. The crisis over Iraq has weakened greatly the centrality of the trans Atlantic link for the Berlin Republic. Germany changed in a fundamental way in 2002 and 2003. What began as a temporary tactical shift of the German Chancellor toward Paris and away from Washington has now taken on a more strategic nature. The European priority has taken precedence over the Atlantic imperative. American power is now regarded with suspicion and not simply as an opportunity. The legacy of Iraq for Germany is that the biggest world order problem of the early 21st century is the problem of American power.

A weakening of its Atlantic ties may raise renewed fears about a Germany unbound in Europe. The American connection reassured Germany's European partners about the restraints on German power and the growing distance between Berlin and Washington means that old concerns may return in "New Europe" especially in Poland. As the German historian, Michael Strmer has written, "the German Question, put in its crudest form, has always been twofold: To whom Germany belongs, and to whom the Germans owe their allegiance? In 1990 it was in the fine print of the 'Two Plus Four' agreement that united Germany should continue to be firmly rooted in the European Union... and be the most loyal member of the Atlantic Alliance."

Now that the Atlantic pillar is weakened if not crumbling, what will be the resilience of the European pillar of German policy?

The European pillar for Germany really consists of the west and central European circles of German policy. German policy since unification has attempted to reconcile these two circles by integrating the old Mittleleuropa into the west European pillar through EU integration and expansion of membership in NATO. However the Iraq crisis, the violation by Germany and France of the Stability Pact and the deadlock within the European convention have raised the specter of a split Europe and a slowing or reversal of the trend toward ever greater European integration. Added to this is the prospect of a weak and drifting Germany preoccupied with economic and demographic stagnation. The inability of Germany to serve as Europe's paymaster will have serious implications for the Common Agricultural Policy, enlargement and regional development policies. Combined with the parochialism of the current generation of German leaders, the danger signs are abundant that the German question is about to return to center stage in a new form in Europe.

The answer to the new German question rests, therefore, on whether the European construction can and will hold. There is little prospect of a revitalization of the closeness of the trans Atlantic relationship. While the extensive economic relationship with the United States will remain strong and may even grow, the strategic relationship was fundamentally weakened by the end of the division of Germany and the disappearance of the Soviet threat. America and Germany now have diverging strategic interests and threat assessments, and the relationship's real foundation has been strategic. Economics and values have buffered and even sustained ties across the ocean, but cannot provide a substitute for a sound strategic base. As Bismarck noted, nations have interests not friends.

There have always been two dimensions to the German problem, internal and external. The internal German problem was related to the failure of democracy. As Heinrich August Winkler concluded in his study of Germany's way to westernization, " It was not the solution of the question of national unity which stands at the beginning of the road to catastrophe, but the failure to settle the question of freedom."

This internal problem has been solved. Germany is a mature and stable democracy. However the external dimension of the German problem has returned. Being at the heart of Europe, Germans have never been able to cleanly separate foreign and domestic policies. The external dimension of the German problem concerns the role of German power within the broader European system of balances and the inability of the major European powers to balance and contain the rising power of unified Germany. Germany, therefore, faces a return to the Bismarckian dilemma if it faces both a more fluid transatlantic and European milieu. It has turned to France and the Franco-German pillar as a means of avoiding the isolation, which has come with German power since 1871, but whether this will provide the foundation for stability in a larger and more fluid Europe remains uncertain.

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Last updated 07Feb04 by dgips@jhu.edu