Stephen F. Szabo - Parting Ways - The Crisis in German-American Relations-Brookings Institution Press (2004)

Parting
Ways
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Parting
Ways
The Crisis in
German-American Relations
Stephen F. Szabo
brookings institution press

Washington, D.C.
about brookings
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Copyright © 2004
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication data
Szabo, Stephen F.
Parting ways : the crisis in German-American relations / Stephen F. Szabo.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-8157-8244-6 (cloth : alk. paper)
1. Germany—Foreign relations—United States. 2. United States—
Foreign relations—Germany.
3. Germany—Foreign relations—1990– 4. Anti-Americanism—Germany.
5. United States—Foreign public opinion, German. 6. Public opinion—
Germany. 7. United States—Politics and government—2001—Public
opinion. I. Title.
DD290.3.S93 2004
327.43073'09'0511—dc22 2004019514
987654321
The paper used in this publication meets minimum requirements of the

American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper
for Printed Library Materials: ANSI Z39.48-1992.
Typeset in Minion
Composition by OSP, Inc.

Arlington, Virginia
Printed by R. R. Donnelley
Harrisonburg, Virginia
To my father,
Stephen Szabo,
who has shown the way to so many,
including his grateful and fortunate son

Contents
Acknowledgments ix
1 A “Poisoned” Relationship 1
2 From Unlimited Solidarity to

Reckless Adventurism: Responding to 9-11 15
3 Partners in Contradiction:
From the Election to War 34
4 Kulturkampf: A Clash of Strategic Cultures 52
5 Is It Bush or Is It America?
German Images of the United States 79
6 Welcome to the Berlin Republic 104
7 From Alliance to Alignment 131
Appendix
Chronology of German-American Relations from
September 11, 2001, through March 20, 2003 154
Notes 159
Index 187
Acknowledgments
T his book really began in 1974, during my first professional

encounter with Germany, thanks to the guidance of my dissertation men-
tor, Karl Cerny, and a generous stipend from the Alexander von Humboldt
Foundation. I have kept a fairly steady interest in German politics, foreign
policy, and German-American relations ever since. Needless to say, over
three decades I have benefited from the encouragement and guidance of far
too many friends and colleagues, both European and American, to thank
here. I would like to single out a few, however, including David Calleo, my
friend and colleague at the Nitze School; Steven Muller, President Emeritus
of Johns Hopkins University; Jackson Janes of the American Institute for
Contemporary German Studies; Philip Gordon of the Brookings Institution;
Samuel F. Wells of the Wilson Center for International Scholars; Professor
Emeritus Helga Haftendorn of the Free University of Berlin; Karl Kaiser of
the German Council on Foreign Relations; Christian Hacke of Bonn Uni-
versity; and Christoph Bertram of the Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik.
I also wish to thank the American Academy in Berlin and the Bosch
Foundation, which provided me with an invaluable fellowship at the Amer-
ican Academy during the fall of 2002, and the academy’s inspired director,
Gary Smith; Paul Stoop; and Marie Unger. Thanks also to the fellows who
were in residence while I was there for providing both a stimulating intel-
lectual environment and moral support. The American Institute for
Contemporary German Studies has provided another crucial intellectual
home for me and for many others who follow German and European affairs.
Many thanks to all, Germans and Americans, who shared their time, infor-
ix
x Acknowledgments
mation, and ideas with me as I tried to construct a contemporary history of

this pivotal time in a pivotal relationship. And thanks to all my colleagues at
SAIS for providing me with the best university environment any academic
could wish for.
I want to express my appreciation to everyone at the Brookings Institu-
tion Press for their advice, encouragement, and expertise, particularly the
director, Bob Faherty, and the acquisitions editor, Christopher Kelaher. Spe-
cial thanks go to Tanjam Jacobson and Eileen Hughes at Brookings, who
shared the editing of the manuscript, and to my indispensable German grad-
uate research assistants, Katharina Plueck, who did so much to shape the
final manuscript, and Timo Behr, who worked ably on the beginning of the
project.
As always, I thank my wife Joan, who was there with me in Bad Godes-
berg when this began and continues to be my inspiration and support.
Parting
Ways
1
A “Poisoned” Relationship
“ H ow can you use the name of Hitler and the name of the president
of the United States in the same sentence?” demanded the U.S. national
security adviser, Condoleezza Rice. Only a few days earlier, on September 18,
2002, just before voters were to go to the polls in the most closely contested
election in German history, Germany’s justice minister, Herta Däubler-
Gmelin, had compared the methods of Bush with those of Hitler, charging
that he was deliberately manufacturing a foreign crisis in Iraq to divert the
American people’s attention away from domestic economic problems. Rice
continued: “An atmosphere has been created in Germany that is in that sense
poisoned.”1 Her outrage, shared widely by the American public, revealed
how strained relations had become between formerly close allies.
The German-American split was part of a larger crisis in transatlantic
relations that began with the end of the cold war, increased with the com-
ing to power of the Bush administration, and erupted with ferocity in the fall
of 2002 over the war in Iraq. It reached its peak during the winter and spring
of 2003. This proved to be a watershed year in a relationship that had been
of central importance to the United States since the end of World War II.
What began as a temporary tactical shift of the German chancellor toward
Paris and away from Washington came to take on a more strategic signifi-
cance. Europe had taken priority over Germany’s transatlantic tie with the
United States. American power was now regarded with suspicion, not only
as a stabilizing force in international relations.
If the cold war ended with the fall of the Berlin Wall and the unification
of Germany, the post–cold war period in the German-U.S. relationship
ended with the war in Iraq. Humpty Dumpty had fallen, and the pieces
1
2 A “Poisoned” Relationship
could not be put back together again. From the Bush administration’s point
of view, Germany had become part of what Secretary of Defense Donald
Rumsfeld was to label “old Europe,” taking part for the first time in an active
coalition against an undertaking that a U.S. administration thought was in
its vital interest, in this case a preventive war against Iraq. From the German
point of view, the legacy of the war in Iraq was that the biggest problem now
confronting world order is U.S. power.
The Stakes
The current rift between Germany and the United States should be viewed as
the death of the canary in the coal mine, an early warning to both sides of the
dangers of taking the other for granted and of assuming that their relationship
is strong enough to withstand bad politics and bad diplomacy. It is also a
reminder of the need to avoid both personalizing and sentimentalizing rela-
tions between states and to think instead in terms of both mutual interests and
self-interest rather than friendship. The devaluation of the German-American
relationship by both sides that followed the end of the cold war was inevitable,
but if the relationship is further mishandled it could lead to a more open and
even deeper split that would have major consequences for both countries,
which are still important to each other in many key areas.
Germany matters because Europe still matters. Europe may no longer be
a high security priority for the United States, but it remains its most impor-
tant and an indispensable partner in all significant global issues confronting
Washington in the new century—the global economy, the environment,
human rights and democracy, international development policy, high tech-
nology, and a range of other issues. As Samuel Huntington has pointed out,
Europe is “the closest thing to an equal that the United States faces at the
beginning of the twenty-first century.”2
Europe is not only a partner but a potential competitor. The European
Union (EU), the heart of Europe, has the population base, the economic and
technological capabilities, and the cultural and political attributes of a global
power. In Joseph Nye’s term, Europe has the “soft power” that has increas-
ingly become the basis of international influence in the postmodern world.
As Nye rightly observes, “The key question in assessing the challenge posed
by the EU is whether it will develop enough political and social-cultural
cohesion to act as one unit on a wide range of international issues, or
whether it will remain a limited grouping of countries with strongly differ-
ent nationalisms and foreign policies.”3
A “Poisoned” Relationship 3
Germany, in turn, is central to the answer that Europe provides to this

question. Working in tandem with France, it has long been the engine of
European integration. Now that it is a unified country, questions have been
raised about its continuing commitment to the project to build a more uni-
fied and coherent Europe. Will Germany remain on the postmodern track
that has seen it deemphasize its national interests in favor of deeper Euro-
pean integration, or will its return to “normality” mean a return to a more
nationalist orientation? And how will Germany balance its commitment to
building a unified and cohesive European Union with the danger that its
other compelling interest—enlarging the EU—could also fatally dilute
Europe by expanding it to the point that it becomes so diverse as to lose its
capacity to act politically?
While Germany’s future course remains open, there is no doubt that Ger-
many’s future will be crucial to Europe’s. However, whatever course
Germany takes will be influenced by European as well as domestic factors.
This is an especially plastic time in both European and German history. The
European Union is engaged in creating something resembling a constitution
at a time when it is confronted with redefining its identity in terms of both
enlargement (Where does Europe end?) and in terms of immigration (What
does it mean to be German or French in a time of both globalization and
demographic stagnation in Europe, which has resulted in an influx or for-
eign residents and new citizens?). Meanwhile Germany is having to reshape
its identity in the face of both European and German unification, while it
deals with a growing foreign-born population of its own.
Old fears of a return to what John Foster Dulles once called “the firetrap
of European nationalism”—a firetrap that engulfed the United States many
times in the twentieth century, from Sarajevo in 1919 to Kosovo in 1999—are
largely gone, thanks to the success of the project to unify Europe. While a
united Europe could become a peer competitor in the future, the prospect of
European fragmentation and drift, however remote, holds greater danger for
Washington than European unity. Yet there remains a real possibility that as
Europe defines itself, it will do so against the United States, and here again
Germany is crucial. During the crisis over war in Iraq, Germany abandoned
its traditional policy of positioning itself between Washington and Paris to
create a countercoalition with Russia and France against the United States.
That was an entirely new tactic and it has major significance. If German lead-
ers follow the French road toward an independent Europe that can act as a
counterbalance to the American hegemon, there will be a real prospect of a
split in the West, with implications for the broader world order and particu-
larly for the U.S. position in it. It will further provoke the United States and
feed the inclination of Washington—or at least of the Bush administration—
to go it alone and to follow a “policy of disaggregation” that attempts to play
on and exacerbate European divisions. If continued, this policy, which devel-
oped during the crisis over Iraq, will risk encouraging either the formation
of a European counter power or the fragmentation of Europe.
The stakes also are crucial for Berlin. With the loosening of the transat-
lantic ties, questions about German identity and its role in Europe, all of
which had seemed settled during the cold war period, are now reopened. For
the past five decades, Germany has shaped itself in the American image,
subordinated its security policy to that of the United States, and used its ties
to Washington to project its interests and power in a way that was not seen
as threatening to its neighbors. The split over Iraq that occurred in Europe
between a more pro-Bush faction led by Britain and a countercoalition led
by France and Germany threatens many of the pillars of the success of Ger-
man policy and opens up the possibility that the United States will form a
new countercoalition against Germany in Europe.
Not Your Father’s Germany

It was only thirteen years before the White House declared the relationship
between Germany and the United States poisoned that George H. W. Bush,
the father of George W., had called for Germany to be a “partner in leader-
ship” with the United States at the end of the cold war. The gap between
these two statements is dramatic evidence of how much has changed.
The peaceful reunification of Germany as a democracy within the western
alliance was the finest hour in the German-American partnership that arose
from the ashes of World War II. Berlin, once the capital of the Third Reich,
had become a symbol of liberty during the airlift of 1947–48 and again with
the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. At the end of the cold war, the elder Pres-
ident Bush and his administration worked closely with Chancellor Helmut
Kohl and his foreign minister, Hans Dietrich Genscher, to unite East and
West Germany. On October 3, 1990, German unification was achieved, due
in large part to close German-American diplomatic cooperation despite
resistance from France, Britain, and the Soviet Union, all of whom feared that
a reunified Germany would upset the stable balance in Europe. In the years
that followed, Germany and the United States worked closely together on
such projects as the enlargement of NATO and the Balkan wars. While dif-
ferences arose during the Clinton years, the relationship remained cordial.
In their handling of German unification, George H. W. Bush and his

administration presented a model case study in how to conduct subtle mul-
tilateral diplomacy. They patiently worked with numerous international
partners and a former adversary, the Soviet Union, to shape an outcome
that kept a unified Germany within NATO and close to the United States.
The contrast with the approach of George W. Bush’s administration could
not be greater. There is no doubt that Kohl’s successor as chancellor, Gerhard
Schröder, and his election campaign staff overreacted and opportunistically
exploited the Iraq issue, but if the relationship has been poisoned, both sides
have contributed. The second Bush administration made no secret of its
desire to go it alone in Iraq rather than be slowed down by multilateralist
Europeans, with their penchant for what both the White House and the
Pentagon saw as “appeasement.”
Not only had American policy and style changed dramatically from one
Bush to the next, but Germany had changed as well. The younger U.S. pres-
ident and his team came to learn that this was not his father’s Germany. It
would have been unthinkable for a German cabinet minister to compare an
American president to Adolf Hitler in 1990. What was most striking about
Schröder’s election campaign was that criticism of an American adminis-
tration would have such resonance in Germany. That was due not only to
Washington’s radically new approach, but also to deeper, long-term changes
in the U.S.-German relationship and in the two countries themselves. The
key changes were the result of several factors: the success of the first Presi-
dent Bush’s diplomacy in helping to reunite Germany, the collapse of the
Soviet Union and the decline of Russia as a major power, and the unchal-
lenged predominance of American military and economic power.
For their part, Germans were surprised to learn that the America they
thought they knew and admired had been transformed by the horrific events
of September 11, 2001, and their aftermath. From a high marked by
Schröder’s pledge of “unlimited solidarity” with the United States and the
outpouring of sympathy and support from millions of Germans in the
immediate wake of the attacks, German public support for the United States
dropped precipitously. In a poll taken in the summer of 2003, 19 percent of
Germans believed it possible that the U.S. government was somehow
involved in the attacks of 9-11, including almost a third of younger Ger-
mans.4 In addition, the German government was shocked at the callous
disregard of Germany that the Bush administration displayed in retaliation
for German opposition to the war in Iraq, which culminated in Secretary of
Defense Rumsfeld’s relegation of Germany to “old” Europe.
Most Germans believe that Bush is the problem, and once he and his
right-wing administration are gone, the tensions will evaporate like “snow
melting in the spring.”5 Likewise, many in the Bush administration, as well
as their supporters in the media, believe that the split was due to the pre-
election opportunism of Gerhard Schröder and that once there is “regime
change” in Berlin the old partnership will return and Germany will join
“new” Europe. As two of the most vocal American neoconservatives,
Richard Perle and David Frum, put it, “We are optimistic that once Chan-
cellor Schröder leaves the scene, Germany will revert to its accustomed
friendliness.”6
It is easy in an era of tabloid journalism throughout the mass media to
ascribe differences and animosities to the personalities of the leaders
involved, but in reality these conflicts were a mirror of deeper changes. The
changes that have occurred have been at work since the reunification of
Germany in 1990; Bush and Schröder simply served as catalysts. Neither the
United States nor Germany need each other today as deeply as each did dur-
ing the cold war. Washington now worries about the Middle East and
Central and East Asia more than it does about Europe. Germany, united
and free of a direct threat to its security, is increasingly focused on further
developing the European Union.
In addition, new generations of leaders on both sides are bringing their
different historical perspectives to the relationship. Schröder and his gen-
eration came of age during the anti-Vietnam demonstrations of the late
1960s, and the generations that follow his will have little or no memory of
the division of Germany and the U.S. role in defending Berlin. It does little
good for the U.S. president’s national security adviser to remind Germans
of their debt for what the United States did in the past, as Condoleezza
Rice did. Gratitude has a short shelf life in international politics; as Bis-
marck once said, echoing the British statesman Lord Palmerston, “Nations
have interests, not friends.” On the U.S. side, a generation of diplomats and
policy experts experienced in German affairs is gone, and the ties created by
U.S. military personnel and their families stationed in Germany grow
weaker as the U.S. military presence there continues to drop. Finally, there
are signs that a real gap in political and cultural values is developing along
with a strategic gap, resulting in a rift so deep that it could signal the end
of “the West” as a meaningful concept, or at least result in the creation of
two Wests.
Personality Conflicts and Strategic Interests

Since the defeat of the Third Reich, the German-American relationship has
been one of deep cooperation based on common interests, but is has had its
share of serious policy disputes and personality conflicts. Neither side has
lacked strong-willed leaders. The first postwar German chancellor, Konrad
Adenauer, was an old man whose political career was shaped in the 1920s
and 1930s, during the Weimar Republic. He had numerous confrontations
with the young American president, John F. Kennedy, especially following
the construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961. Adenauer felt that the American
president was too willing to accommodate the Soviets and too weak in his
response to the building of the wall. A Rhinelander who always had looked
to France, he turned to his generational counterpart Charles DeGaulle as an
alternative to relying on the United States. In 1963 he signed the Elysée treaty
on Franco-German cooperation as a means of shaping a new counterbalance
to U.S. power.
Just as Adenauer thought that Kennedy was too soft on the Soviets, Pres-
ident Richard Nixon and his national security adviser, Henry Kissinger,
worried over the détente policies of Chancellor Willy Brandt, known as Ost-
politik. Nixon was once heard to say of Brandt, “Good God, if this is
Germany’s hope, then Germany doesn’t have much hope.”7 Personal and
policy differences also strained the relationship between President Jimmy
Carter and Brandt’s successor, Helmut Schmidt. Known as Schmidt the Lip
for his bluntness, he made no secret of his contempt for what he considered
Carter’s shifting policies and once charged that pinning down the American
president was as difficult “as nailing Jell-O to a wall.” But when détente broke
down after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979 and Carter,
pushed by a resurgent Republican right wing, took a hard line and ordered
an embargo of the Moscow Olympic games in 1980, Schmidt went along
because, he said, “We need the Americans in Berlin.”8
The most trying time in this generally close relationship came during the
first term of Ronald Reagan’s administration. Reagan, like George W. Bush
later, was regarded as a reckless cowboy whose stark anticommunism, talk of
the “evil empire,” and jokes about bombing the Soviet Union were seen as
dangerous and as jeopardizing West Germany’s interests in détente with the
USSR and closer relations with East Germany. A serious crisis developed
over NATO’s decision in 1979 to deploy intermediate-range nuclear missiles
in Germany and other member countries in response to new Soviet missile
deployments. (The decision was linked to NATO’s commitment to negoti-
ate an arms control agreement with the Soviet Union that would limit or
preclude the deployment of U.S. missiles.) Schmidt risked major opposition
in his party, the Social Democratic Party (SPD), to get support for the mis-
sile deployments and lost office after the Social Democrats failed to back
him. It was only after the Christian Democrats, led by Helmut Kohl, took
power in September 1982 that the deployments were approved.
Yet in these and other cases of friction between Germany and the United
States, the German chancellor voiced criticism but in the end supported
American policy, unlike Schröder in the dispute over Iraq. In all of the cases
cited, Adenauer’s “policy of strength” was based on a close alliance with the
United States. He brought West Germany into NATO and allowed U.S. mis-
siles on German soil only a decade after the end of World War II. When he
had his dispute with Kennedy, the Bundestag inserted a pro-Atlanticist pre-
amble into the Elysée treaty, undercutting its Gaullist intentions. Indeed,
Adenauer was soon replaced by the Atlanticist Ludwig Erhard. Even in pur-
suing détente with the USSR and East Germany, Brandt based his Ostpolitik
firmly on West Germany’s western alliance; indeed, West Germany would
have been isolated if it had not pursued détente, because that was the pre-
vailing course in the Washington of Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger,
despite Kissinger’s concerns about Brandt’s policies
To some extent Germans and Americans were lulled into a period of
complacence by the close cooperation of Helmut Kohl with the senior
George Bush and the latter’s call for Germany to be a partner in leadership.
However, there were some warning signs of change in the relationship dur-
ing the Clinton administration. Although Germany was a key partner in the
administration’s management of the effort to enlarge NATO and adapt it
to the post–cold war security environment, there was an ugly dispute when
the secretary of the treasury, Lawrence Summers, blocked Chancellor
Schröder’s candidate to head the International Monetary Fund. The Clin-
ton administration’s arrogance over U.S. economic performance and its
belief that the United States was a model for the West, if not the world, was
on full display as Clinton hosted the G-8 economic summit in Denver in
June 1997. There also were tensions over the security requirements the
Americans wanted to impose in the construction of the new American
embassy when the German capital was moved from Bonn to Berlin. This
resulted in an open and sometimes nasty dispute between the U.S. ambas-
sador, John Kornblum, and the Christian Democratic mayor of Berlin,
Eberhard Diepgen. Kornblum reminded Diepgen about all that the United
States had done for Berlin, wondering whether this was the thanks that it
got; Diepgen responded with comments about Kornblum’s behavior, imply-

ing that the U.S. ambassador was acting like a proconsul of the Roman
empire. It was a far cry from Schmidt’s resignation to the necessity of the
American presence in Berlin.
Bush, Schröder, and the Failure of Leadership

While the Bush-Schröder clash was part of a longer tradition of disagreement
between Germany and the United States, it was more divisive because of the
international and domestic environments in which it occurred. The end of
the cold war and the emergence of both post–9-11 America and post–11-9
Germany (the Germans designate the date of the fall of the Berlin Wall,
November 11, 1989, as 11-9) had weakened the old buffers against the impact
of leadership clashes. The personalities of leaders matter more when the envi-
ronment is fluid.9 As one of the chancellor’s closest advisers put it, “Don’t
underestimate the impact of the personalities of Bush and Schröder. Neither
one wanted to take the first step and admit that he had made a mistake.
Schröder wanted to avoid doing a Canossa—being kept outside the Pope’s
door for days before finally being forgiven.”10 Bush, in turn, prides himself on
taking decisions and sticking to them, and his administration is not known
for admitting its mistakes. Yet in many ways the two politicians were polar
opposites. Ideologically they were far apart, and their personal histories could
not have been more different. As the chancellor’s adviser put it, “They were
never on the same wavelength. Bush is very American, and Schröder never
developed a deep understanding of what makes the U.S. tick.”
Bush was born to privilege, in terms of both wealth and political power.
In his early adulthood he lived off his family’s name and his father’s con-
nections, the opposite of a self-made man.11 A Texas Democrat once
described the first President Bush as a man who was born on third base and
thought he had hit a triple; that description applied even more to his son. In
sharp contrast, Gerhard Schröder’s father was killed in World War II soon
after Schröder was born, and Schröder was raised by his mother, a cleaning
lady. He got to the top strictly on his own, through determination and an
acute sense of tactics and power. He was an entirely self-made—and fre-
quently remade—man.
As George W. Bush describes himself, he has a tendency to be emotional
and to place great value on personal relationships, particularly on personal
loyalty.12 He never forgave the Republicans who turned against his father
when he ran for reelection. His deep and continuing anger over Schröder’s
behavior precluded any serious attempt to limit the damage and give his
German counterpart an opening to come back toward the United States, if
not on Iraq then on other issues. Even as late as the summer of 2003, after
Bush had pronounced the end of the military phase of the war in Iraq, he
resisted attempts by Rice to get him to end the rupture with Germany.13
Bush and his advisers underestimated the depth of the changes that had
occurred in Germany since unification. They thought that no German gov-
ernment would risk being isolated from the United States and were surprised
when Schröder not only resisted U.S. policy on Iraq but went on to form a
coalition to oppose it. They missed the assertiveness of the later postwar
generations in Germany and the resonance that Schröder’s resistance would
find in the wider German public. The White House assumed that taking a
tough line against Schröder would assist his Christian Democratic oppo-
nents, and they overestimated the prospects for his defeat. Moreover, even
after Schröder won the election, the White House seemed to conclude that
it did not have to make any concessions to him and that he would return
Germany to its traditional position between the United States and France.
Once it became clear that Germany would not come around, Bush and his
advisers moved toward a strategy of divide and conquer in Europe, sym-
bolized by Rumsfeld’s old-versus-new Europe dichotomy. They were
effective in playing off Spain and Italy as well as the new member states of
NATO and the EU, notably Poland and Romania, against Paris and Berlin,
but at the cost of further weakening the transatlantic alliance.
The diplomacy of the Bush administration during this period is a case
study in how not to lead. It was disastrous to American interests and to the
country’s standing in the world. The administration failed to convince most
nations of its case; worse, it created opposition rather than simple apathy,
making it more difficult to obtain European support for the postwar recon-
struction effort in Iraq. Rather than being “present at the creation,” as Dean
Acheson described the American-led effort to shape a new world order after
World War II, the Bush administration was present at its destruction.
On the German side, Schröder also made a number of significant mis-
takes. If Bush overplayed a strong hand, Schröder overplayed a weak one
when he stated that Germany would not support a war even if the UN Secu-
rity Council issued a mandate. That was a striking break with the tradition
of multilateralism in German policy and opened the door for future unilat-
eral acts by Britain, Spain, and other members of the EU. Schröder in effect
declared that German views and interests would trump the broader interests
of supporting the credibility of the UN and the EU. By speaking of a “Ger-
man Way” he reopened concerns in Europe about a new German national-

ism and unilateralism, propelling the Poles and other east Europeans even
closer toward the United States. His subsequent coalition with France and
Russia only deepened “new” Europe’s worries of a condominium that would
subordinate the interests of the other members of the EU to the interests of
France and Germany. The German chancellor, along with the French presi-
dent, bear a great deal of responsibility for the splitting of Europe, which the
Bush administration then used for its own ends.
When George W. Bush came to power, Gerhard Schröder had been chan-
cellor for a little over two years. He brought the Social Democrats back after
sixteen years in the wilderness of opposition, playing on voters’ fatigue with the
“eternal chancellor,” Helmut Kohl, who had served longer than any chancel-
lor in German history (and longer than Franklin Roosevelt served as U.S.
president). Schröder offered himself as a safe alternative to Kohl, promising “to
do things better but not differently.” He patterned his candidacy after that of
Bill Clinton and of Tony Blair, calling for a “Third Way,” a nonideological soft-
left alternative, with “the New Middle” as his campaign slogan. As he talked
about “running an American campaign” he was dubbed “Clintonblair.”
What Schröder called “pragmatics,” or “learning from reality,” could be
seen as opportunism. He told the American journalist Jane Kramer, “When
reality collides with your political program, you have to consider that your
political program could be wrong.”14 This approach was related to his per-
sonal background. Schröder scraped his way from the bottom of German
society to its pinnacle solely through his own ambition, energy, intelligence,
and remarkable determination. He did not follow the university education
route, which most German political leaders did, taking instead the vocational
education track and attending night school to earn his degree in law. Many
of his peers in the SPD were radicalized in the student protests of the late
1960s, and they later engaged in a series of battles with the SPD’s working-
class trade union wing for control of the party. (These battles were similar to
those fought in the U.S. Democratic Party during the McGovern revolt of
1972.) Schröder escaped most of this ideological conflict and emerged as a
leader who changed positions as easily as he changed wives (he was in his
fourth marriage when he was elected chancellor). He conveyed the image
of a man with few friends and few emotions, a coolly calculating, power-
oriented politician who saw politics as a means of self-assertion and recog-
nition rather than as a matter of principle and ideology. Schröder saw himself
as the CEO of Germany, Inc. His role model was not the visionary Willy
Brandt, but Helmut Schmidt, der Macher, the one who got things done.
Schröder does not appear to have strong emotions. He once told a jour-
nalist that personal relationships with other leading politicians are “helpful,
but are not the precondition for successful foreign policies. . . . Personal
relationships cannot be more important than interests. That is what domi-
nates.”15 Unlike Bush, he does not bear grudges and thinks almost exclusively
in terms of self-interest and tactical maneuvers. That was clear in his rela-
tionship with French president Jacques Chirac, who openly supported
Schröder’s opponent, Edmund Stoiber, during the German election cam-
paign. Yet after the election Schröder had no problem with deepening his
relationship with Chirac and with France. In some ways, he may have been
too grateful to Chirac for easing his isolation, and because of that he may
have allowed his government to fall in step behind the French leader.
While Schröder carried no anger or animosity toward Bush and respected
him as a politician, he would not simply cave in to placate Washington,
especially because he believed that doing so would weaken his position at
home. To some extent his resolve on Iraq was the result of his opportunism.
His unprincipled approach to politics had weakened him in the eyes of his
own public, and his firm stand on Iraq helped to create an image of an
unwavering leader. Moreover, Schröder reflects the assertiveness and confi-
dence of his generation, as well as the perspective of a newly unified and
changing Germany. As one German official put it, “It is absurd to think that
Schröder’s generation will go to Washington to get its OK on the German
government’s decisions. From this perspective, the White House has been
too emotional about Germany. For Condi Rice and others, there was a ‘love
affair’ based on their experience in German unification. They still think of
Germany as West Germany and ignore the one-quarter of the German pop-
ulation that lives in eastern Germany. Germany is not simply a continuation
of West Germany.”16
Gerhard Schröder, like George W. Bush, came to office with little experi-
ence or interest in foreign policy. He had spent most of his career at the
local and state level in the state of Lower Saxony. As Jane Kramer wrote just
before he was elected as chancellor in 1998, “He has a deeply provincial sus-
picion of anything beyond the psychic borders of his familiar world.”17 Like
Bill Clinton, Schröder saw no real political payoff from foreign policy when
he took office. He wanted to avoid the fate of Helmut Schmidt, a foreign pol-
icy leader who, like George H. W. Bush, lost interest in and the support of his
more domestically oriented electorate. Schröder admired Clinton’s under-
standing of the need to focus on “jobs, jobs, jobs.” However, as foreign policy
issues came to consume, by his own estimate, about half of his time, he soon
learned the difference between being a governor and party leader and being
chancellor.18
By the time of the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, Gerhard
Schröder was no longer a foreign policy neophyte. Yet he remained a tactician,
not a strategist. He continued to have the foreign policy vision of a governor
whose primary interest was in trade, jobs, and the domestic costs and bene-
fits of policy. He supported EU enlargement not out of a broad geostrategic
vision, but because it provided markets and labor for Germany. He worked
well with Russian president Vladimir Putin because Russia too was a mar-
ketplace for Germany. Yet he also learned from being chancellor during the
Kosovo conflict that politics can have existential significance and that lives
could hang on his decisions.19 Going against the grain of his party and its
coalition partner, the Greens, he sent German military forces to Kosovo.
The Black Swan

One of the most striking and disturbing lessons of the run-up to the war in
Iraq was that even a relationship built on fifty years of close cooperation,
extensive personal networks, and solid economic interests could deteriorate
sharply in a matter of months. Leadership and personal relations matter. But
the German-American relationship went bad for both personal and struc-
tural reasons. The most important long-term change has been the radical
alteration of the strategic landscape that came with the end of the cold war.
The relationship between Germany and the United States had rested on a
solid strategic foundation: their shared perception of a common threat. In
addition, West Germany was a divided, semi-sovereign country, dependent
for its security on the United States. It was led by a succession of leaders who
had been shaped by the tragic history of the Nazi period, World War II, and
the reconstruction and phoenix-like recovery of the postwar years. These
Germans were grateful to the United States, but they also needed the United
States. They did not really trust themselves. They were weighed down by guilt
over the war and by the realization that other nations feared their country.
With the Soviet threat gone and Germany once again unified and sover-
eign, fundamental changes in the U.S.-German relationship were to be
expected. New generations of leaders and voters, including 17 million for-
mer East Germans, have brought a new sense of identity. The impact of the
history of the 1933–49 period has receded. To some extent, a certain “guilt
fatigue” has set in, along with a declining sense of gratitude to the United
States for its role during the cold war. Germans and Americans continue to
share many political values, but they now seem more divided along social
and cultural dimensions.
The dispute over Iraq, then, was more than just a single policy difference
that could be patched up later, perhaps by a different set of leaders. Taking
a closer look at what happened may provide a look at the future. Iraq turned
out to be a “black swan,” to borrow a phrase from Nicholas Taleb, a modeler
of future scenarios—that is, an event that no one anticipates but whose con-
sequences are transformative.20
2
From Unlimited Solidarity
to Reckless Adventurism:
Responding to 9-11
T he Bush-Schröder relationship got off to a rocky start. On the chan-

cellor’s first visit to Washington after Bush’s election, on March 29, 2001, the
new president embarrassed him and his Green Party coalition partners by
having the U.S. national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, announce half
an hour before their meeting that the Kyoto Treaty on climate change was
dead. That was followed by a series of blunt declarations from the new team
in Washington denouncing a series of multilateral initiatives to which Ger-
many was party, including the Chemical and Biological Weapons Treaty, the
International Criminal Court, and the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty,
to name just a few. It was clear that the conservative president and the Third
Way chancellor were going to have problems. However, this state of affairs
was quickly, though temporarily, to change.
On September 11, 2001, Schröder was in his office in the massive new
Chancellery in the still-under-construction government quarter in Berlin
when one of his assistants burst in and told him to turn on his television.1
He watched the images of the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington
and quickly realized the significance of what was happening. Yet he remained
typically cool and analytic, methodically assembling his crisis reaction team.
He sensed the longer-term implications of these acts of terrorism and con-
sidered calling new elections, given his concerns over the demands his
government would now face and the fragility of his coalition. At 5:00 that
afternoon he held a press conference during which he declared the “unlim-
ited solidarity” of his government with the United States and its support of
the invocation of article 5, the self-defense clause of the NATO treaty, by
NATO at the initiative of its secretary general, George Robertson—without
15
16 Responding to 9-11
prompting by the United States. He did this out of sympathy for the victims
and because he understood that any hesitation on his part would isolate
Germany from the United States and provide an opening to the Christian
Democrats to accuse his government of being anti-American. He also
believed that by providing support, Germany would gain the right to be con-
sulted and thus could exercise a moderating influence on American policy.2
However, Schröder had reservations early on about the direction of U.S.
policy. He had made it clear to a number of journalists that he was ready to
support military action but that he also would listen to his own public and
respect their reservations regarding such action. Because the terrorists, who
were members of al Qaeda, had attacked a NATO ally, he could justify par-
ticipating in retaliatory action against Afghanistan, whose Taliban-controlled
government had supported al Qaeda and its leader, Osama bin Laden, while
they prepared the attacks and had refused to turn them over afterward.3 But
when German foreign minister Joschka Fischer met with U.S. deputy secre-
tary of defense Paul Wolfowitz at the Pentagon in late September 2001, he was
told that after the Taliban was removed, the next goal would be the elimina-
tion of Saddam Hussein.4 Wolfowitz further said that the only solution to the
terrorist threat in the Middle East, and indeed the world, was to change the
political equation in the region. Bush’s secretary of the treasury at that time,
Paul O’Neil, and his chief of counterterrorism, Richard Clarke, later con-
firmed that planning for regime change in Iraq had begun early in the Bush
administration’s tenure.5 On learning of this conversation, Schröder was con-
vinced that the U.S. position in Afghanistan would lead to a larger American
presence in the Middle East. He could not support creating a tabula rasa in
the region upon which the U.S. would write its own design.
Schröder himself flew to New York to view the destruction at Ground
Zero and then to Washington to meet with President Bush on October 9,
2001. At a joint press conference, the president praised him and his country
for their role in the fight against terrorism: “There is no more steadfast
friend in this coalition than Germany.”6 Schröder left with the clear impres-
sion that “they are more enraged than after Pearl Harbor.”7
The chancellor returned to a very skeptical and cautious German public.
Reservations about supporting an American war on terrorism were espe-
cially widespread within his governing coalition of Social Democrats (SPD)
and Greens. These parties were in the forefront of opposition to the U.S. mis-
sile deployment in the 1980s and remained very reluctant to support the use
of force under almost all circumstances. They had gone along with the chan-
cellor and his Green foreign minister in supporting German participation in
Responding to 9-11 17
the Kosovo war largely on humanitarian grounds. Fischer had said at the
time that his generation had learned two lessons from the Nazi past: no
more wars and no more Auschwitz. When these two principles conflicted,
the Germans had a moral duty to use force to prevent genocide.
In the aftermath of 9-11, the German public had great sympathy for the
victims of the attacks and for their families. More than 1 million people
turned out in a demonstration of grief and solidarity at Berlin’s Branden-
burg gate on September 14, 2001. The public was generally supportive of a
measured U.S. military response, yet more ambivalent about Schröder’s call
for unlimited solidarity (see chapter 3). Many were concerned that the
United States would overreact and rely too heavily on military force, and
they feared that war would spread beyond Afghanistan to ensnare Europe as
well, making it a target for terrorist attacks and even pulling it into a wider
war in the region. While a majority believed terrorism was one of the major
problems facing Germany, their perception of the threat exceeded their sup-
port for the U.S. strategy for dealing with it.
Schröder remained convinced that he had to support the Bush adminis-
tration or risk isolating Germany. He put his government on the line on
November 16 by forcing a vote of confidence over the issue of German mil-
itary support for Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan. His
government barely won, gaining a slim majority for authorizing the use of
German forces in Afghanistan. The Red (SPD)-Green government deployed
more than 2,500 ground forces to the theater of operations. It was to be the
high point of German cooperation with the George W. Bush administration.
Signs of Troubled Times Ahead

The Bush administration decided against bringing NATO, and Germany in
particular, more fully into the war on al Qaeda, opting instead to go it
mostly alone in the war in Afghanistan. According to Bob Woodward, who
had access to the key players on the U.S. side as well as to some memoran-
dums of conversations, in a principles meeting held on September 30, 2001,
which the president did not attend, the issue of using a broader coalition
came up:
[National Security Adviser] Rice turned to the allies who were clam-
oring to participate. Getting as many of them invested with military
forces in the war was essential. The coalition had to have teeth. She did
not want to leave them all dressed up with no place to go.“The Aussies,
the French, the Canadians, the Germans want to help,” she said. “Any-
thing they can do to help. . . .” But Rumsfeld didn’t want other forces
included for cosmetic purposes. Some German battalion or French
frigate could get in the way of his operation. The coalition had to fit the
conflict and not the other way around. . . . [CIA director] Tenet turned
to Germany. . . . “The best thing the Germans can do is to get their act
together on their own internal terrorist problems and the groups that
we know are there,” he said. He was worried about more German-
based plots.8
Clearly one of the lessons of Kosovo for the U.S. military and political
leadership was to avoid another war by committee. The selectively multilat-
eral phase of U.S. diplomacy ended with the president’s State of the Union
speech on January 31, 2002, when he expanded the war on terrorism and
issued a warning to the “axis of evil,” composed of Iran, Iraq, and North
Korea. German hopes that the administration would follow a coalition strat-
egy began to give way to concerns about American unilateralism, which
were evident well before 9-11. These concerns mounted as talk of war with
Iraq increased in Washington.
Moreover, CIA director George Tenet’s comment raised a crucial point:
the enemy lurked within Germany itself. Al Qaeda had a number of Europe-
based cells, and the key planning for the 9-11 attacks had taken place in an
al Qaeda cell located at Marienstrasse 54 in Hamburg. The German equiv-
alent of the FBI, das Bundeskriminalamt, had kept the Hamburg cell under
surveillance since 1999, as had the CIA. Nevertheless, Mounir Al Motas-
sadeq, a key planner, and two of the 9-11 pilots, Mohammed Atta and
Marwan Al-Shehhi, were able to travel to Afghanistan for training, obtain
visas to enter the United States, and contact flight training schools in the
United States by phone and e-mail.9
The chancellor continued to support the U.S. strategy. In February, just
days after the State of the Union speech, he met with President Bush in
Washington and was told that there was no war plan for Iraq on the table.
Schröder had no time for “theoretical discussions” and laid out four issues
regarding any decision on Iraq. First, the alliance against terrorism should
not be undermined. Second, there must be proof of an active link between
al Qaeda and Iraq. Third, there needed to be an exit strategy. And fourth,
there must be a UN mandate. Schröder wanted Bush to understand that
these were high hurdles and implied that Germany would not necessarily
agree with U.S. aims, but he was not explicit. Some diplomats date the
beginning of the fatal misunderstanding between the U.S. and German lead-
ers to this meeting. Schröder, they contend, made a decisive mistake: “He did
not make it clear enough to Bush that this was a German no and thus left
himself open to being misunderstood.”10 Schröder followed up in March,
stating that any military participation by Germany would take place only
with a UN mandate.11
On the plane returning to Berlin from Washington, Schröder told his
aides that Germany could not play the same nonassertive and limited mili-
tary role that it had during the cold war. Now and in the future it had to
make a military contribution. This was consistent with a fundamental belief
that he had brought with him to the chancellorship—that Germany’s foreign
role should match its economic power and its growing geopolitical impor-
tance. This new self-assurance has been a leitmotiv of Schröder’s time in
office. Germany was ready to take on more international responsibilities
and expected in return to be taken more seriously by major international
players.12 He told a German journalist in February, “I know that a German
chancellor will not be welcome in the United States for the next twenty or
thirty years if we withdraw our tanks from Kuwait.”13
In Europe, Schröder hoped to forge a common position in order to
enhance the power and role of the European Union and act as a moderating
influence on the Bush administration. But at the EU summit in Barcelona in
March he realized that London and Paris were more interested in aligning
with the United States than in shaping a common European position.14 Dis-
appointed, the chancellor decided that Germany would not participate in
this beauty contest.
The Storm Breaks

The situation remained little changed until President Bush visited Schröder
in Berlin on May 22 and 23, 2002. The visit later turned out to be one of the
pivotal events in the unraveling of the Bush-Schröder relationship. What
occurred during their meeting remains in dispute. The president’s visit had
gone well. At a joint press conference, their personal relationship seemed
warm and relaxed. The president appeared to go out of his way to praise the
chancellor, saying, “I’m here to let the German people know how proud I am
of our relationship, our personal relationship, and how proud I am of the
relationship between our two countries. . . . One of the things I like about
Gerhard is he’s willing to confront problems in an open way. . . . We’ve got
a reliable friend and ally in Germany. This is a confident country, led by a
confident man.”15 This unscripted statement was a manifestation of Bush’s
belief in recognizing those who go out on a limb for him. The American
ambassador to Germany, Daniel Coats, turned to Joschka Fischer and
remarked that that was quite a statement, but that it would not go down well
with the SPD.
When the two leaders had met, prior to their news conference, they turned
to the topic of Iraq. Their discussion was brief. The president told the chan-
cellor, in effect, “You know my position and I’ll keep you posted,” but he said
that no decision had been made. There was an implicit agreement that nei-
ther of them would make war with Iraq an issue before the German election,
which was coming up in September.16 Once again, Schröder did not make
his objections to German participation known to Bush.
The American view of the thrust of both this meeting and the February
meeting in Washington was that the chancellor had explicitly told the pres-
ident that he would support a war as long as it was quick and civilian
causalities were kept to a minimum. Their sense of what Schröder said was,
“If you lead I will not get in your way, but be decisive, move quickly, and
win.” One American present at the discussions stated that Schröder said that
he did not have a problem with an engagement in Iraq as long as it did not
interfere with the election. Bush assured him that nothing would happen
before the election and that he would consult with the chancellor. Schröder
responded, “That’s all I need to know.” The president had the clear sense that
Schröder was with him. The problem was that no one knew what would
happen or what being “with” the United States would mean.17
Iraq came up a number of times at a press conference at the conclusion of
the president’s Berlin visit. The chancellor stated that the two leaders agreed
that Saddam was a dictator who had to be pressured to allow the UN/IAEA
(International Atomic Energy Agency) arms inspectors into Iraq to search for
nuclear weapons or other weapons of mass destruction (WMD). He stated
that Bush said that “there is no concrete military plan of attack on Iraq.” He
continued, “We will be called upon to take our decision if and when, after
consultations—and we’ve been assured that such consultations are going to
be happening—and then we’ll take a decision.” The president later reiterated
that he had “no war plans on my desk” and confirmed Schröder’s words:
“The Chancellor said that I promised consultations. I will say it again: I prom-
ise consultations with our close friend and ally.”18
The assertion that Bush made about not having any war plans on his
desk was misleading. As Bob Woodward’s second book on Iraq points out,
Bush had asked Rumsfeld in November of 2001 to prepare a war plan for
Iraq and the president had been briefed on the plan by his field commander,
General Tommy Franks, in February of 2002.19 So when Bush told Schröder

that he had no war plans on his desk, the operative words were “on his desk.”
The German version of the meeting is less clear. Almost two years later,
when Schröder was asked about the May meeting in an interview with the
Washington Post, he said, “We did not enter into any commitments. We had
talks. We met and talked.”20 Sources close to the chancellor said that what-
ever he might have said about Iraq and the election campaign was based on
the understanding that he would be consulted before any change in Amer-
ican policy was made. Schröder left the meeting with the feeling that not
much had changed from his previous meeting with Bush in March and that
Bush would keep him posted.
Their May meeting in Berlin marked the last warm point in the U.S.-
German relationship under Bush and Schröder. As the summer progressed,
several major developments occurred that changed the situation and led to
the crisis in the larger relationship. Within a month of the Berlin meeting,
on June 1, the president gave an important speech at the United States Mil-
itary Academy at West Point in which he outlined for the first time a robust
new U.S. approach to security, a clear precursor of the new strategy that
would be published on September 1 (see chapter 4).21
Then in July, Schröder made a tactical decision regarding his strategy in
the election campaign. In the spring he had told the SPD leadership that the
party would fight the campaign alone and not in coalition with the Greens.
By midsummer, though, he had become desperate and realized that he
needed a broader coalition of the left. Nevertheless, all his tactics, including
an attempt to paint his opponent, Edmund Stoiber of Bavaria, as a right-
wing extremist, had failed. While he remained personally popular, his party
and the coalition were trailing badly in the polls.22 He was searching for an
issue when suddenly two emerged: devastating floods in eastern Germany
and the mounting prospect of war in Iraq.
August proved a pivotal month. Germany was engulfed by a series of
floods, the worst in a century, with the eastern portion of the country bear-
ing the brunt of the damage. The floods created a rare moment of national
feeling and reminded voters why they had elected Schröder in the first place:
because of his competence. The chancellor quickly sensed that the disaster
had raised his standing as a leader in the east, giving him the opportunity to
get enough votes in the former East Germany to sink the neocommunist
Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS) and consolidate the left within the
SPD-Green coalition. The PDS, like other former communist parties in the
old Warsaw Pact states, had been able to refurbish its image and hang on as
a force in the region. While it had almost no support in the western part of
the country, it maintained its position in the east by playing on the region’s
deep economic problems as well as continuing resentment over what many
Ossis (eastern Germans) considered to be an unfriendly takeover by the Wes-
sis (westerners). Since German electoral law permits representation in the
German parliament for any party that gains at least 5 percent of the national
vote, the significant support that the PDS received in the east allowed it to
maintain a national presence and to divide the left, taking votes from the
Greens and the SPD. In order for Schröder to govern if he was reelected
with a diminished parliamentary majority, he would have to make some
arrangements at the national level with the former communists, who were
still deeply unpopular in the west. His party had already done so at the state
level in a few eastern states. However, his handling of the floods increased his
popularity in the east to such an extent that he had now a realistic prospect
of pushing the PDS below the 5 percent threshold and thus of forcing it out
of the Bundestag. If that could be accomplished, the chances of the SPD
and the Greens gaining a majority were greatly improved.
Iraq played into this strategy because of the possibility of mobilizing the
pacifists and nationalists of eastern Germany against intervention there. The
Schröder campaign had polled the electorate on the Iraq issue and saw it as
a wild card that could be played as a last resort. Polls had shown that east-
ern voters were less attached to Germany’s relationship with the United
States than were western voters and that they had more concerns about war
and NATO.
A combination of frustration and opportunism thus led Schröder to draw
Iraq, and by implication the Bush administration, into the campaign. As
Steven Erlanger, then the Berlin bureau chief of the New York Times, later
stated, “He did not expect to win the election and admitted that his biggest
problem was with his own party. He had to unite the SPD and get votes in
the east and to do this he pushed the peace button and it worked.”23
Both Schröder and Fischer had already sensed great uneasiness among
crowds at campaign rallies about both the prospect of war and the perceived
recklessness of Bush, and the audiences they addressed applauded any assur-
ances that they would not be pulled into a war in Iraq.24 On August 1
Schröder told the SPD presidium and then later stated on television: “We
hear unsettling news from the Middle East regarding a new danger of war. I
think that we demonstrated after September 11 that we will react decisively
but prudently, that we will show solidarity with our partner, but that we are
not available for adventure, and we stand by that.”25
The turning point came in an election speech that Schröder delivered in

Hanover on August 5: “Pressure on Saddam Hussein, yes. We must get the
international inspectors into Iraq. But playing games [Spielerei] with war
and military intervention—against that I can only warn. This will happen
without us. . . . We are not available for adventures [Abenteuer], and the time
of checkbook diplomacy is finally at an end.”26
This was followed by an interview with the respected news weekly Die Zeit
on August 15, in which he openly criticized the Bush administration for not
consulting with Germany and declared the need for a “German Way.” He
began to use charged phrases like “reckless adventure” and made it clear
that there would be no German military contribution to a war in Iraq, even
though the Bush administration had not asked for one. However, to
Schröder, the point was not what Germany might be asked to do militarily,
but rather the adventurism of the Bush administration as perceived by Ger-
man voters. As Der Spiegel was later to observe, the time of “unlimited
solidarity” came to an end in Hanover on August 5, and Schröder became
the Chancellor of Peace. “For Willy Brandt, the German-American friend-
ship was ‘a cornerstone in the turbulent events of international politics.’ For
his political grandchild, it was the last theme in the turbulent events of an
election campaign.”27
The chancellor, being a politician with a well-developed feel for power
and an extraordinarily keen sense of the public mood, began to build on
the positive responses he received from his audiences, escalating his rhet-
oric in response to the situation. In late July, his national security adviser,
the veteran diplomat Dieter Kastrup, urged him to weigh his words care-
fully. The chancellor acknowledged that he understood what Kastrup had
to say, but added, “I have to win the election.” Kastrup was never consulted
on the issue again, and domestic political advisers played a larger role in
shaping Schröder’s tactics. It is clear that this was more a political than a
foreign policy decision, made by Schröder himself, and that there was
never a full policy discussion on the German response to U.S. policy on
Iraq within the government, even within the Chancellery or the Foreign
Office. This does not mean that Schröder did not have real objections to
the Bush strategy, only that the rhetoric used was much stronger given the
electoral stakes.
Schröder and his foreign minister had expended a lot of political capital
and taken substantial risks to support the wars both in Kosovo and in
Afghanistan. The chancellor knew that while his coalition had gone along
with these policies, many of its members had done so reluctantly and with-
out conviction. He knew that opposition was growing within the SPD and
the Greens, and the Iraq issue gave him a way to recapture and mobilize his
base.
At much the same time, in mid- to late August, leading figures in the
Bush administration began to escalate their rhetoric on war in Iraq. Richard
Haass, at that time director of policy planning in the State Department, met
with Condoleezza Rice in July 2002 to discuss the pros and cons of making
Iraq a priority and was told to “save your breath—the President has already
decided what he is going to do on this.”28 Questions and growing criticism
of the proposed policy were raised by leading Republicans, including Rep-
resentative Dick Armey and Senators Chuck Hagel and Richard Lugar, as
well as traditional realists who had been in the earlier Bush administration,
including James Baker, Lawrence Eagelburger, and Brent Scowcroft.29 This
questioning, coupled with concerns raised by Democrats in the House, put
the Iraq hawks on the defensive. In order to regain the initiative, the leading
and most influential hawk, Vice President Richard Cheney, gave a tough
speech on August 26 in Nashville, Tennessee, to a veterans’ group that left the
impression that there was indeed going to be a preventive war.30 Listing Sad-
dam’s numerous past violations of the inspection regime, Cheney asserted,
Against that background, a person would be right to question any sug-
gestion that we should just get inspectors back into Iraq, and then our
worries will be over. Saddam has perfected the game of cheat and
retreat, and is very skilled in the art of denial and deception. A return
of inspectors would provide no assurance whatsoever of his compli-
ance with U.N. resolutions. On the contrary, there is a great danger that
it would provide false comfort that Saddam was somehow “back in his
box.”
He concluded with a call for regime change:
In other times the world saw how the United States defeated fierce
enemies, then helped rebuild their countries, forming strong bonds
between our peoples and our governments. Today in Afghanistan, the
world is seeing that America acts not to conquer but to liberate, and
remains in friendship to help the people build a future of stability,
self-determination, and peace. We would act in that same spirit after
a regime change in Iraq.31
Anyone reading or listening to this address could reasonably conclude
that the vice president was calling for regime change in Iraq, with or without
a UN mandate. The speech had the effect, in the words of one high-ranking
German official, “of kicking the ball to the German government”; it was a
decisive event.
Chancellor Schröder was enraged by Cheney’s speech because, contrary
to the agreement with Bush, he had not been informed on developments and
had learned everything he knew from the media. He had worked for three
and a half years against an anti-U.S. pacifist streak within his own coalition
and was angry that this was the thanks he got from Washington. He was not
convinced that Bush had made the case for war and was worried by the
principle of preemption and its implications under international law. If the
United States could act preemptively, why couldn’t other countries, such as
India or Pakistan, under the pretext of an imminent danger do the same?
Cheney’s sharply unilateralist speech went against the deep multilateralist
grain of German strategic culture. It also shifted the emphasis from con-
trolling weapons of mass destruction to regime change—a new development
in the eyes of Berlin.
There was disagreement in the chancellor’s office and the Foreign Office
over whether the speech represented the president’s thinking. Kastrup,
Schröder’s top foreign policy adviser, did not see it as a major change in
tone or substance, and no serious analysis of the speech was requested by the
chancellor. The newly named defense minister, Peter Struck, saw no room for
German influence. “The discussion is no longer over whether, but only over
how and when and with what consequences.”32 The German Embassy in
Washington reported that the speech was as an attempt to legitimize both in
the United States and abroad the necessity of regime change in Iraq.33 When
the German ambassador to Washington, Wolfgang Ischinger, tried to convey
this to the chancellor, he was informed that the chancellor was on the cam-
paign trail and could not take a call of that nature on an insecure line.
Ischinger had noted a paragraph of the speech that appeared to leave open
all options:
In the face of such a threat, we must proceed with care, deliberation,
and consultation with our allies. I know our president very well. I’ve
worked beside him as he directed our response to the events of 9/11.
I know that he will proceed cautiously and deliberately to consider all
possible options to deal with the threat that an Iraq ruled by Saddam
Hussein represents. And I am confident that he will, as he has said he
would, consult widely with the Congress and with our friends and
allies before deciding upon a course of action. 34
Nevertheless, in his second televised debate with Stoiber, on September 8,

Schröder stated that “the American vice president, evidently with the sup-
port of the president, two weeks ago changed the objective—namely that
Saddam will be toppled without any relation to the question of the inspec-
tors—and secondly, had made this very clear without any form of
consultation. I am for being consulted not only over when and how, but
also over whether.”35
Cheney’s speech was clearly manna from heaven from Schröder’s per-
spective. It allowed him to argue that his promise to Bush not to make Iraq
an issue in the German election campaign was based on the goal of con-
trolling WMD and not on the goal of regime change. That promise was now
seen to have been broken by Cheney. On September 4, 2002, the chancellor
agreed to grant an extended interview to Steven Erlanger of the New York
Times. There were no advisers present, only Schröder’s wife, Doris, and it was
clear to Erlanger that Schröder was speaking his own mind. Schröder felt
that taking the unilateralist approach was no way to treat allies, and he
believed that the United States was being disingenuous about the WMD
issue and wanted to use the UN inspections issue as an excuse for regime
change. In reference to the Cheney speech, Schröder asked,
How can you exert pressure on someone by saying to them: Even if you
accede to our demands, we will destroy you? I think this was a change
of strategy in the United States—whatever the explanation may be—
a change that made things difficult for others, including ourselves. . . .
Consultation cannot mean that I get a call two hours in advance only
to be told, “We are going in.”36
When Erlanger asked whether he thought Cheney spoke for the president,
the chancellor responded, “I am not qualified to say. The problem is that he
has or seems to have committed himself so strongly that it is hard to imag-
ine how he can climb down.”
The view of the speech in the White House was that although it was mil-
itant, it had to be understood in the context of the tumultuous period in
which it was delivered. Moreover, the president and Condoleezza Rice had
inserted a moderating paragraph in the speech, quoted previously, stating
that no final decision had been made and holding out hope for a diplomatic
solution. The White House did not think this would pose a problem for
Schröder. However, as Erlanger later put it, “Vice presidents don’t free-
lance.”37 The speech seemed to be a clear signal that the Bush administration
was changing the objective to regime change and was doing so without any
real consultation with its allies. Information that later became available,
especially Rice’s advice to Richard Haass, noted above, seems to confirm
that the decision for war had been made before Cheney’s speech in Nashville.
The speech presented Schröder with an ideal opportunity to escalate his
opposition to U.S. policy on Iraq. He told an audience in Munich shortly
after the Cheney speech, “The Americans should speak less about military
questions and more over the withdrawal from the Kyoto treaty.” And in
Berlin, he told another audience that an attack on Saddam was exactly the
type of “adventure” that Germans should have no part of.38
Karsten Voigt, the coordinator for German-American relations in the
German Foreign Office, contends that whether the Cheney speech was U.S.
policy or not is irrelevant, because in a parliamentary election, voters ask
candidates about their positions, and candidates must respond simply. Sup-
port for Bush’s policy on Iraq had been sliding, and Cheney’s speech, as well
as others by Rumsfeld, immediately intruded into the German campaign.
Therefore the U.S. view that Schröder, in an earlier interview, was saying no
to a request that had not been made—that is, for a military contribution to
a war on Iraq—was beside the point, because parliament would have to
decide whether to participate in a war, and the electorate wanted to know
where the candidates stood on the issue.
German chancellors had been put in difficult positions in the past because
of perceived American belligerence. This time, however, Schröder did not
waffle but simply said no: “To speak now about an attack on Iraq is erro-
neous. Germany will not participate in such a war under my leadership.”39
In contrast, his opponent, Edmund Stoiber, wavered and offered qualified
support, provided that there was a UN mandate for action. Two of Stoiber’s
leading spokesmen on foreign policy, Wolfgang Schäuble and Friedbert
Pflüger, at first spoke of options and threats against Baghdad, and even of the
possibility of an attack on Saddam without a UN mandate, but they were
quickly contradicted by the leader of Stoiber’s party in the parliament,
Michael Glos: “There is no intention on our part to participate anywhere in
the world in a military adventure.”40 Such indecisiveness and conditionality
hurt Stoiber severely in his second televised debate with Schröder.
Many voters saw Schröder’s stubbornness as a sign that he had principles
and that he would not bend (nicht wackeln). For someone who was widely
viewed as a tactical opportunist who had no core values or convictions, that
was a real plus. By August 23, days before the Cheney speech, the SPD had
finally taken the lead in the polls. Suddenly the Schröder campaign was
revived. As a member of the presidium of the Social Democratic party had
commented immediately after the Cheney speech, “We have a great cam-
paigner for us sitting in the White House.”41
The same message was delivered to Secretary Rumsfeld by a leading foreign
policy adviser to Stoiber, retired General Klaus Naumann, at a meeting in early
September: “If Cheney keeps this up he will be voted chairman of the SPD.”
Rumsfeld shrugged and said, referring to the infighting within the adminis-
tration over Iraq policy, that it was only politics. A close confidante of Cheney,
when asked whether anyone considered the impact the speech might have in
Germany, replied, “ Why should he care about the reaction in Germany?”42
Fanning the Flames

Schröder’s position was still seen in Washington as largely campaign
induced. Even before Schröder’s August 5 speech in Hanover, there was a
sense on the National Security Council that he might play the anti-Bush
card and that he was looking for ways to assert German sovereignty and
interests. His interview with the New York Times in September brought the
campaign home to the United States, especially when it was followed up by
remarks such as his declaration that “I will not click my heels” in response
to orders from Washington.43
Ambassador Coats, already alarmed in early August, had paid a visit to the
Chancellery to convey his personal concerns. In order to avoid making this
a larger issue, he met with the chancellor’s chief of staff and his national
security adviser rather than with Schröder himself. During the meeting he
told both Peter Steinmeier and Dieter Kastrup that they should not shoot the
messenger but should listen to the message. He expressed his personal con-
cerns about the serious consequences that Schröder’s line could have for the
broader German-U.S. relationship. He made it clear that he was not speak-
ing officially. Ambassador Coats believed that the Chancellery decided to
leak the meeting and make it appear that he was trying to order the Germans
to comply with the Bush line. The SPD’s leader in the Bundestag, Ludwig
Stiegler, compared Coats with the former Soviet ambassador to East Ger-
many, defiantly stating, “He does not determine the foreign policy of the
German government.” Stiegler later compared Bush with a Roman emperor:
“The USA is like the new Rome. Bush acts like he is Caesar Augustus and
Germany is treated like the Provincia Germania.”44 Coats saw this as yet
another indication that the SPD was going to tap into changing public atti-
tudes toward the United States and play the anti-American card to divert
attention from the economic problems facing Germany.
To the White House, such statements indicated that the SPD had been
unleashed to go after the United States. When President Bush met with
Joschka Fischer and Jürgen Chrobog (formerly ambassador to Washington
and now one of Fischer’s state secretaries) in New York around the time of
his UN speech on September 12, he demanded, “When is your damn elec-
tion over?” Here, again, German and American portrayals of Bush’s tone
diverge, with German officials describing it as a light comment while Amer-
ican officials relate that it reflected real anger; one White House staffer cited
George Bernard Shaw’s epigram that anger begins as a joke. However, the
U.S. administration still held out hope that the relationship would be
repaired and avoided taking sides in the German election (although Stoiber’s
campaign implored it to do so, and Chirac had made his support for Stoiber
clearly known).
Then, in the last week of the campaign, came Herta Däubler-Gmelin’s
remarks. Schröder’s minister of justice had been widely viewed as a compe-
tent, if not overly bright, official who had clear misgivings about the Bush
Justice Department and was very critical of the use of the death penalty in
the United States. On the Wednesday before the election, she met with a
group of about thirty trade unionists in her constituency, in the university
town of Tübingen. Feeling either exhausted from the long campaign or
relaxed among a small group of supporters—and perhaps unaware that a
journalist was present—she compared Bush’s tactics with those of “Adolf-
Nazi.” According to the journalist, she had been asked by some of the
unionists why Bush was pursuing such a policy toward Iraq. Däubler-
Gmelin replied, “Bush wants to get away from his domestic political
difficulties. This is a much-loved method. Hitler also used it.” She also
referred to the American legal system as “lousy” and said that Bush, the for-
mer chief executive officer of an oil company, would be in jail if the United
States had a law against insider trading.45
The comparison was inaccurate (Hitler’s domestic policies were popular),
and the analogy better fit Schröder’s campaign, but the fact that a German
politician would compare an American president with Adolf Hitler
prompted outrage in the United States. It was this, more than Schröder’s
statements on Iraq, that prompted Condoleezza Rice to say,
I would say it’s not been a happy time with Germany. There have
clearly been some things said way beyond the pale. The reported state-
ments by the interior [sic] minister, even if half of what was reported
was said, are simply unacceptable. How can you use the name Hitler
and the name of the president of the United States in the same sen-
tence? Particularly, how can a German, given the devotion of the U.S.
in the liberation of Germany from Hitler? An atmosphere has been
created in Germany that is in that sense poisoned.46
This term “poisoned” was repeated by Donald Rumsfeld. A National
Security Council staffer called the German Embassy in Washington to say,
“Now the glass has overflowed.”47 The White House spokesman described
the remarks as “monstrous and inexplicable,” and the White House expected
the chancellor to fire the justice minister immediately.
Schröder was enraged by Däubler-Gmelin’s words, but he was only two
days away from an election. He had just recently fired his defense minister
over a personal scandal and had lost a large number of ministers in his four-
year term; he could not afford to lose another so close to the voting. He also
was not sure whether the report was true, as she had at first denied saying
what was quoted. In any case, Schröder sent the following letter to President
Bush on Friday, September 20:
I am taking this means to let you know how very much I regret that
through the alleged remarks of the Justice Minister an impression was
left which deeply wounded your feelings. The Minister has assured
me that she did not make these alleged statements. She has also stated
this publicly.
I would like to assure you that there is no place at my cabinet table
for anyone who connects the American President with a criminal. The
White House spokesman has correctly noted the special and close rela-
tionship between the German and American people.48
The letter was disastrous. It was viewed by the White House as justifying
what had happened rather than apologizing. As one White House staffer
put it,“Bush felt personally betrayed. Her comments did not come out of the
blue. Schröder created the general atmosphere, which encouraged these sorts
of comments. During the final week there were more comments than just
those of Däubler-Gmelin. Schröder was riding the Iraq issue. His letter to the
President was insulting. He said, in effect, “I’m sorry that you feel angry
about this.”
The letter was not seen by the German Foreign Office or the German
ambassador to Washington before it was sent, and some in the Chancellery
had argued for a stronger reaction, including a personal telephone call to the
president. The chancellor declined to follow this advice and later admitted
that this was a mistake. Had he fired the justice minister immediately, it
would, according to a White House official, have been a good sign and might
have saved the situation. Rice’s strong reaction not only reflected the presi-
dent’s anger but may also have been calculated to help defeat Schröder in the
last week of the campaign.
What’s an Election Among Friends?

In any case, Schröder went on to win the closest election in postwar German
history by a total of 6,000 votes. German concerns over the Bush adminis-
tration’s approach toward Iraq were based on its perceived unilateralism but
also on the fear of war and a strong aversion to the use of force, a legacy of
World War II that remains within broad elements of the German popula-
tion, especially among older women.49 The use of the Iraq issue had a
number of positive effects for the SPD’s campaign. First, it shifted attention
away from domestic economic issues. Second, it mobilized the SPD and
Green constituencies, many of whom were deeply skeptical of the use of
military force and of the motives of the Bush administration in Iraq and
elsewhere. Third, it not only helped gain the votes of many women, but also
appealed to voters in eastern Germany (especially PDS supporters) who
either were pacifist or simply did not trust the United States and who tended
to equate its role in Germany with that of the Soviet Union in former East
Germany. Finally, Iraq also allowed Schröder to take advantage of his lead-
ership edge over Edmund Stoiber in an area where an incumbent chancellor
always has the advantage over a challenger: security policy.50 The renewed
emphasis on the leadership question at the end of the campaign reinforced
the normal reluctance of German voters to change leadership, especially
such a short way into the term of a new chancellor (by German standards,
at least; Helmut Kohl served sixteen years).
German voters believed that the SPD was better able to deal with the
United States than was the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) (40 per-
cent placed their confidence in the SPD, while 27 percent chose the CDU).
As a report on the election results by the Forschungsgruppe Wahlen, a lead-
ing German opinion polling firm, concluded, “In no other policy area is the
competence of the parties to deal with the issue so striking as in this one.”51
Schröder had a comfortable lead over Stoiber in the electorate’s confidence
in his ability to represent German interests. A majority (52 percent) thought
that the chancellor was better able to realize German interests in foreign
policy, while 21 percent gave the edge to the challenger (21 percent thought
there was no difference between the two).52
One clear result of the German election campaign of 2002 was that the
personal relationship between the reelected chancellor and the U.S. president
was irreparably damaged. The damage was deeper in Washington than in
Berlin, largely because of George W. Bush’s highly personalized approach to
foreign policy. Bush believed that Schröder was a man of his word after he
risked a vote of no confidence in November 2001, but when Schröder turned
against Bush in the summer of 2002, the president lost all confidence in
Schröder’s trustworthiness. But the estrangement was also part of the foreign
policy style of the Bush administration, which believes in toughness and
prefers being feared or respected to being loved.53 The White House and the
Pentagon leadership wanted to send the message that there is a cost to
opposing the administration, in part to punish Germany, but also to deter
any future opposition from other nations.
The White House also was worried about domestic opposition to war in
Iraq and feared that a concerted antiwar effort by the Europeans would
undermine support at home. With congressional elections only a little over
a month away, polls indicated that a majority of the U.S. public at the time
would support a war only if the United States had the support of its allies.
The embassies of Germany and France in Washington, as well as their UN
missions in New York, were receiving e-mail and letters of support from
Americans who opposed the war, urging continued resistance to the admin-
istration’s efforts in this direction.
The president’s speech to the UN on September 12, which had become
the focal point in the struggle within the administration and among its allies
over Iraq policy, was designed in part to respond to such concerns. Those
who wanted to take a multilateral approach through the United Nations,
most prominently Colin Powell and Tony Blair, wanted the president to use
the speech to declare that the United States and Britain would seek a new UN
resolution demanding that Saddam Hussein comply with UN/IAEA
weapons inspectors under the threat of UN-sanctioned use of force if he
failed to do so. Blair had to go the UN route to get the domestic political
backing he needed to participate in a war against Iraq. Those like Vice Pres-
ident Cheney and Secretary Rumsfeld, who feared that going to the UN
would only allow Saddam to prolong the crisis and avoid serious disarma-
ment, wanted the president to simply announce that the United States did
not feel that it needed a new UN resolution because Saddam was in viola-
tion of standing resolutions. Finally, after twenty-four drafts of the speech,
the president called for a new UN resolution instead of taking the more
explicitly unilateral option urged by Cheney.54 While the international
response was positive, it did not have much of an impact in Germany or on

German perceptions of Bush’s policy, which had been shaped by Cheney’s
August speech.
On the German side, fall 2002 marked the first time since the end of
World War II that a German chancellor had opposed U.S. policy on a cru-
cial issue. As Steve Erlanger summed up the situation:
He did this in part on principle, and in part out of electoral oppor-
tunism in appealing to popular anger created by the Bush people.
However, the German government simply capitalized on anti-Bush
feelings, which were created by the Bush people themselves. The gra-
tuitous unilateralism of the Bush Administration created the climate,
and this was something they never understood. The flaunting of inter-
national law, the sense of Gulliver unbound—these people wanted to
be unbound, and they should not have been surprised that they got the
reaction they did.55
Many observers in both Washington and Berlin believed that once the
election was behind them, the two governments would patch things up and
recreate the cooperative relationship that had existed before August 2002. Yet
rather than letting up, the crisis spiraled even further out of control.
3
Partners in Contradiction:
From the Election to War
W hen it became clear that Schröder had been reelected, Bush sent no
congratulatory message. This break in the normal protocol, a staffer in the
chancellor’s office later recalled, “had a snowball effect that resulted in a
period of noncommunication at the top.”1 The day after the election, the
chancellor met with the left wing of his parliamentary party and told its
foreign policy spokesman, Gernot Erler, that his decision on Iraq was fun-
damental and unshakable. To change his approach would cost him all
credibility with his party and the voters, and he had no mandate to do so.2
That promise took on added weight soon after, when he began to break his
campaign promises in the areas of economic and social policy and suffered
a loss of public confidence in his government right at the beginning of his
new term. He could not afford to wobble on Iraq. The White House viewed
the political faction of Schröder’s advisers (those from his party as opposed
to the foreign policy specialists of the government bureaucracy) as “defiant.”
The Bush administration believed that the chancellor was not interested in
making amends and that he wanted to keep the Iraq issue alive.
It was now clear that any hopes for a quick reconciliation between Ger-
many and the United States were dashed. As a top German diplomat put it,
“It is not good if the two bosses are not talking to each other. The assistants
feel they have to act the same way.”3 A series of frosty encounters followed.
As the German defense minister, Peter Struck, approached Secretary of
Defense Donald Rumsfeld during a meeting of NATO defense ministers in
Warsaw on September 24 and 25, 2002, Rumsfeld asked the U.S. ambassa-
dor to NATO, Nicholas Burns, to draw Struck away, as the White House had
told Rumsfeld not to talk to him.4 Rumsfeld later walked out during Struck’s
speech to the defense ministers.
34
The main channel of communication between the two countries at this

time was through their foreign ministers. The personal relationship between
Colin Powell and Joschka Fischer was good, in spite of the great differences
in their personal histories. When they first met, soon after Powell became sec-
retary of state, Fischer told him that he had demonstrated against the United
States while Powell was a soldier stationed in Germany. Powell simply
responded, “Amazing, isn’t it?”5 Fischer traveled to Washington on October
30, but he met only with Powell and for less than one hour. He was not wel-
come at the White House. The idea of a meeting between Schröder and Bush
was discussed, but Powell let Fischer know that there would be no private
meeting at the NATO session in Prague in November. Powell made it clear
that Germany could begin to heal the rift with Washington by taking com-
mand of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) contingent in
Afghanistan and supporting Turkey’s bid to join the European Union. But lit-
tle progress was made toward neutralizing the “poison” in the relationship,
although neither Powell nor Fischer used that noxious term.
Fischer’s U.S. visit was followed by a short telephone conversation
between Bush and Schröder on November 8 when the chancellor called to
congratulate Bush on the Republican victory in the congressional elections.
In that conversation, Bush told Schröder that relations between allies are
based on trust and reliability and that he hoped those foundations could be
rebuilt. As one White House staffer put it, Schröder was clearly not ready in
November to heal the rift and did not offer anything concrete. At the NATO
summit in Prague, the two leaders exchanged only a cursory handshake.
The German government made an attempt to repair the relationship
without surrendering its position on Iraq. Schröder announced at the end
of November that the United States would have unrestricted freedom to use
its airbases in Germany in the event of a war, and he agreed to supply Israel
with Patriot missiles so that Israel could shoot down any missiles that Sad-
dam might launch against it, as he had done in 1991 during the Gulf War,
though they caused little damage. He also agreed to provide security for U.S.
bases in Germany in case of war. The Bush administration did not respond
in the same spirit, instead blocking Germany’s attempt to chair the UN com-
mittee that oversaw the sanctions imposed on Iraq.
The Struggle over Resolution 1441 Begins

The situation stabilized somewhat as the Bush administration focused on
diplomacy in the UN, attempting to forge a Security Council consensus for a
new UN resolution on Iraq and giving the UN/IAEA weapons inspection
36 From the Election to War
regime a chance. However, this proved to be the lull before the storm, in which
the German-American confrontation shifted to the arena of the United
Nations. The UN Security Council set the stage on November 8, 2002, by
unanimously approving Resolution 1441, which stated, “The Security Coun-
cil . . . recalls . . . that the Council has repeatedly warned Iraq that it will face
serious consequences as a result of its continued violations of its obligations.”6
The struggle over the final wording was largely between France and the
United States. It centered on whether the United States would have the
authorization of the Security Council to go to war with Iraq if the latter was
found to be in “material breach” of the UN inspection regime. The United
States wanted Resolution 1441 to authorize military action without a further
resolution if Saddam was found to be lying or cheating in regard to his WMD
capabilities or if he failed to allow the UN inspectors free rein in looking for
weapons. The French, along with Russia and China, all permanent members
of the Security Council, wanted to have two resolutions, 1441 to state the
demands on Iraq with regard to inspections and a second to determine what
to do if Iraq did not comply or was found to possess weapons. That approach
would avoid any “automaticity” of American military action and preserve
the integrity of the Security Council in making the final decision for war by
leaving that decision to the council, not to the U.S. government.7 The final
resolution, which gave Iraq a “final opportunity” to comply with its disar-
mament obligations and reminded it of “serious consequences” if it did not,
was ambiguous. Resolution 1441 “failed to establish an agreed mechanism if
members of the Security Council disagreed over whether Saddam’s actions
constituted compliance.”8 In other words, the one-versus-two-resolutions
issue was not really resolved but simply postponed.
According to White House officials, in mid-December the president and
his closest aides made the final decision that military action was inevitable
(although, as noted in chapter 2, Richard Haass was led to believe the deci-
sion had already been taken by July). The French were aware of this decision
by mid-January, after Maurice Gourdault-Montagne, President Chirac’s
chief diplomatic adviser, met with Condoleezza Rice on January 13.9
By a twist of fate, the Germans held a seat on the UN Security Council
during the crucial period leading up to the war, and its ambassador to the
UN, Gunter Pleuger, served as chairman of the council in January 2003.
Being a nonpermanent member, Germany did not have a veto; the five per-
manent members (France, the United Kingdom, the United States, China,
and Russia) did. France therefore had a leading role on the council and Ger-
many had only a supporting role to play.10
The Germans were caught between their interest in improving relations

with the United States and Schröder’s uncompromising position on a war in
Iraq. In an interview with Der Spiegel in late December, the German foreign
minister was asked whether it could be assumed that Germany would vote
against a war in Iraq in the Security Council. Fischer responded, “That’s
something no one can predict as no one knows . . . which accompanying
conditions the Security Council will attach. It remains certain that we will
not participate militarily in an intervention.” When he was asked later in the
interview whether he agreed with his party, the Greens, that an attack on Iraq
without a UN mandate would be against international law, he responded,
“This discussion is somewhat moot. Resolution 1441 leaves open whether
the Security Council needs to pass a second resolution. But with Resolution
1441 there is no longer any lack of a [UN] mandate.”11 Fischer’s comments
prompted a strong reaction in Germany. Some in the Social Democratic
(SPD) and the Green parliamentary groups were worried that the govern-
ment was backing away from its strong opposition to the war, while the
head of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) parliamentary group was
equally critical that the German position implied both abstention from a war
and support for it in the Security Council.
The chancellor was facing two important state elections, in Hesse and his
home state of Lower Saxony, in early February and was worried that any per-
ception of waffling on this issue would harm his party’s chances. He received
a call from the SPD leader in Lower Saxony, Sigmar Gabriel, warning against
any shift in the Iraq policy. He also was determined to stay close to the
French, and in a telephone conversation on January 4, 2003, he and French
president Jacques Chirac agreed that they would maintain close concor-
dance of their policies in the important UN committees.
Fischer then backtracked from his earlier comments, supporting the
French in the Security Council in January and during a ministerial-level
Security Council meeting in New York on January 20 to discuss terrorism.
Colin Powell had been asked by the French foreign minister, Dominique De
Villepin, to attend the meeting but was reluctant to do so and agreed only
after De Villepin assured him that the issue of Iraq would not come up.
(Unknown to De Villepin, in a twelve-minute meeting between Bush and
Powell at the White House a week earlier, Bush had told Powell that he had
made the decision to go to war and had asked for his support; Powell had
given it.12) However, the issue of Iraq did come up, but it was raised first by
Fischer, who warned of the disastrous consequences that war in Iraq would
have on regional stability and the fight against terrorism. This led the Russ-
ian foreign minister, Igor Ivanov, to raise his concerns about the direction of
U.S. policy on Iraq. Then, after being questioned on Iraq policy during the
press conference that followed the meeting, De Villepin implied that France
would use its veto in the Security Council to block a war. That infuriated
Powell, who was angry both because the French had misled him on the sub-
ject of the meeting and because he believed that they had reneged on their
agreement to support the United States on Iraq if Saddam did not comply
with Resolution 1441. The Washington Post described the meeting as “the
diplomatic equivalent of an ambush.”13 As one analysis later concluded, “It
was the moment when the differences between France and the U.S. over
Iraq became inescapable.”14 This assessment was shared by U.S. officials,
one of whom described this as a tipping point in the UN saga.
Goodbye, Washington: Schröder Chooses France

The crisis deepened after yet another state election campaign statement by
Schröder, on January 21 in the town of Goslar in Lower Saxony, when he
declared that Germany would not support any UN resolution that legit-
imized a war. As in August, the chancellor spoke without consulting his
foreign policy team and created a minor rupture with his foreign minister.
One German academic analyst later concluded, “After Goslar, Germany was
no longer taken seriously as a partner by the United States, and friendship
could no longer to be spoken of.”15 However, the Bush administration had
given up on Schröder long before the Goslar speech. The real impact of the
speech was felt by Chirac: it may have pushed him over the edge, to adopt-
ing a policy of confrontation with the United States.
The day after, the French and German leaders met at Versailles, along
with an unprecedented joint delegation of 900 members of the French and
German parliaments, to commemorate the fortieth anniversary of the Elysée
treaty of French and German cooperation signed by Charles de Gaulle and
Konrad Adenauer on January 22, 1963. (Ironically, that treaty was an attempt
to create an alternative to the close relationship between Germany and the
United States.) It was remarkable how close Schröder and Chirac had
become after the German general election. Chirac had made no secret of his
preference for Edmund Stoiber during the campaign and was both shocked
and dismayed when Schröder prevailed. But he was able to take advantage
of Schröder’s postelection isolation from Washington to reinvigorate and
lead a fading Franco-German alliance. In the months leading up to the Ver-
sailles ceremony, the aides of the two leaders worked more closely on
common policies than they ever had before. This new alliance was evident
as early as October 2002, when Schröder agreed on a new financing arrange-
ment for EU farm policy that followed French guidelines. That was a major
change, as the German leader had often made clear his unhappiness with
Germany footing the bill for such policies, which brought more benefits to
other countries than to Germany.16 And at Versailles, Schröder issued a state-
ment with Chirac declaring that war in Iraq was a last resort and would
require a UN Security Council decision. On the plane back to Berlin he told
his aides, “Now you see, you can rely on the French.”17
At the same time, the French ambassador to Washington, Jean David
Levitte, and the German deputy chief of mission to Washington, Eberhard
Kölsch, urged American officials attending a reception in Washington to
commemorate the treaty not to go for a second resolution at the UN. Levitte
reiterated that recommendation in a separate meeting on February 21 with
the deputy national security adviser, Steven Hadley.18 However, their advice,
which represented yet another shift in the French and German position, was
rejected. Moreover, British prime minister Tony Blair had made it clear that
for domestic reasons he could not support a war without a second resolution.
In Washington, these developments further tipped the balance toward
the hawks in the administration. The leading moderate, Secretary Powell,
already aware of Bush’s decision to go to war, took a harder line. He now
stated that he saw no need for further inspections before moving ahead with
enforcing the UN resolutions. The New York Times reported on January 23,
2003, that the Bush administration would demand that France and Ger-
many and other skeptics agree publicly that Iraq had defied the Security
Council. Defense Secretary Rumsfeld labeled France and Germany “a prob-
lem.” The day of the Versailles meeting, he told a group of foreign journalists,
“You’re thinking of Europe as Germany and France. I don’t. I think that’s old
Europe. You look at vast numbers of other countries in Europe. They’re not
with France and Germany on this. They’re with the United States.”19
American efforts to create a countercoalition within Europe intensified
and led, on January 30, to the publication in the Wall Street Journal’s Euro-
pean edition of the Letter of Eight in support of Bush. Coordinated by
Tony Blair and the Spanish prime minister, José María Aznar, the letter also
was signed by six other European supporters of Bush’s policy. It was fol-
lowed by another letter of support, this time from the leaders of the Vilnius
10, a group made up of the Baltic states and other eastern European and
Balkan countries that were aspiring to join the EU. Crisis ensued as Europe
became more divided that at any time in the recent past. Neither Javier
Solana, the EU high representative for foreign policy, nor Chirac and
Schröder were informed of the letters beforehand. This episode may have
marked the beginning of a major shift in traditional U.S. policy from sup-
porting European unity and integration to encouraging disaggregation, the
“divide and conquer” strategy. The prospect of a bloc led by France and
Germany opposing what the administration believed was a policy of vital
national interest to the United States had shaken a lot of strategic assump-
tions on both sides. Schröder was outraged with the European leaders who
had signed the letters, but he disclaimed any responsibility for triggering a
wave of unilateralism in Europe, declaring, “It is not the result of my poli-
cies that Europe is split.”20
At the same time, the Pentagon activated more than 20,000 members of
the National Guard, and American troops were streaming into the Persian
Gulf region. A force of 150,000 was expected to be on the ground by mid-
February. These troop movements put pressure not only on Saddam Hussein
but also on President Bush, given the costs of maintaining such a large pres-
ence in the region. He could not afford to let the troops sit there for very
long, and the longer the delay, the more likely it became that a war would
have to be fought in Iraq’s intense summer heat.
In early February, the SPD suffered major losses in the state elections,
showing that the Iraq issue did not have the impact on them that it had on
the national elections. On February 5, Secretary of State Powell laid out the
case against Iraq for violations of the weapons inspection in a speech to the
UN Security Council. Foreign Minister Fischer argued that the evidence
presented was not conclusive, and he supported his French colleague,
Dominique De Villepin, in a call for giving more time to the inspectors to do
their job. The next day, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld added yet more fuel to
the fire by lumping Germany with Libya and Cuba on the issue of Iraq, say-
ing that all three had refused to help either in a war or in the subsequent
reconstruction of Iraq. On February 8, Rumsfeld and Fischer had a con-
frontation at the annual Wehrkunde (international security) conference in
Munich when, in an emotional moment, the foreign minister reiterated that
he was not convinced by the evidence presented by the Bush administration.
It was perhaps not coincidental that the top American NATO commander,
General James Jones, had briefed the U.S. congressional delegation at the
conference about plans to shift U.S. forces from Germany to bases in east-
ern Europe. Forceful statements by such figures as Senators John McCain
and Joseph Biden demonstrated the deep bipartisan anger in the United
States over the French and German position. When Fischer returned to
Berlin he told his aides, “There is nothing we can do any more.”21
On February 9, Schröder told Chirac, “I will bring Putin along. Then we
can create a trilateral relationship.” As Der Spiegel later concluded, “A new
phase began. Germany no longer fought against isolation, but shaped a new
alliance.”22 On February 10, France, Belgium, and Germany blocked NATO
preliminary defense support for Turkey in case it was attacked by Iraq, on the
grounds that approving aid would imply support for war in Iraq. This set off
a short but intense crisis within NATO, leaving many with real concerns
about its future viability.
The opposition Christian Democrats were generally critical of the posi-
tions taken by the Red (SPD)-Green coalition. They argued that these
actions were isolating Germany and undermining both its influence and its
security. In an opinion piece for the Washington Post, the leader of the CDU,
Angela Merkel, described Germany, France, and Belgium’s move to block aid
to Turkey as undermining “the very basis of NATO’s legitimacy.”23 During a
subsequent visit to Washington, on February 24 and 25, she supported the
view that the danger from Iraq was real and that pressure must be kept on
Saddam Hussein. She stated her support for the Letter of Eight and was crit-
ical of the Schröder government’s policy of criticizing the United States.24
Merkel received an especially warm welcome from U.S. officials, including
meetings with all the key figures, except Bush. It was a clear signal that Wash-
ington was hoping for regime change in Berlin.
However, the opposition party’s support of U.S. policy was not as solid
as Merkel’s. Polls indicated that while criticism of Bush’s policy was great-
est among the supporters of the governing Red-Green coalition, there was
little enthusiasm for a war in Iraq among Christian Democrats. The party
has a large Catholic base, and many followed the Pope and the Catholic
Church in opposing military action. E-mails to party headquarters were
running eight to one against Merkel’s course on the war. Many in the CDU
leadership were wary of challenging a chancellor in a time of war, especially
one who had the support of 85 percent of the population on the issue.
Merkel herself received much negative press for criticizing the chancellor
while in the country whose policies he was opposing. The CDU, therefore,
remained divided and rather ineffectual in challenging Schröder’s position.
Merkel, however, remained critical of Schröder’s stance even after the war
began, arguing that “no one knows whether unity in pressure on Saddam
Hussein would have forced him to disarm.” In her view, Germany’s place
was on the American side.25
Failure at the UN
After the “ambush” of January 20 and Powell’s speech at the UN on Febru-
ary 5, events began to build to a climax in the United Nations Security
Council in March. UN ambassador Gunter Pleuger pursued an aggressive
strategy, organizing the ten nonpermanent members (E-10) of the Security
Council into a bloc. When he had assumed the chair of the Security Council
for the month of January, he had heard many complaints from the other
nine nonpermanent members about their treatment by the permanent five
(P-5). He had told their UN ambassadors that if they said yes to France or to
the United States too soon, they would lose their leverage. If they got together
as a group and exchanged views, they could maximize their leverage with
the P-5 nations. The P-5 then would have to make their case to the E-10.
The U.S. team saw this as a deliberate strategy to create a bloc against the
U.S. position. They felt they had been making progress with a number of the
E-10 members individually and believed that Pleuger was lobbying against
them. When they asked a number of senior German Foreign Office officials
whether he was following his government’s instructions or his own inclina-
tions, they were told that he was doing much on his own. Yet it seemed clear
that Pleuger—besides having direct access to Joschka Fischer—was too sen-
ior an official and had too much clout to be speaking for himself; therefore
what he was doing must have represented the foreign minister’s views and
German policy. Furthermore, the U.S. administration was convinced that the
Germans had pulled the French into taking a more radical stance against the
United States instead of playing their traditional, and expected, P-5 role of
ultimately compromising to preserve the integrity of the Security Council
and thus their status as a P-5 member. The administration believed that
France would want to avoid being isolated in a minority position within
the Security Council. From this perspective, German support on the Secu-
rity Council, combined with Schröder’s position, gave Chirac and his foreign
minister, De Villepin, more room to maneuver, because they knew that they
would have a majority behind them.
Powell’s speech on February 5 had little impact on the French, Russian,
and German view that the inspectors should be given more time to do their
work. Powell’s case had been countered by the reports of the chief UN
inspectors, Hans Blix and Mohamed ElBaradei, to the Security Council on
February 14. Blix’s first report, on January 27, had been quite harsh in regard
to Saddam’s disarmament efforts, but his February 14 report indicated
improvement in Saddam’s cooperation with the UN inspectors. In addition,
he and ElBaradei challenged a number of allegations made by Powell in his
February 5 speech about specific Iraqi violations. This strengthened the

French case that the inspectors should be given more time. However, Bush
and his advisers wanted to go ahead with military action and feared that
futher delays would push them to postpone it until the fall in order to avoid
fighting in the heat of summer, giving Saddam more time to wiggle out of
the inspections regime.
Yet Bush’s key European allies, Blair and Spanish prime minister Aznar,
needed to have a second UN resolution specifically authorizing military
action in order to gain domestic support for any agreement to go along with
Bush. On February 22, the three leaders and Italian prime minister Silvio
Berlusconi, another Bush ally, agreed to go for a second resolution that
would state that Saddam had failed to comply with Resolution 1441, thus
allowing military action to be taken.26 The next month was filled with a
major lobbying effort, especially by Blair, to gain the support of a majority
of the Security Council for the second resolution.
By mid-March, the Bush administration felt that it had the nine votes
needed for the second resolution, but on March 14 the president of Chile,
Ricardo Lagos, made a statement indicating his reservations and “the U.S.
position went south.”27 Mexico got cold feet and pulled back into neutral ter-
ritory. From the administration’s point of view, that was the final tipping
point in the UN saga. The German view was that the United States and the
United Kingdom were never close to a majority on the Security Council; the
fact that they had not won over any of the noncommitted members was a
sign of the weakness of their position. The Bush administration at this point
was pursuing what one State Department official called “sacrificial diplo-
macy”(sacrificing its time and prestige for Blair). Its aim going into the UN
had been to do enough to get the United Kingdom on board while avoiding
a French veto. By the end of the first week of March, Blair’s foreign secretary,
Jack Straw, had concluded that the United States and the United Kingdom
would not gain a majority on the Security Council and should abandon
their efforts for a second resolution. Blair was saved by Chirac, who stated
on March 10 that France would veto a second resolution, giving Blair a face-
saving way out. On March 18, he finally got support for going to war from
the House of Commons. 28 The war began with joint U.S. and British
airstrikes in Iraq on March 20.
On the eve of the war, Gerhard Schröder addressed the German nation:
The world finds itself on the eve of a war. My question was and
remains: Does the extent of the threat that emanates from the Iraqi
dictator justify the use of war, which will bring death to thousands of
innocent children, men, and women? My answer in this case was and
remains: No! Iraq is today a country that is controlled extensively by
the UN. What the Security Council demanded in terms of steps toward
disarmament is being increasingly accomplished. That is why there is
no reason to interrupt the process now. My government, together with
our partners, has worked hard toward the ever-greater success of Hans
Blix and his colleagues. We have always understood this as our contri-
bution to peace. I am deeply moved by the knowledge that my position
matches that of the overwhelming majority of our people and also
that of the majority of the Security Council and the peoples of this
world. I doubt whether peace will still have a chance in the next few
hours. As desirable as it may be for the dictator to lose his power, the
aim of Resolution 1441 is to disarm Iraq of its weapons of mass
destruction.29
The ad hoc coalition that was shaped in the UN lasted from the build-up
to the war through its aftermath. Germany joined with France and Russia in
opposing a second resolution authorizing military action and pleaded for
more time for the inspectors. At the same time, however, it allowed the
United States unconstrained use of its bases in Germany and provided secu-
rity for them. It expanded its military role in Afghanistan to include almost
2,000 troops and assumed command of the ISAF once the force came under
NATO’s authority. It also contributed to a new NATO Reaction Force, which
was established after the Prague NATO summit in the fall of 2002 to under-
take counterterrorism operations. In short, Germany’s political and
diplomatic opposition to the war did not impede its military cooperation in
efforts outside Iraq.
Drivers of a Crisis
Yet the political and diplomatic dispute that had arisen between Germany
and the United States over Iraq was described by Henry Kissinger as “the
gravest crisis in the Atlantic Alliance since its creation five decades ago.”30 A
number of key factors lay behind its evolution. First, the German govern-
ment, including the Foreign Office and the intelligence establishment, did
not share the American assessment of the threat posed by Saddam Hussein.
In the words of a senior German Foreign Office official,
The need for a coalition against terrorism was understood, but Iraq
was seen in a more rational and legalistic way. It was not seen as being
in the framework of international terrorism. German intelligence

shared assessments with British and other European intelligence and
found no provable link between al Qaeda and Iraq. In addition, we did
not believe Iraq had new weapons of mass destruction. The assess-
ment was that some old pre-1998 weapons of mass destruction
survived but that there was no evidence that new ones had been added.
The threat perceived by some in the U.S. government was not per-
ceived as a threat by Germany. People in the German government felt
ignored and overrun by the U.S. administration, and there was no
attempt at a real threat and risk analysis.31
The Bush administration’s disinclination to consult with others with
regard to Iraq contrasted with its approach on missile defense early in its
term. There had been a great deal of skepticism in Europe over both the
desirability and the feasibility of missile defense. The administration sent
high-level teams to Europe in 2001 to discuss the issue and the reasons for
their strategic thinking. These consultations were extremely useful and sub-
stantially reduced European opposition to the project. One senior German
diplomat observed that if this approach had been tried with Iraq, it could
have made an important difference. “Bush did not consult before the deci-
sion for war was taken. Strategy remains credible only as long as the military
threat is credible. There is a need to escalate, but the timing and calibration
are very difficult, and in this case the military agenda overtook the political
one.” He observed that although Schröder may have been moved by electoral
considerations, his comments on Iraq were not off the cuff; they reflected a
strategic consensus in the Foreign Office that the risks of a war in Iraq out-
weighed the benefits:
In the Foreign Office, we assessed a number of likely scenarios. We
thought that a war would destabilize Iraq itself, as it was a fragile state
that had always been run in a dictatorial manner. We worried about
the impact of a Kurdish state on Turkey, Iran, and Syria. If Iraq fell
apart, the strategic role of Iran would be strengthened or a theocratic
Shiite government would emerge, neither of which were desirable sce-
narios. Then there was the Israel factor—what would happen to the
Palestinian-Israeli conflict? Would Saddam strike at Israel? What
would be the impact on Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Egypt?32
Schröder, a politician in deep trouble on the domestic front, was an
opportunist when it came to seizing on an issue that he thought would make
a crucial difference in the election, but he was not betraying his principles
or his assessment of the situation when he opposed Bush, although his man-
ner and language were opportunistic. This tension led to diverging approaches
regarding to the legal avenue to take. Germany agreed that there had been a
material breach of the disarmament regime by Iraq but maintained that the
principle of proportionality had to be observed—that the punishment had
to fit the crime. The German government would have agreed that if weapons
of mass destruction were found, then force could be used. The chancellor’s
remarks at Goslar were quickly redressed by the Foreign Office in a state-
ment by the chancellor on NATO aid to Turkey, in which he stated that force
could be used as a last resort. If Iraq had attacked Turkey, Germany would
have supported efforts to defend Turkey. And if inspections had been given
more time, the German government could have gone back to its people,
said that it had done all that it could, and then acceded to the U.S. military
action.
There was deep skepticism early on regarding the quality of intelligence
on which the U.S. arguments were based. The German delegation at the
UN, led by veteran diplomat Pleuger, believed that the intelligence was based
on false evidence. The British government’s reliance on bad data from a
decade-old PhD dissertation was one example. The case of the mobile lab-
oratories allegedly used to move biological weapons was another. The
original information on the mobile labs came from Italian sources, and the
German government had warned the United States that it was not credible
information. Secretary of State Powell, however, used that evidence in his
February 5 speech at the UN; it was refuted by the chief UN inspector, Hans
Blix, five days later. As a senior German diplomat closely involved in the
events later concluded, “We were faced with a situation in which we did not
believe there were justifiable grounds for war. Despite the U.S. pressure, the
Security Council member states did not change their position.”33 These
assessments proved to be far more accurate than those of the Bush admin-
istration, as later events were to prove.
The Bush administration, for its part, remained skeptical that giving
inspections a few more months would have changed the French and German
positions, and it believed that doing so would simply have given Saddam
more time to escape from the inspection regime. Vice President Cheney
expressed this skepticism in Nashville in August 2002:
Saddam has perfected the game of cheat and retreat, and is very skilled
in the art of denial and deception. A return of inspectors would pro-
vide no assurance whatsoever of his compliance with U.N. resolutions.
On the contrary, there is a great danger that it would provide false

comfort that Saddam was somehow “back in his box.”
Meanwhile, he would continue to plot. Nothing in the last dozen
years has stopped him—not his agreements; not the discoveries of the
inspectors; not the revelations by defectors; not criticism or ostracism
by the international community; and not four days of bombings by the
U.S. in 1998. What he wants is time and more time to husband his
resources, to invest in his ongoing chemical and biological weapons
programs, and to gain possession of nuclear arms.34
In addition to the differences in their assessments of the threat posed by
Saddam, there was confusion on the German side regarding varying U.S.
statements on regime change as a rationale for action. Legal authority was
required to undertake regime change; a decision to do so could not be made
solely by one state. The Germans were especially sensitive to the need for a
system of rules and norms to constrain the natural anarchy of a system of sov-
ereign nation-states that can decide on their own to replace regimes they do
not like. The shifting of rationales by the Bush administration also under-
mined the credibility of its argument for war because rather than being
founded on principle, its argument seemed to shift depending on circum-
stances and tactics. Was the war over weapons of mass destruction, over
Saddam’s support for terrorism and al Qaeda, over human rights and democ-
ratization, or something else? The fact that the rationale kept changing only
fed suspicions that baser motives like oil or revenge were behind American
policy.
After the Storm

The quick and impressive U.S. military campaign in Iraq in the spring of
2003 was followed by the chaos of the postwar period and the failure of
U.S. troops and inspectors to find significant stores of weapons of mass
destruction. It also saw the UN antiwar coalition of France, Germany, and
Russia continue to block the Bush administration’s attempts to gain sup-
port for postwar reconstruction without ceding significant authority to the
United Nations. When the German foreign minister and the U.S. defense
secretary met again at the Munich security conference in February 2004,
just a year after their dramatic confrontation before the start of the war,
Joschka Fischer made it clear that the German analysis had been confirmed
by events:
One year ago this conference was the venue for a frank debate—as is
not unusual between friends—on the question of a war against Iraq.
Our opinions differed on:
—whether the threat was analyzed as sufficient to justify terminat-
ing the work of the UN inspectors
—the consequences that a war would have on the fight against
international terrorism
—the effects of a war in Iraq on regional stability
—whether the long-term consequences of the war would be con-
trollable
—and whether the controversy surrounding the legitimacy of the
war would dangerously reduce the sustainability so essential in the
post-conflict phase.
The Federal Government feels that events have proven the position
it took at the time to be right. It was our political decision not to join
the coalition because we were not, and are still not, convinced of the
validity of the reasons for war.35
Fischer had said as much to the German journalist Michael Inacker in late
2003. Flying back from a meeting between Schröder and Putin in St. Peters-
burg, Fischer came over to Inacker and said, “Now will you admit that you
were wrong and we were right about the war?”36
The Shift to France

The events of fall 2002 through the first half of 2003 were harbingers of
deeper shifts in German policy. While a close relationship to Paris has been
an important element of German foreign policy since the time of Adenauer,
the decisive shift toward the French side was a new development. Before fall
2002, German leaders had always positioned Germany between Washington
and Paris and avoided choosing between the two. This approach allowed
Germany to play the role of broker and maximized its flexibility and influ-
ence. It also reflected the importance of balancing the three key pillars, or
circles, of German foreign policy: the Atlantic, the West European, and the
Central European.37 All of this changed after Iraq.
President Chirac, in turn, may have overplayed his hand in New York
once he realized he had the weight of Germany behind his challenge to U.S.
policy. The Financial Times reported that as late as December 2002 a senior
French liaison officer had visited General Tommy Franks at his headquarters
in Tampa to discuss the fielding of at least 15,000 French soldiers as part of
an allied force. On January 7, 2003, Chirac had told his armed forces to be
ready “for any eventuality.” However, as the newspaper noted, “In the next
three weeks, the French President dug in against any early action. He knew
now that he could rely on Mr. Schröder.”38 While Schröder’s support may
have reinforced Chirac’s determination, however, it did not shape it. As
Philip Gordon and Jeremy Shapiro conclude in their careful study of the
transatlantic crisis, “Chirac, in fact, opposed the war not in order to change
his relationship with Germany, but because he thought war would be a
strategic mistake and did not want to set the precedent of acquiescing to the
United States. . . . In forming a common front with Schröder against the war,
Chirac was using his Germany policy to bolster his Iraq policy, and not the
other way around.”39
In October 2002, the Schröder government was isolated. It emerged from
its isolation by creating a common position first with France, then with
Russia. The newsmagazine Der Spiegel reported that Schröder told SPD par-
liamentarians of his pride in the common German, French, and Russian
declaration on Iraq: “Berlin is not isolated as is contended in Washington
and elsewhere. Just the opposite: ever more countries are coming behind the
German position to give peace a chance.”40 Nevertheless, there were fears in
Berlin that at the end of the day France would support the United States in
the Security Council and abandon Germany, so there was great relief when
France stayed its course. But rather than driving French policy, Berlin
became a junior partner to Paris. As a Foreign Office official put it, “We
were not isolated anymore, but had put ourselves behind France, without
being strong enough to formulate policies and interests.”41 Foreign Minister
Fischer also described the relationship with France in terms that seemed to
imply subordination:
France plays a very meaningful role in world politics. It has a vision of

its own global role. It has a different history from ours. It is a member
in full standing of the UN Security Council and is a nuclear power.
Along with the United Kingdom, it has a great history, while our coun-
try has a broken history. We can’t put our country on the same level
with Britain and France.42
One of the key questions to emerge from the Iraq experience concerns the
extent to which the German shift toward Paris is a harbinger of a longer-
term historical change in German foreign policy. Has Germany now
subordinated the Atlantic to the European circle, led by France and Ger-
many? If so, will that reduce German isolation or simply increase it? Foreign
Minister Fischer’s characterization of the U.S.-German relationship as

having shifted from being partners in leadership to being partners in con-
tradiction (Partnerschaft im Widerspruch) may indicate a deeper divide.
While officials in the Foreign Office have stressed that the German goal is a
multilateral world and not a multipolar one, Chancellor Schröder seems to
have come to the view that Germany must help construct a Europe whose
power can balance that of the United States. Schröder told SPD parliamen-
tarians in February 2003 that he had taken a “historic decision” that went
beyond the question of war and peace to ask “whether a single power had the
say in the world or whether the world would remain multipolar, not depend-
ent on the grace of the only superpower, the USA.”43 Christian Hacke, a
leading German scholar on contemporary German foreign policy, has
argued that this approach represents a shift from the continuity of an
Atlanticist perspective to a new Carolingian one based on the Europe of
Charlemagne, which rested on a Franco-German base. This shift, he con-
tends, will lead to the further isolation of Germany and to the splitting of
Europe, which was foreshadowed by the experience in the winter and spring
of 2003.44 This policy might undermine the third circle of German policy,
Central Europe.
According to one of Fischer’s closest advisers, Fischer knew when he
became foreign minister that changes in Germany’s international role were
on the way, especially in its relationship with the United States. “We knew
that change was necessary, and that meant some level of conflict and pain.”45
This mirrors the view of many in the Bush administration that the German
government seemed to be going out of its way to challenge the United States.
As one U.S. official put it,
They didn’t seem to care how what they said and did would affect the
U.S. This was a time to assert their independence and to pick a fight
with the United States in order to show they wouldn’t be pushed
around. The issues they chose, the International Criminal Court, the
death penalty, were justified “because of our [Germany’s] history.”
They were aimed at the U.S. because they wanted to show that you are
no different than any other society. No more preaching. We aren’t so
horrible.46
Another Bush administration official had similar views: “Even before the
crisis began, we had expected that Schröder would come after us. We had
heard of talk in the SPD that Schröder might play the anti Bush card.”
The German-American relationship was fundamentally altered by the

events of 2002 and 2003. Bush and Schröder were catalysts for a deeper
change that had been building in the strategic and political cultures of both
countries between the two 9-11s—the Germans’ November 9, 1989, when
the Berlin Wall fell (designated 9-11 in Germany), and the Americans’ Sep-
tember 11, 2001. Their assessments of threat had diverged, and their strategic
relationship was now altered beyond recognition. As Christian Hacke saw it,
Germany had welcomed the soft hegemony of the USA as a stability
factor for decades when Germany found American dominance sup-
portive rather than burdensome. But now the German government
has given the impression that it seeks to undermine the policies of the
USA by constructing a countercoalition. Here lies the revolutionary
shift in German foreign policy. The German government interprets the
German-American relationship as confrontational and sees it as
endangering thereby the influence of German foreign policy.47
However, by mid-2004 the Bush administration also was more isolated
and bore more responsibility for the clash between the countries, given its
break with the cold war pattern of American diplomacy. That change, and
the way it collided with German strategic culture, will now be more deeply
explored.
4
Kulturkampf:
A Clash of Strategic Cultures
T
he dispute between Germany and the United States over Iraq was
part of a deeper clash of strategic cultures. A nation’s strategic culture is
that aspect of its general political culture that relates to national security pol-
icy, including beliefs about national identity, national interest, the world
and the nature of the international system, causes and effects (including the
consequences of state policy and the instruments of policy), and such nor-
mative dimensions as ethics and the legitimacy of state authority.1 Strategic
culture focuses on the relationship between defense strategy and culture in
describing and explaining national strategic style. It is the result of the inter-
action of history, geography, politics, economics, and culture.
The Bush revolution in foreign policy ran directly counter to the evolu-
tion of the German strategic culture. Whether it will fundamentally change
the American strategic culture is a the key question for the future of transat-
lantic relations. It is clear, however, that the differences that emerged between
Bush and Schröder over Iraq reflected fundamental differences in their polit-
ical interests and strategic cultures.
On January 20, 2001, when George W. Bush, standing on the steps of the
Capitol, took the oath of office as the forty-third president of the United
States, he was not standing there because of his security and foreign policy
agenda. In fact, foreign policy had deliberately been downplayed by both the
Republican and the Democratic campaigns. Bush had the least background
and interest in foreign policy of any new president since Harry Truman, but
he lacked Truman’s Washington experience or intellectual breadth. One
observer described his stance as a “principled provincialism.” He seemed to
have almost no interest or curiosity in the world: “Here is someone who by
52
A Clash of Strategic Cultures 53
age 13 was mingling in the country club set of Houston, who then went on
to Andover, Yale and Harvard Business School—and did so in the age of
cut-rate international air fares—and yet he rarely traveled abroad.”2
Bush ran on a platform of “compassionate conservatism,” indicating that
he might be a moderate Republican in the tradition of his father. During the
presidential campaign he said, “If we are an arrogant nation they will resent
us. If we are a humble nation, but strong, they will welcome us.”3 However,
after assuming office, this Bush administration proved to be a radical break
from the first in terms of both principle and style. Where Bush Senior’s
administration had been a model of cautious realism and consensual deci-
sionmaking, Bush Junior’s, which prided itself on discipline and staying on
message, was characterized by division and open dispute among the key for-
eign policy principals.
Under the first President Bush, Secretary of State James Baker, Secretary
of Defense Richard Cheney, and National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft
worked together smoothly, with few public hints of dispute over policy. The
national security adviser acted as an effective honest broker in the intera-
gency process. Under George W. Bush, policymaking was an undisguised
civil war between the Pentagon’s civilian leadership and the vice president’s
office on one side and the State Department and national security bureau-
cracy (the military leadership and intelligence agencies) on the other. The
president’s national security adviser proved unwilling or unable to act as an
honest broker, thereby allowing the Pentagon (with strong backing from
the vice president’s office) to have unprecedented dominance over the for-
mulation of foreign and security policy. This division was due both to the
new president’s inexperience in foreign policy (in contrast to the deep
expertise of George H. W. Bush) and to the radically different schools of
thought within the new administration. George W. Bush’s key foreign pol-
icy appointments included representatives of three schools of conservative
foreign policy: traditional realists, neoconservatives (or democratic imperi-
alists), and nationalist conservatives or (assertive nationalists).4
The Traditional Realists

Traditional realists had dominated Republican foreign policy at least from
the Eisenhower through the George H. W. Bush administration. Realists
hold a balance-of-power view of world politics, in which the international
system is based on the struggle for power among states. Their view of the
national interest is one of limits, constraints, and the nonideological use of
power. Realists are pessimistic about the prospect of human nature ever
54 A Clash of Strategic Cultures
changing. They also worry about overextending state power and participat-
ing in utopian crusades led by people who have no direct experience of war
or of the limits of power. They are multilateral in the sense that they see the
need for alliances and a broader international framework—which minimize
the dangers of overextension and the formation of countervailing coali-
tions—in order to best exercise power. Realism was originally a European
approach to international politics, and its leading American exponents, fig-
ures like Henry Kissinger and Hans Morgenthau, came from Europe. It is not
surprising that European leaders have been comfortable with this approach
and that its followers in the Bush administration became the hope of the
Europeans during the run-up to war in Iraq.5
This type of traditional realism was the dominant perspective in the first
President Bush’s administration, where its key proponents were James Baker,
Colin Powell, Lawrence Eagleburger, and Brent Scowcroft. They came to
form the core group of realist critics of neoconservatism in the new Bush
administration, joined by some in the Republican caucus in the Senate, most
prominently Senators Richard Lugar, Chuck Hagel, and John Warner. The
younger Bush included in his team of “intelligent hardliners” (to borrow
Philip Taubman’s phrase) a number of realists who shared some of these
perspectives, stressing geopolitics and realism over human rights and “soft
power.” National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, a protégé of Brent
Scowcroft, had written the year before she assumed her position that when
foreign policy is centered on values, “the national interest is replaced by
humanitarian interests or the interests of the international community. . . .
To be sure there is nothing wrong with doing something that benefits all of
humanity, but that is, in a sense, a second-order effect.”6
The leading traditional realist in the George W. Bush administration was
Secretary of State Colin Powell, the author of the Powell doctrine, which
warned against the overextension of American forces and urged the use of
overwhelming force once they were employed. As Ivo Daalder and James
Lindsay point out, Powell “worried about the costs of alienating other coun-
tries. His time in Vietnam had left him acutely sensitive to the limits of
American power and the whims of public support.”7 Dov Zakheim, who
became the comptroller of the Defense Department, had written that vio-
lating another nation’s sovereignty threatens to “unravel the entire fabric of
international relations.”8 In many respects this was the foreign policy of the
corporate community, with its focus on free trade more than on human
rights. While Rice had her origins in this group, in office she tailored her
views to those of the president. Powell was therefore left as the main advo-
cate of this perspective within the administration, as well as the primary

target for the other two schools of foreign policy thinking.
Neoconservatives
Traditional realism had increasingly come to be challenged by both neo-
conservatives and nationalist conservatives in the Ford administration and
lost its dominance to these groups during the Reagan administration. Most
of the first generation of “neocons” were former socialists and Democrats
who had left their party in a revolt of hard-line defense Democrats against
the Carter administration in the 1970s. They were described by one of their
founders, Irving Kristol, as “liberals who had been mugged by reality.” Under
the second President Bush, the neoconservative school of foreign policy was
represented by a group of defense intellectuals who had cut their teeth dur-
ing the Reagan administration— including Paul Wolfowitz, I. Lewis
“Scooter” Libby (Vice President Cheney’s chief of staff), Douglas Feith (the
number-three official in the Pentagon), and John Bolton (a thorn in Powell’s
side in the State Department)—as well as their allies in the conservative
think tanks and media, including Richard Perle, William Kristol, Charles
Krauthammer, and Robert Kagan. This second generation was more varied
in its political origins and included a few, like William Kristol, who were the
children of members of the first neocon generation.
With their belief in the power of ideas and the universality of American
values, the neocons were part of a longer tradition of American exception-
alism.9 In that view, U.S. power is a force for good and should be used
aggressively to shape a new world order based on the ideals of free market
economics and democracy. As Peter Steinfels wrote of the original neocon-
servatives in 1979, “The United States—and its military power—remains, in
their eyes, a global force for good; they suspect détente and the evolution of
Communist parties in Western Europe; they assertively defend Cold War
anti-Communism, the CIA and images like the ‘free world.’”10
The neoconservatives despised the caution of such traditional balance-of-
power realists as Henry Kissinger and Colin Powell and led the revolt against
Kissinger’s détente policies on the ground that they were a form of appease-
ment, of learning to live with the Soviet Union.11 Their model was Ronald
Reagan and his unbridled moralism in refusing to compromise with “the evil
empire.” In contrast to both traditional realists and nationalist conserva-
tives, the neocons are optimists, hyper-Wilsonian in their belief that the
world can be democratized and thus pacified.
The most influential first-generation neocons were East Coast Jewish

intellectuals who emerged from the struggle among American intellectuals
over Stalinism and democratic socialism.12 As Steinfels wrote, “They were a
party of intellectuals, but powerful intellectuals.”13 They were in some
respects Leninist in their focus, discipline, and ruthless pursuit of their goals.
Their supporters in think tanks and the press were remarkably unified in fol-
lowing a party line, with little evidence of dissent, self-criticism, or doubt.
They demonstrated the power of a disciplined minority that has a clear
operational plan and takes an “ends justify the means” approach to achiev-
ing its aims. Steinfels also noted that they “retained some elements of their
early Marxism,” including impatience with “bourgeois sentimentality,” the
impulse to unmask group or individual interests, and an emphasis on class.14
The neoconservatives’ ascendancy in the past decade has been achieved
through a combination of the vigor of their arguments and a powerful infra-
structure that both propagates those ideas and quickly and ruthlessly attacks
its opponents. As Christopher Patten, the EU external relations commis-
sioner, once put it, “I don’t agree with the neo-conservatives, but one thing
you can say about them is that they are prepared to have a debate, a good old
intellectual rumpus.”15 By the end of the 1990s the neoconservative school
had become dominant not only in the Republican Party, but also in the
larger American debate on foreign policy. Influential journals and think
tanks—the National Interest, the Weekly Standard, the New Republic, and
the American Enterprise Institute, the Heritage Foundation, the Project for
a New American Century, the Hoover Institution, the Hudson Institute—
influenced the discourse on foreign policy through the force of their
intellectual energy and self-confidence, and a dash of paranoia, all aided by
a major infusion of money from conservative foundations and supporters.
An important link to the euroskeptical British Conservative Party was
established through the New Atlantic Initiative, based at the American
Enterprise Institute. Many of the critical views of Europe held by American
conservatives were reinforced when seen through the lens of the British
euroskeptics.16 This network was extended when Jeffrey Gedmin, the exec-
utive director of the New Atlantic Initiative at the American Enterprise
Institute, moved to Berlin to head the Aspen Institute just before the start of
the crisis over Iraq. He became the voice of neoconservatism in the German
capital and brought in many fellow neocons to speak and debate with Ger-
man academics, journalists, and officials.
This influential neocon network has been financed not only by conser-
vatives of great wealth, such as Richard Scaife, the Coors family, and the
Canadian media baron Conrad Black among others, but also by business
interests attracted to the neoconservatives’ strong defense of business val-
ues.17 The movement has also benefited from a vacuum of ideas on the
Democratic side. No comprehensive world view or strategy emerged during
the Clinton years; in fact, Sandy Berger, national security adviser in Clinton’s
second term, dismissed the idea of grand strategy as post hoc rationalization
of policy. September 11 and the run-up up to the war in Iraq split the
Democrats further, with most mainstream leaders supporting Bush’s
approach. There is no equivalent network of institutes, media, and academ-
ics of the right in Europe, leading to a further clash between the foreign
policy cultures of continental Europe and the United States and Britain.
The neocon view of Europe was first shaped during the era of détente,
with its concern over appeasement and the “Finlandization of Europe.”18 As
Dana Allin wrote in his study of neoconservatism, or what he called “the
power of a bad idea,” those concerns were based on “Americans’ abiding
pessimism about the political stability and moral resoluteness of their Euro-
pean allies when faced with Soviet pressure.”19 The neoconservatives’ revolt
against what they considered the dangerous turn to the left of the Demo-
cratic Party with the candidacy of George McGovern in 1972 was also a
revolt against the realism of the Nixon-Kissinger years and its policy of
détente. Such key neocons as Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz had worked
for Senator Henry Jackson, a prominent Democratic critic of détente.20 They
turned on the left with the ferocity of converts who have seen the light. They
had, as Allin writes, “a distinct world view, in particular, a pronounced pes-
simism about the Soviet threat.”21
Europe, with its preference for détente and accommodation over con-
frontation and resolution, was seen as weak. The 1970s and early 1980s were
a time of Ostpolitik in West Germany and a general preference for détente in
Europe as a whole. In describing his view of détente to a Senate hearing in
1981, Richard Perle, perhaps the most prominent voice of neoconservatism
in foreign policy, explained, “Many Europeans, particularly on the left, saw
the emergence of an energy relationship with the Soviets as a useful device
for fostering détente. And détente, in turn, was seen as a process that could
transform an essentially hostile relationship into a more cordial, and less
volatile political arrangement that would lessen the need for burdensome
defense budgets.”22
To Perle and other neoconservatives, however, Finlandization, Ostpolitik,
and détente were all code words for appeasement. Indeed, in the George H.
W. Bush administration “the very word that defined the centrists’ search for
a less troubled and divided world—détente—was a red flag to the more ide-
ological people in the [Republican] party. Détente meant you accepted the
right of the communists to occupy a large part of the world, which was not
to be tolerated.”23 This association, in turn, goes back to what was seen as a
long-standing European preference for accommodation: the Munich Syn-
drome. In their self-righteous fervor, the neocons ignored the fact that the
United States did not support Britain and France over Czechoslovakia in
1938 and in fact did not enter the war against Hitler until it was attacked at
Pearl Harbor, and only after Hitler had declared war on the United States.24
This dismissal of European morals was also linked to the suspicion that pre-
war European antisemitism had not vanished and underlay the critical view
of Israel held by many European governments.
This world view based on a policy of strength was reinforced during the
1980s by the Reagan administration, the rise of Margaret Thatcher in Britain,
the successful deployment of NATO missiles in Germany, and the end of the
cold war, largely on U.S. terms. The fall of the Soviet Union fed the triumphal-
ist strain in neoconservative thinking, as evidenced by the proclamation of a
unipolar world led by the unparalleled power of the United States.25 Main-
taining that supremacy and countering the rise of peer competitors became
a key goal. Given the central role of military power in this new world order,
Europe was further devalued because of its continued division and military
weakness. The Balkan experience of the 1990s seemingly confirmed Europe’s
weakness and ineffectiveness and also provided evidence of the split between
the traditional conservative realism of the first President Bush’s administra-
tion and the more radical form of neoconservatism.
The war between these two approaches was evident when George H. W.
Bush became president in 1989. His secretary of state, James Baker, took
delight in removing many Reaganites, saying, “Remember this is not a
friendly take over.”26 Bush’s accession to power reassured European govern-
ments (with the exception of Margaret Thatcher’s), which welcomed a
return to a more centrist realist foreign policy tradition in the United States.
But in retrospect, it marked the end of an era. These foreign policy centrists
were replaced by their more conservative challengers under George W. Bush.
The views of Europe that came out of this tradition remained deeply pes-
simistic. In its cruder, popular forms, as expressed by William Safire, George
Will, Michael Kelly, and Charles Krauthammer, Europe is dismissed as hav-
ing shifted its accommodationist tendencies from communism to the
Middle East and terrorism. The reasons given for the shift are various,
including moral and military weakness, continued antisemitism, an overem-
phasis on soft power and nonmilitary instruments of statecraft, and an

unwillingness to reform costly welfare bureaucracies. The old Soviet threat
has been replaced by the new threat of terrorism and disorder in what these
observer view as the still-Hobbesian parts of the world, where force rather
than law rules.27
The prominence of the neoconservatives in the new Bush administration
and their alliance with the Christian right created a climate that was strongly
skeptical of and hostile to Europe. Their most visible and vocal representa-
tive remained Richard Perle, the chair of Donald Rumsfeld’s Defense Policy
Board. He never tired of chastising the Europeans for “lacking a moral com-
pass” and asserted that “Germany has subsided into a moral numbing
pacifism.”28 In An End to Evil: How to Win the War on Terror, their neocon
manifesto after the war in Iraq, Perle and his coauthor, David Frum, who
coined the term “axis of evil,” write again of European appeasement.29 This
sentiment was echoed in many like-minded publications. Christopher Cald-
well, for example, wrote in the Weekly Standard, “A good case can be made
that constant looking backwards has deprived Germany of both optimism
and dynamism. The locking of the country’s politics into atonement for
World War II, necessary though it was for many decades, deserves some of
the blame for the adolescent, consumerist, hedonistic, pornographic society
that Germany turned into.”30
This line of thought only escalated the neocon aversion to what Rumsfeld
called “old Europe.” Old Europe, led by France and Germany in an alliance
with Russia, was trying to dominate the “new Europe” of the former east and
central European Warsaw Pact states and to create a counterbalance to
American power and purpose. According to this narrative, old Europe was
using the European Union and the United Nations to thwart U.S. efforts to
deal with the axis of evil, much as it had accommodated the Soviet Union
during the détente era. For western Europe, Perle and Frum added, “the col-
lapse of the Soviet Union was a moment of liberation—not for Eastern
Europeans but for themselves. Now at last they could be free of the United
States and of the horrible burden of gratitude.”31 The new Europeans, being
personally closer to the experience, were more willing to challenge totali-
tarianism than the more complacent and self-satisfied old Europeans.32
The reaction in Europe and in Germany to the rise of the neoconserva-
tives in the United States has been, not surprisingly, critical. Helmut
Schmidt, a Social Democrat and former chancellor, opined that this “nation-
alist-egocentric influence of imperialistic-minded intellectuals on U.S.
strategy is greater than at any time since the Second World War,” and he
predicted that the unilateralist school would be in the ascendancy for at

least a decade.33
Both the tenor and style of the neoconservatives’ criticism have badly
damaged a relationship that was close for more than forty years. Suddenly
American officials and intellectuals were accusing their closest allies of moral
relativism, or at best naiveté and idealism. There was no attempt at real dia-
logue or serious consideration of European objections to U.S. strategy on
Iraq. Opposition was dismissed as motivated by Schröder’s electoral oppor-
tunism, German pacifism, French opportunism, or worse. In an extreme
instance, Michael Kelly, an op-ed columnist for the Washington Post, savaged
Joschka Fischer after he had challenged Rumsfeld’s arguments for war at
the 2003 Wehrkunde meeting in Munich, by raising his past as a violent
protestor in the 1970s and accusing him of the worst sort of antisemitism:
“You were not a terrorist yourself, but you were a good and active friend to
terrorists, weren’t you Mr. Fischer? . . . You were a man for whom Munich
wasn’t enough [referring to Fischer’s early support for the Palestinian Lib-
eration Organization despite its murder of the Israeli team at the Munich
Olympics], the man who needed Entebbe to convince him that murdering
Jews was wrong. You asked to be excused. You have been excused.”34
Kelly’s charge of antisemitism was part of a theme that linked German
opposition to U.S. foreign policy to America’s pro-Israel stance. In this, the
neocons fell prey to the “genetic fallacy,” a fundamental error in logic that
discredits an argument on the basis of it source, not its substance. Steinfels
had already noted this weakness in the 1970s:
The work of the neo conservatives, taken as a whole . . . is of high qual-
ity. They are literate . . . they marshal evidence as well as emotion.
They make some effort to search out principles and relate specific
problems to general ideas. . . . [But] one of the neo conservatives’ major
faults [is] their tendency to treat their adversaries as feebleminded or
dubiously motivated, or to admit into the circle of “honorable” oppo-
nents only those who share their style or pass some ideological
Wassermann test of “pro-Americanism.”35
Nationalist Conservatives
A good part of this story of the change in American grand strategy and crit-
icism of Europe is of a rather extreme element in American political thought
striving for hegemony in the debate over ideas and in policy. By themselves,
these urban neocons would not have prevailed. What was decisive for their
success was their alliance with a broader “Jacksonian” school of nationalist
conservatives from the South and the West, a school represented by George
W. Bush, Richard Cheney, and Donald Rumsfeld. These conservatives are
strongly nativist, nationalist, and religious—followers of the Christian
right.36 They are concerned about limits on American sovereignty and are
deeply pessimistic about the threats the rest of the world poses to American
security and values. In contrast to the neocons, the nationalist conserva-
tives do not want to remake the world; they simply strive to protect America.
One analysis aptly described the difference: “The nationalists come to their
views through a deep pessimism about the rest of the world, while the neo
cons are permeated by optimism about the ability of America to transform
it.”37 Thus one of the key differences between Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wol-
fowitz concerned the ability of the United States to transform the Middle East
into a democracy. While his deputy believed in this vision, Rumsfeld was only
interested in removing what he saw as a direct threat to U.S. security.38
These “assertive nationalists” were primarily from the South and West.
The Jacksonian tradition, primarily associated with middle- and working-
class white Protestants, emphasizes a version of realism that, while skeptical
of humanitarian intervention and global institutions, places great weight
on “honor, concern for reputation, and faith in military institutions.”39 The
rise of Ronald Reagan and the election of George W. Bush represented the
revival of this tradition in American politics. This view was reinforced by a
Congress, especially Republicans in the House of Representatives, that was
parochial, distrustful of the world, and hostile to multilateralism.
The crucial player in propelling the nationalist conservatives toward the
neocons on Iraq was undoubtedly Vice President Cheney. Given the inex-
perience and lack of self-confidence of the new president in foreign policy,
he relied heavily on Cheney’s advice for both policy and staffing. The vice
president assembled his own national security council, parallel to that of
the president, and was instrumental in bringing Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, and
other, lesser players into the foreign policy team. Cheney’s unfiltered and
unrestricted access to the president, including a weekly one-on-one lunch,
allowed him to shape foreign policy to a degree unprecedented for a vice
president.
Cheney turned out to be the most conservative of the key figures in the
new administration, perhaps even more so than the president had expected.40
He had, in fact, been the most conservative figure in Bush Senior’s adminis-
tration, where, as Frances Fitzgerald wrote, “the fundamental division lay
between Defense Secretary Cheney and everyone else”—although “Cheney

always disagreed in a thoroughly agreeable fashion.”41 In the earlier admin-
istration, his influence was limited by both the role of Scowcroft and the
president’s own preferences and world view. In the later Bush administra-
tion, by contrast, Cheney faced a weaker national security adviser and an
inexperienced president. He consistently took a worst-case approach to
threats to American security. Early in 2001, however, Cheney was still dis-
missive of the neocons: “Oh, they have to sell magazines; we have to
govern.”42 September 11 would push him to share the neocon approach.
Cheney, Rumsfeld, and George W. Bush himself prefer taking a tough, no-
nonsense approach to opponents, whether domestic or foreign. Rumsfeld
has said that “weakness is a provocation,” and his leadership in the Pentagon
has been described by one senior officer as “the wire brush treatment” of
withering cross-examination and intimidation.43 He has directed this
approach to his neoconservative aides as well.
The nationalist conservatives, with their keen sense of threat, tend to dis-
miss their opponents as dangerously optimistic or naive. Vice President
Cheney once characterized the United States as being on the twenty-first
century side of the terrorism challenge, while Europe remained embedded
in the twentieth century. From this perspective, the danger is imminent and
so direct that there is no time for the niceties and formalities of diplomacy.
Beyond this, there is a certain arrogance of power. The nationalist conser-
vatives believe that because the United States is the world’s most powerful
nation it can do what it wants in areas of vital interest; in their view, allies
have little to contribute in terms of military power and only end up getting
in the way. Strong American leadership would eventually win over other
countries to the U.S. cause.
The Epiphany of 9-11

The dramatic events of September 11, 2001, transformed the entire constel-
lation of forces within the George W. Bush administration and created a
new coalition of nationalist conservatives and neoconservatives around the
president, isolating the realists. The neocons had long held regime change in
Iraq to be a high priority, believing that this was the key to putting into
motion a reverse domino effect that would create a new democratic dynamic
in the Middle East and also offer prospects for settling the Palestinian-Israeli
dispute. But the clear preference of Bush, the Jacksonian nationalist, before
9-11 to avoid nation building was evidence of his skepticism about the neo-
conservative project. The events of September 11 brought the president and

the nationalist conservatives around to the neocon view. In the words of a
senior administration official, “Without September 11, we never would have
been able to put Iraq at the top of our agenda.”44 Bush came to believe that
his leadership was a matter of fate, or of God’s will, and that “leading the
world to peace” was the mission of the United States.45
He was resolved to do everything possible to prevent another 9-11 or
worse. As one of his aides put it, “September 11 gave him a now or never
again sense. He never wants to stand again before another pile of rubble.
He’ll err on the side of being overly vigilant.”46
At a National Security Council meeting at the White House on Septem-
ber 12, as described in Bob Woodward’s insider account, Bush at War,
Rumsfeld raised the question of Iraq, asking, “Why shouldn’t we go against
Iraq, not just al Qaeda?” Bush made it clear that this was not the time to
resolve that issue; the principal focus should be on al Qaeda. “Bush worried
about making their initial target too diffuse. Let’s not make the target so
broad that it misses the point and fails to draw support from normal Amer-
icans, he said. What Americans were feeling, he added, was that their country
had suffered at the hands of al Qaeda.”47
This was also the position advocated by Colin Powell and it prevailed
during the initial campaign against the Taliban and al Qaeda in Afghanistan.
But somewhere between the end of the campaign in Afghanistan and the
State of the Union address in late January 2002 “came the convergence of
views that would produce the war against Iraq.”48 This coincided as well
with the escalation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in early 2002. The
administration began to see an identity of interests between Israel (and
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s approach to counterterrorism) and the United
States.49 It adopted the Likud view that the fight against terrorism was a war
and that the enemy had to be met with uncompromising force.
Strategic Divergence
This new constellation of forces allowed the neocons to push a broader
agenda for regime change in Iraq. The most vocal and persistent advocate for
this agenda was the deputy secretary of defense, Paul Wolfowitz, who stated
his objective quite openly during a September 13 press briefing at the Pen-
tagon: “It is not simply a matter of capturing people and holding them
accountable, but removing sanctuaries, removing the support systems, end-
ing states who sponsor terrorism [emphasis added].”50 He continued his drum
beat for expanding the war to Iraq at a key meeting with all the principals,
including the president, at Camp David the next day.
This agenda also reflected a shift in strategic focus and emphasis from
Europe to the Middle East and from traditional alliances to coalitions of the
willing. Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, and their deputies openly diminished the
importance of NATO as an alliance and clearly preferred more fluid, ad hoc
coalitions of the willing for post-Afghanistan operations. Deputy Secretary
Wolfowitz had declared to a defense ministers’ meeting at NATO headquar-
ters in Brussels right after 9/11 that the mission would now determine the
coalition, not the other way around.51 The major enlargement of NATO’s
membership that took place in fall 2002 in Prague was another indication
that the alliance was seen in Washington increasingly as a political institu-
tion for regional collective security and less as a military alliance for
collective defense.52 The enlargement made it more difficult to shape con-
sensus than had been the case with fewer members; in addition, because the
new members had small militaries, it did not do much to close the military
capabilities gap between the United States and Europe.
This neocon view was deeply unsettling to Berlin, which wished to pre-
serve NATO’s role as the central security institution in Europe. As General
Klaus Naumann, the former head of NATO’s Military Committee, wrote,
“European allies see NATO as a collective defense and crisis management
organization, whereas the United States no longer looks at the Alliance as the
military instrument of choice to use in conflict and war.”53
The decline in the perceived importance of Europe in U.S. defense pol-
icy was due both to the shift of threats to other theaters and to the growing
gap in military capabilities between the United States and its European allies.
It was evident in the fact that both President Bush and Secretary Powell
spent less time in Europe than any of their predecessors, and in the admin-
istration’s willingness to allow the rift with Germany to drift unresolved for
so long.54 The new approach was made clear in the National Security Strat-
egy of the United States of America, the Bush administration’s official
statement of its strategy, published in September 2002.55 This document
stated plainly that deterrence and containment were appropriate for the cold
war, but not for the new threats posed by “rogue states” and nonstate ter-
rorist groups that intended to obtain weapons of mass destruction (WMD):
The greatest danger our Nation faces lies at the crossroads of radical-
ism and technology. . . . Enemies in the past needed great armies and
great industrial capabilities to endanger America. Now, shadowy net-
works of individuals can bring great chaos and suffering to our shores
for less than it costs to purchase a single tank.
In the Cold War, weapons of mass destruction were considered
weapons of last resort whose use risked the destruction of those who
used them. Today our enemies see weapons of mass destruction as
weapons of choice.
Traditional concepts of deterrence will not work against a terrorist
enemy whose avowed tactics are wanton destruction and the targeting
of innocents.56
Invoking the concept of imminent threat and revising it for contempo-
rary conditions, the United States now claimed the right to act preemptively.
This marked a shift in stated policy from deterrence and containment to pre-
emption. The nature of the new threats to the nation’s security did not, it was
contended, allow the United States the luxury of waiting to be sure that it was
going to be attacked; it had to act to preempt any such event.
The policy of preemption had historical precedents; indeed, it was no
more than a common sense. Had the U.S. government known on December
6, 1941, that the Japanese fleet was preparing to attack Pearl Harbor, it would
have acted preemptively. And in December 1993, Clinton’s first secretary of
defense, Les Aspin, announced an initiative that left open both reactive and
preemptive options for dealing with a Saddam Hussein with nuclear
weapons.57
What was new was not preemption but the embrace of preventive war under
the guise of preemption. The distinctions between the two are important:
—Preemptive war: initiation of war because an adversary’s attack—
using existing capabilities—is believed to be imminent;
—Preventive war: fighting a winnable war now to avoid risk of war
later under less favorable conditions; while a threat is not imminent,
the combination of intentions with a growing capability will mean
that the balance of power will shift in an unfavorable direction in the
future and thus action should be taken now to prevent this longer-
term threat.58
History and international law have not condoned preventive wars,
because they are seen as wars of aggression disguised as self-defense. In Iraq,
George W. Bush’s administration fought a preventive war but justified it as
a preemptive war, based on the immediate threat posed by weapons of mass
destruction either possessed or soon to be possessed by Saddam Hussein.
However, the president continually referred to a gathering danger, rather

than an imminent one—and as it turned out, the threat was greatly exag-
gerated. The distinction and dilemma Bush faced was neatly summarized by
Michael Ignatieff, who said, “The honest case for war was “preventive” – to
stop a tyrant with malicious intentions from acquiring lethal capabilities or
transferring those capabilities to other enemies. The case we actually heard
was “pre-emptive”—to stop a tyrant who already possessed weapons and
posed an imminent danger.”59
Another striking element of the new national security strategy is the
stated policy of preeminence. The document explicitly states the goal of
continued primacy of American power: “Our forces will be strong enough
to dissuade potential adversaries from pursuing a military build-up in hopes
of surpassing, or equaling, the power of the United States.”60 This is a marked
shift from the official U.S. strategy of containing potential enemies and
maintaining a balance of power to a new concept of order, one in which the
United States is a dominant, benign hegemon because it stands not only for
its own interests but also for a just world. This is a strategy based on band-
wagoning (that is, jumping on the U.S. bandwagon) rather than balancing.
Moreover, it rejects an alternative approach, global pluralism, that would
encourage the sharing of global governance among multiple centers of
power. The Bush administration chose instead a “smothering strategy,”
designed to prevent the rise of any peer competitor.61
The alliance of nationalist conservatives with neoconservatives brought
the hegemonist strategy to the fore. As Ikenberry puts it, “Order is created
by a hegemonic state that uses power capabilities to organize relations
among states.” A strong version of hegemonic order is “built around direct
and coercive domination of weaker and secondary states by the hegemon.
But hegemonic orders can also be more benevolent and less coercive—
organized around more reciprocal, consensual and institutionalized
relations.”62 Ikenberry sees the more coercive approach as an informal impe-
rial order, while he labels the latter “liberal hegemony.” Daalder and Lindsay
find five key positions underlying the hegemonist logic of Bush’s foreign
policy:
—The world is a dangerous place.
—Self-interested nation states are the key actors in world politics.
—Military power is the key factor in international relations, and power
includes will.
—Multilateral agreements and institutions are neither essential or con-
ducive to American interests.
—The United States is a unique great power that stands for good and
threatens only those who oppose the spread of liberty and free markets.63
The intellectual origins of these new approaches to preeminence and pre-
emption go back at least to the administration of George H. W. Bush in the
early 1990s and a draft of defense planning guidelines written by Paul Wol-
fowitz and others in the Cheney Pentagon. While Wolfowitz, Libby, and
others were involved in its formulation, this document was clearly a prod-
uct of Cheney’s thought. As the journalist James Mann explained, “The gist
of the strategy they formulated was that the United States should be the
world’s dominant superpower—not merely today or 10 years from now, or
when a rival such as China appears, but permanently.”64 The Clinton admin-
istration had an unstated policy that was quite similar, based on the belief
that it was in America’s interest to be so dominant as to discourage any peer
competitors. Many of the weapons systems that were used with such effect
in Afghanistan and Iraq were developed during the Clinton years. Clinton’s
approach has been called one of selective but cooperative primacy.65 But
while the Clinton administration followed a policy of liberal hegemony,
George W. Bush’s approach was closer to the imperial variant. This was a
major difference from the European point of view.66
Terrorism: No Common Assessment of a Common Threat

While this new American approach to the world began before 9-11, it was
accelerated by the emergence of global terrorism. In contrast to the Soviet
threat, which held the United States and its European allies together, terror-
ism holds the real potential of dividing them. Terrorism is defined in the U.S.
Code as “premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against
noncombatant targets by sub-national groups or clandestine agents, usually
intended to influence an audience.”67 Michael Walzer puts its purpose suc-
cinctly: “to destroy the morale of a nation or a class, to undercut its
solidarity; its method is the random murder of innocent people.”68
Terrorism is not a new phenomenon. It has been around at least since the
nineteenth century, when anarchists used it as a weapon against the estab-
lished order in Europe, and the term can be traced back to the French
Revolution. Joseph Conrad’s novel The Secret Agent, written in 1907, is a
classic exposition of the motivations and techniques of terrorism. Al Qaeda
satisfied Conrad’s requirement that the ferocious act of destruction must be
“so absurd as to be incomprehensible, inexplicable, almost unthinkable; in
fact mad. Madness alone is truly terrifying, inasmuch as you cannot placate
it either by threats, persuasion or bribes.”69 In Conrad’s time, great faith was

placed in the progress promised by science. His terrorists therefore attack an
observatory, as a way of shaking the fundamental assumptions and beliefs of
public order. On 9-11 the targets were the World Trade Center and the Pen-
tagon, pillars of the new world order, global finance, and American power; the
instruments were civilian aircraft, symbols of the mobility in the global age.
Terrorism of the sort visited on New York and Washington may have old
motivations, but today its scale is far more devastating because of global-
ization and technology. The world is now linked by electronic media that
transmit images—and fear—instantaneously to a global audience. Terrorists
can use the Internet to disseminate technical know-how and to create “vir-
tual networks” that, like computer viruses, are extremely difficult to isolate
and eliminate. The vulnerability of modern urban societies to new types of
terrorism, which no longer seek to limit death but on the contrary seek mas-
sive loss of life, is also new.
This new form of terrorism also is inextricably linked to the end of the
cold war. The collapse of the Soviet Union increased not only the risks of
“loose nukes” from the old Soviet arsenal getting into the hands of terrorist
groups, but also the spread of expertise by unscrupulous, unemployed, for-
mer Soviet scientists who signed on with these groups. It also freed up
former client states of the Soviet Union to allow groups to operate against
the United States in an unrestrained manner. Another new factor is the pro-
liferation of nuclear weapons in such fragile states as Pakistan, or those ruled
by extreme regimes, such as Iran and North Korea.
While terrorism has been widespread throughout the world, especially
in Europe and the Middle East, until the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995
and the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on 9-11, the
United States had largely been spared. The attacks on the United States,
the center of the new global system, had an epoch-making quality because
of U.S. power and Americans’ sense of invulnerability. For better or for
worse, U.S. power is the foundation of world order in the global age, and the
events of 9-11 assaulted the entire world order. The Bush administration
and also some Democrats contend that today’s terrorism is new because it
is linked to weapons of mass destruction. They argue that this makes it dif-
ferent from the terrorism perpetrated in Europe by such groups as Baader
Meinhof in Germany, the Irish Republican Army in Britain, and ETA in
Spain. Vice President Cheney and other leading figures in the administra-
tion have compared the war on terrorism with the struggles against fascism
and communism. Many in this group see it as simply the opening phase of
a new global conflict, World War IV (the cold war being the third), that will
last for decades.
Concerns also have been raised about the sanctity of national sovereignty
in an era when terrorist groups can operate within states that cannot or will
not control them. Lawrence Freedman has observed that the world has gone
beyond state-sponsored terrorism (as Strobe Talbott and Nayan Chanda
note, “Osama Bin Laden’s organization, al Qaeda, flew no flag—it was the
ultimate NGO”70) to terrorist-sponsored states. The Westphalian system
based on nonintervention in the domestic affairs of other states may be out-
moded, both because of the existence of failed states and the growing power
of nonstate actors and because of the emergence of a global civil society
and international norms. While these trends are undermining the role of the
nation-state, no international or transnational body has yet emerged as an
alternative to it. Therefore the United States, as the dominant power in the
international system, has taken on the role of architect and enforcer of a new
system. In doing so, it has also become the target for groups and nations that
oppose the direction of change.
There is widespread consensus in the United States that national security
is under direct threat and that radical measures may be required to deal
with it. Congress accepted the Bush administration’s comparison of the ter-
rorist-WMD nexus to the communist threat. In his campaign for the
presidency, John Kerry also referred to the “war” on terrorism, adopting
Bush’s terminology. Counterterrorism and stopping the trafficking of
weapons of mass destruction to rogue states and terrorist groups is now the
central axiom of U.S. national security policy. A Washington Post columnist
asked in June 2003 if the United States had overreacted: “Have we merely
entered a world into which Europe long ago preceded us and in which ter-
rorism should be viewed as a constant, unpleasant but not society-altering
fact of life?” He answered his own question this way:
In the end those who hope the terrorist threat has been overstated are
likely to be disappointed. . . . Given the catastrophic damage that a
small group could wreak with a biological agent or nuclear weapon,
and the hatred of the West still being taught in Saudi Arabia, Pakistan
and elsewhere, today’s vigilance is preferable to yesterday’s compla-
cency, and the reorientation Bush imposed after 9/11 was as justified
as it was belated.71
This sense of threat is deeper in America than in Europe, both because the
United States was attacked and because Americans had felt invulnerable at
home.
The German public and its leaders have taken a different view of today’s
terrorism, one similar to the views in other European nations. While they see
it as a threat, their assessment of the threat and the most appropriate strat-
egy for dealing with it increasingly diverged from that of the United States
during the run-up to the war in Iraq and also in its aftermath. A number of
factors account for the difference.
In contrast to the United States before the 9-11 attacks and the bombing
of the federal building in Oklahoma City, Germany, like many other Euro-
pean countries, had extensive experience with terrorism at home. In the
1970s the Baader-Meinhof group had been responsible for a series of kid-
nappings, bank robberies, and murders and was met with a tough,
occasionally indiscriminate, response. Between 1970 and 1985 a total of
1,601 attacks occurred, with 31 people killed, 97 injured, and 163 taken
hostage.72 If anything, German authorities overreacted to this challenge.
The Social Democratic Party–led governments of Willy Brandt and Helmut
Schmidt made extensive use of the police and paramilitary units and were
accused by some of their own supporters of disregarding civil liberties in
their efforts. The terrorists were finally rounded up and jailed; the two lead-
ers, Andreas Baader and Ulrike Meinhof, committed suicide in a German
prison. As can be seen, the Germans were not soft when confronted with
home-grown terrorism. Likewise, they cracked down on al Qaeda cells in
Hamburg and other German cities after 9-11.
The lesson drawn in Germany from its experience was that the threat of
terrorism must be taken seriously, but it must be countered with a long-
term, incremental strategy relying on extensive police and intelligence work.
German leaders and public alike have rejected the use of the term war in the
campaign against terrorism. As one German analyst noted, “Germany does
not reject the option of military steps but prefers a ‘civilian’ approach: eco-
nomic incentives and international cooperation among law enforcement
authorities.”73 The cooperation between the U.S. Department of Justice and
the German Ministry of Interior has been so effective that the tough interior
minister, Otto Schily, has become a favorite of the conservative attorney
general John Ashcroft (despite Schily’s past as a defense lawyer for the
Baader-Meinhof group).
Germans believe that governments must be careful to maintain a bal-
ance between security and civil liberties. In this context, the treatment of the
prisoners taken in the Afghanistan operation and held by the United States
at Guantanamo Bay has been an especially sensitive issue in Germany. The
German government and public also are hesitant to turn over any suspects,
including suspected terrorists, who may face the death penalty in the United
States. When Herta Däubler-Gmelin described the U.S. justice system as
“lousy,” she reflected in a grossly exaggerated way the sentiments of many
Germans who not only reject the death penalty but also were rankled by the
treatment in the United States of German defendants in a couple of high-
profile death penalty cases.74
Germans, like all Europeans, have learned to live with vulnerability; they
therefore underestimate the impact on American society of its recent loss of
invulnerability. As Christopher Patten, the EU external relations commis-
sioner, pointed out, “I don’t think we fully comprehend the impact of grand
innocence and a sense of magnificent self-confidence and invulnerability
being shattered in that appalling way.”75 At the same time, Germans bring to
their analysis the experience of the Weimar Republic, with its lessons about
the exploitation of national trauma by nationalist forces. Moreover, Europe
is more vulnerable to upheavals in the Middle East than is the United States.
It is closer geographically, heavily dependent on raw materials from the
region, and likely to feel spillover effects from turmoil there because of local
Muslim populations.
Germans, with their different historical perspective on terrorism, tend to
emphasize its social, economic, and political roots more than Americans
do. This approach stems from a broader view of history, philosophy, and
national interest and differs greatly from that of the Bush administration.
Americans tend toward a linear, or teleological, view of history, an opti-
mistic notion of American exceptionalism and of history as progress,
embodied in the metaphor of the “city on the hill.” Germans, like most con-
tinental Europeans, tend to have a more tragic and cyclical view of history,
a product both of their longer history and of their failures to change the
world by conquering or by colonizing other countries. Graham Greene’s
novel about Vietnam, The Quiet American, portrays these two very different
views of the possibilities and limits of effecting change in another society: if
Europeans are gardeners, then Americans are engineers. Describing the Rea-
gan administration’s confrontation with Libya under Muammar Qadhafi in
the mid-1980s, a New York Times reporter pinpointed the differences as fol-
lows: “The stage was being set for a classic confrontation between an activist
America, insistent that a perceived evil should be extirpated, and western
Europeans accustomed to coexisting with unpleasant neighbors.”76
To Europeans, the Bush administration’s approach to fighting terrorism

seems excessively Manichean, a good-versus-evil, for-us-or-against-us
approach that is both naive and dangerous. In Germany, the Palestinian-Israeli
conflict—and what is seen as U.S. one-sidedness in the dispute—is widely
viewed as a major cause of the terrorism of Middle Eastern groups. This feels
especially threatening, given the domestic presence of Islam in Europe and in
Germany. Today about 12.2 million Muslims live in Europe—about twice as
many as in the United States. Germany alone has a Muslim (largely Turkish
and Kurdish) population of over 3.2 million. As a result, there is great concern
about blowback from U.S. policies to the streets of Europe.
The growing gap between the United States and Europe in military capa-
bilities has also influenced the means they have chosen for dealing with
terrorism. To the extent that their capabilities shape their analysis of the prob-
lem and its solution, a gulf exists between Americans, who tend to use
military force early on, and Europeans, who prefer the instruments of soft
power. Given the limits of the military capacity of most European states, the
use of force tends either to be impracticable or far down on the list of options.
Add to this the contrasting views on multilateralism in the United States and
Europe. On the one hand, Germany, as a medium-size state, realizes that it
needs to cooperate in multilateral organizations to make a difference in the
world. On the other hand, the United States, which occupies a good part of
a continent, has both the option and the inclination to “go it alone.” The dif-
ferences in both analysis and strategy are hardly surprising.
Finally, there was a real difference in strategic assessment about the breadth
of the threat. The White House’s national security strategy stated starkly: “The
enemy is terrorism.”77 Yet one of the key problems in creating a counterter-
rorism strategy is that terrorism is a tactic, not an enemy. As Grenville Byford
has noted, “Wars have typically been fought against proper nouns (Germany,
say) for the good reason that proper nouns can surrender and promise not to
do it again. Wars against common nouns (poverty, crime, drugs) have been less
successful. Such opponents never give up.” Terrorism is in this latter category.
“Victory is possible only if the United States confines itself to fighting indi-
vidual terrorists rather than the tactic of terrorism itself.”78
The German leadership concluded quite early that the Bush war on ter-
rorism would expand the definition of the threat so that it encompassed
too many enemies and would strain the capabilities and cohesion of the
alliance formed after 9-11 to combat al Qaeda. Immediately after 9-11 the
administration was careful to focus its response on al Qaeda and those who
were linked to the attacks on the United States. By doing so, it maximized
support both at home and abroad and gave the military a mission it could
handle. With the State of the Union speech in January 2002 and the
announcement of an axis of evil, the nature of the threat was widened and
the cohesion of the alliance began to fray. A majority of the American pub-
lic both during and after the war in Iraq believed that Saddam Hussein was
involved in the 9-11 attacks. It was not until Richard Clarke, the former
head of counterterrorism in Bush’s National Security Council, published
his rebuttal of that claim that a real split developed in the U.S. debate over
the link between the war in Iraq and the war on terrorism.79 No such link
was ever accepted in Germany, nor more broadly in Europe.
The railroad attacks in Madrid on March 11, 2004, did not, at least ini-
tially, narrow that gap. That morning, during the height of rush hour,
thirteen explosive devices went off aboard four commuter trains arriving at
Madrid’s central rail station. Altogether 191 people were killed and more
than 1,800 were injured, making it the worst terrorist incident since the
bombing of Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland in 1988. More than
a dozen people were arrested and charged with the crime. Most of them
were from Morocco and other north African countries and had links to
groups associated with al Qaeda. The attacks came just days before the Span-
ish parliamentary elections, and the opposition Socialist party ended up
winning a major victory. The result was attributed in part to revulsion
against the Aznar government’s support of the U.S war in Iraq and its ini-
tial attempts to shift blame for the bombings from Islamic groups to the
Basque terrorist organization, ETA. The suspicion was that Prime Minister
Aznar wanted to avoid any direct link between his support of the Bush
administration and the deaths in Madrid. That attempt backfired, and one
of the first acts of his successor, Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, was to
announce the withdrawal of Spanish armed forces from Iraq. Rumsfeld’s
“new Europe” consequently got substantially smaller.
While many opined that a “European 9-11” would bring the United States
and the Europeans closer, it was as likely that the strategy gap would only
widen. Chancellor Schröder, like most European leaders, continued to
emphasize the need for close cooperation in intelligence and police opera-
tions, not only by addressing the deeper social, political, and economic causes
of terrorism but also by appointing an EU coordinator for counterterrorism.
As Javier Solana, the EU’s high representative for security policy, put it after
the Madrid attack,“Europe is not at war. We have to energetically oppose ter-
rorism, but we mustn’t change the way we live.”80 In the wake of the Madrid
bombings, European concerns about “collateral damage,” the dangers of
being too closely associated with the Americans, also have increased. The
widespread belief that the war in Iraq was a mistake was reinforced, as was the
tendency to see terrorism as a selective, rather than a comprehensive threat—
from which many Europeans believe “they can opt out by distancing
themselves from Washington.”81 Germany is part of this consensus.
European and American differences on terrorism reflect divergences on
how to deal with the problems of the Middle East. As two analysts of transat-
lantic relations have observed, “The Arab-Israeli conflict remains, as it has
been for almost 40 years, arguably the single greatest source of discord in
transatlantic relations.”82 Volker Perthes of the Stiftung Wissenschaft und
Politik in Berlin contends, “You wouldn’t do away with worldwide terrorism
if you resolved it, but you’d reduce the breeding ground for extremism in the
Middle East.”83 In surveys of public opinion relating to the Middle East, the
greatest gaps are between Americans and Germans. The Palestinian-Israeli
conflict produces one of the widest gaps. When asked in June 2003 to give
thermometer readings, from 0 to 100 degrees, for the warmth of their feel-
ings toward Middle Eastern countries, the German public rated Israel at 43
degrees and the Palestinians at 40. Comparable American ratings were 60
degrees for Israel and 39 for the Palestinians. This divergence on Israel was
part of a larger European trend.
In short, “Americans blame the Arabs for the conflict; Europeans blame
the Israelis.”84 Germans tend to be more critical of Israel, or at least of the
Sharon government, than Americans, and to see the Israeli-Palestinian dis-
pute at the center of the problem of Middle East terrorism. The approach of
the Bush administration has been that the road to peace in the Middle East
leads through Baghdad, while the Germans and Europeans believe that the
road to Baghdad went through Jerusalem.85 Unless some bridge can be built
between these approaches, German support for a broader effort to reshape
the Middle East and for any war on terrorism will be tepid. As Peter Katzen-
stein has noted, the 9-11 attacks are “like a strong beam of light that gets
filtered by national lenses, of different self-conceptions and institutional
practices, which create distinctive political responses that will severely test
alliance cohesion in the years to come.”86
Civilian Power versus Power Politics

While the Bush “revolution” in foreign policy was changing the American
strategic culture, it also posed a frontal challenge to the German consensus on
foreign policy. Perhaps the most concise formulation of the contemporary
German strategic culture is the concept of civilian power (Zivilmacht), devel-

oped by the German political scientist Hanns W. Maull.87 This describes
Germany as a civilian rather than a military power, projecting its influence
and identifying its interests in a multilateral, not a national, framework. It
seeks influence through cultural and economic means rather than through
the use of force. This paradigm is the product of history, political culture,
and the new geopolitics of Europe. Given Germany’s experience during the
Third Reich and the role of the United States and western Europeans in
“reeducating” Germans after the fall of Hitler, it is hardly surprising that
Germans should eschew what they saw as—or were told were—the excesses
of nationalism, racism, and militarism for a more “postnational” and post-
modern approach.
The British diplomat Robert Cooper has developed a typology of foreign
policies that classifies states as either postmodern, modern, or pre-modern
in their approach to the outside world:
[First, there are] pre-modern states—often former colonies—whose
failures have led to a Hobbesian war of all against all (countries such
as Somalia and, until recently, Afghanistan). Second, there are post-
imperial, postmodern states which no longer think of security
primarily in terms of conquest. A third kind are the traditional “mod-
ern” states such as India, Pakistan or China which behave as states
always have, following interest, power and raison d’état. The post-
modern system in which we Europeans live does not rely on balance;
nor does it emphasise sovereignty or the separation of domestic and
foreign affairs. The European Union has become a highly developed
system for mutual interference in each other’s domestic affairs, right
down to beer and sausages. Members of the postmodern world do not
consider invading each other. But both the modern and pre-modern
zones pose threats to our security.”88
Adopting the postnationalist approach also served Germany’s interests in
a Europe that was deeply suspicious of German power and intentions. By
embracing what Hans Dietrich Genscher called a European Germany rather
than a German Europe, Germany was able to regain its sovereignty and pre-
vent the emergence of countervailing coalitions. 89 West Germany was
roughly the same size, in terms of population, as either France or Britain, and
therefore could enhance its influence only through Europe, not unilaterally.
Civilian power also was appropriate for a society that was sick of national-
ist adventures and yearned for peace and prosperity, that wanted resources
to flow not into defense but into the economy and the development of an
extensive welfare state.
As German political scientist Klaus Larres observed, this strategic culture
produced misunderstandings with the United States on at least three impor-
tant dimensions: multilateralism, nationalism, and the use of force in
international relations.90 Any German government, led by either Social
Democrats or Christian Democrats, would be uneasy with the use of armed
force. Before meeting with Chancellor Schröder in New York in September
2003, President Bush said that he knew that Germans were pacifists.91 How-
ever, while there may be more pacifists in Germany than in other large
European nations, German foreign policy is not pacifist; its leaders have
consistently striven to obtain a balance of power as a precondition for peace.
Adenauer’s policy of strength, Brandt’s Ostpolitik, Schmidt and Kohl’s will-
ingness to deploy intermediate-range nuclear missiles were all based on this
key prerequisite and backed up by armed forces of almost 500,000 men and
women. Originally, in 1955, the consensus on German rearmament and
entry into NATO was based on integrating German forces into a multilateral
system and limiting their use to the defense of NATO territory. During the
cold war, force was seen as a deterrent, and the détente component was
added by NATO in 1967. As Stephen Walt put it, “During the Cold War,
NATO stayed intact largely because the alliance did not actually have to do
anything as long as its members were not attacked.”92
With the end of the cold war, the definition of the legitimate use of force
was gradually expanded by the Kohl government and then by the Red-Green
coalition to include use of force beyond the NATO territorial area so long as
both the justification and the deployment were multilateral. The Balkan
wars created a new justification for military action, humanitarian interven-
tion, in these cases to prevent “ethnic cleansing.” The movement to create a
European defense force within the European Union also provided another
rationale for enhancing Germany’s military role, namely the need for Ger-
many to be a good European by making a contribution to a credible
European Security and Defense Policy (ESDP). The German public has gone
along with these modifications, which have nudged the strategic culture
from “a culture of reticence” (in the words of former defense minister Volker
Ruehe, a Christian Democrat) to one of limited, multilateral engagement.
That a Red-Green government could deploy German forces in Kosovo,
Macedonia, and Afghanistan was a remarkable achievement, although the
deployment of German forces outside the NATO area was no more than
provisionally accepted within its activist core. However, the limits on the
use of force by a German government remain quite explicit. Force can be

used only as a last resort, and defensively but not preemptively. Force must
be used for humanitarian purposes and not simply for national political or
economic interests. Finally, the use of force must have a broader multilateral
framework, preferably with a mandate either from the UN or NATO.93
The End of Comfortable Paradigms

The unilateralism of the Bush administration and its emphasis on an early
and robust use of force went against the fundamentals of the German polit-
ical and strategic culture. If the administration had begun with—and stayed
with—a multilateral approach focused on the issue of weapons of mass
destruction and Iraq’s violations of UN sanctions rather than continually
modifying its rationale, much less porcelain would have been broken and the
tempest could have been postponed, if not avoided. Yet the concerns about
the direction of American policy existed before 9-11 and would likely have
grown, albeit more slowly. The strategic cultures of Germany and the United
States have been diverging in fundamental ways.94 The escalating rhetoric of
a potential war with Iraq, combined with the 2002 German election cam-
paign, further divided the two countries.95
These developments were manifestations of a deeper structural change
that had begun with German unification and accelerated after September 11.
The strategic glue that held the alliance together is much weaker than it was
during the cold war. Germany, and Berlin, are no longer divided. The U.S.
security tie is no longer existential to Germany. As Joseph Joffe put it,
“Alliances die when they win. . . . Germany no longer needs American strate-
gic protection; at least the rent Berlin is willing to pay for this shelter has
plummeted.”96 A similar trend can be seen with another close U.S. ally, South
Korea. Although it remains a divided nation with a threat on its border, a
majority of South Korea’s people, as reported in a poll taken in late 2002,
believe there is little or no chance of an attack from North Korea. As two
American correspondents observed, “the divide [between the United States
and South Korea] has deeper roots involving [South Korea’s] rapid passage
to affluence and its perception that its distant ally is heavy handed and insen-
sitive, particularly with regard to North Korea.”97
The new threat of global terrorism may revive the security core of the
German-American relationship if the leaders in both countries come to a
common perception of the threat and agree on a strategy for dealing with it.
That would, however, require dramatic changes in both Washington and
Berlin. German security policy, for example, would have to shift from a
European to a global focus. It would also require some consensus on a strat-
egy for the Middle East, broadly conceived.98 For now, however, the vitality
of the transatlantic circle of German policy is in question for the first time
in its fifty years.
This Kulturkampf, or clash of cultures, has also raised serious challenges
for the civilian power approach. As Maull notes, this approach rests on three
pillars: reliable partners, strong and vibrant international institutions, and
a strong domestic foundation.99 The Bush revolution in U.S. foreign policy
shook the first two pillars, and changes within Germany have been chal-
lenging the third, as the next chapter shows.
5
Is It Bush or Is It America?
German Images of the United States
T he dispute between Germany and the United States over the war in
Iraq raised broader questions about the nature of German public sentiment
toward America. Henry Kissinger worried that Schröder’s critique of the
Bush administration’s approach did not represent a simple divergence over
policy but rather the opening of a new era in which “a kind of anti-Ameri-
canism may become a permanent temptation of German politics.”1 In
contrast, public opinion polls indicate that the mainstream view in Ger-
many holds that the split is primarily a matter of policy and personality and
does not reflect a deeper anti-Americanism. Anti-Americanism can be
defined as opposition to what America is perceived to stand for, not to what
a particular U.S. government does. A cultural or political critique of the
United States that remains the same regardless of the political orientation or
policies of the administration in power reflects more deeply seated stereo-
types and images; when such a critique is persistently negative, it can be
characterized as anti-American.
While the personality conflict between George W. Bush and Gerhard
Schröder was important, it was hardly unique in postwar German-Ameri-
can relations. That particular clash of leaders did not seem any more severe
than the clash between the young President John F. Kennedy and the aging
Konrad Adenauer or the one between Jimmy Carter and Helmut Schmidt.
What, then, was new about 2002? According to Friedbert Pflüger, a leading
foreign policy specialist in the Christian Democratic Union, “This time and
for the first time, the government was not in danger of yielding to the street,
it was fueling the street.”2 It is clear that Schröder was both shaping and
79
80 German Images of the United States
responding to a broad sense of uneasiness and concern about the Bush

administration as well as its policy on Iraq.
The real question is why and to what extent Schröder’s position resonated
with the broader German public, including a majority of Christian Demo-
crats. After all, Edmund Stoiber did not support going to war in Iraq either,
although it is important to note that he did say that he would respect a UN
mandate. He lost the crucial second television debate in the election cam-
paign to Schröder in large part on this issue. While Stoiber tried to state
conditions and qualifications, the chancellor simply vetoed any German
military participation.
Traditional German Anti-Americanism

Before World War II, German views of America “tended towards extremes
of admiration or condescension,” always tempered and shaped by ideology.3
The liberals of the Frankfurt Assembly of 1848 looked to America as the
“most progressive country in the West,” whereas conservatives and national
liberals saw it as “a land without culture or history.”4 German immigrants
reported back either that America was a land of unlimited opportunities or
that it was “an uncultured, artificial, heartless and mechanistic society.”5 The
German social culture that they had left behind emphasized stability and
security. The Bismarckian state stood in sharp contrast to the America of the
Robber Barons and the Gilded Age. From the nineteenth century up to the
cold war, German anti-Americanism varied depending on the regime in
power. In general, though, it could be characterized by rejection of such
aspects of American society as mass culture and materialism; “jungle capi-
talism,” with its ruthless competition, excessive individualism, and tolerance
of great social inequality; its mix of races and ethnic groups; and the equal-
izing effect of an informal, nonhierarchical, classless culture that placed little
value on tradition.
During the cold war, however, Germany and the United States drew closer
together than at any time since the first German unification, in 1871; nev-
ertheless, both strategic assessments and more fundamental values often
came into conflict. In 1980 the historian Hans W. Gatzke opined, “The sim-
ilarities between the United States and West Germany at least are closer
today than at any other time in their histories. Not only do the two nations
share a common concern for the containment of communism, but their
interests in most other respects—political, economic and cultural—are
closely related and complementary.”6
Earlier strains of German anti-Americanism were muted by a number of

factors. The overwhelming geopolitical struggle with the Soviet Union and
the division of Germany into East and West led to a sharing of both strate-
gic interests and values with the United States. In addition, there was the
need to rehabilitate Germany’s moral position and reinstate Germany as a
sovereign nation. The United States, through its postwar strategy of inte-
grating West Germany into NATO and the western community, served as an
Ersatzvaterland (surrogate fatherland) for many West Germans of the imme-
diate postwar generation. Besides offering a political model for what became
the first successful democracy in German history, the United States was West
Germany’s best hope for restoring its power and prestige. The supposedly
uncultured Americans thus offered the postwar German generation a cul-
tural model. As Jean Cocteau put it,“America is America; Germany, however,
will be both Germany and America.”7 Yet German admiration for America
was tempered by resentment of its moralism. In the German view, America
saw itself as the “good” country that gave “bad” Germany a chance for sal-
vation. This implied that Germany had to concede moral superiority to the
United States and accept a teacher-pupil relationship.
German idealization of the United States was bound to be short lived, and
in many respects it peaked in the 1950s. German views of America, both as
a society and a world power, began to change in the 1960s and the early
1970s. The civil rights disturbances of the 1960s, combined with the Vietnam
War and the Watergate scandal, began to tarnish the moral image of Amer-
ica in German eyes, especially among the generation that came of age in the
late 1960s. Yet this generation focused more on the culpability of its parents’
participation in the Third Reich than on that of the United States in Viet-
nam. The emergence of the Holocaust as a historical, moral, and political
issue in Germany in the 1970s and 1980s reinforced the role of America as
the moralizer and that of Germany as the eternal supplicant.
There was also another side of the German Amerikabild (image of Amer-
ica). Admiration for American dynamism and democracy was always
tempered with doubts about the United States as a world power. Although
America’s role in Europe at the end of World War II and the beginning of the
cold war was praised, memories of the ruthless devastation visited on Ger-
many by U.S. armed forces during the war lived on. Images of a bombed out
Dresden remained below the surface, to reemerge in the debate over Iraq.
These concerns combined with a new pacifism, which became an important
aspect of German strategic culture—that is, perceptions of security and
strategy based on political culture, economics, demographics, geography,
and history—after the destruction the country experienced during World

War II and the subsequent demilitarization of German society.
Doubts about America’s leadership role had begun to grow during the Viet-
nam War and grew even more during the Reagan era. In 1960 only 20 percent
of Germans polled had doubts about whether the United States was playing a
positive or wise role in international affairs, but by the early to mid-1980s, the
proportion of doubters had grown to between 46 and 54 percent. 8 During the
debate in the 1980s over the deployment of the intermediate-range nuclear
force missiles (INF) in Germany, some of the old fears about “dangerous
America” began to return. Ronald Reagan was viewed by many Germans as an
unpredictable, rash, and unreflective leader who spoke too freely about the
“evil empire” and the use of military power. The left, in particular, revived
many of its criticisms of a capitalist and imperialist America, and a new gen-
eration of peace advocates came of age with the sense that both superpowers,
not just the Soviet Union, endangered world peace and stability.9
Different historical lessons were drawn from the end of the cold war. The
majority of West Germans credited Ostpolitik, détente, and Russian premier
Mikhail Gorbachev with ending the cold war, while only a minority, mainly
on the Christian Democratic right, credited Reagan and his policy of main-
taining U.S. might. The historian John Lukacs noted the conflict:
[T]his world historical change, the end of an epoch, the decline of the
Soviet Union and its astonishing retreat from Europe, was due to one
man, Ronald Reagan, who with his brilliant armaments program and
his star wars, forced the Soviet Union into bankruptcy. . . . The Ger-
mans don’t believe this. They know the Russians better than most.
They know what they owe to Gorbachev, which is to their credit.10
In Germany, reconciliation and compromise were seen as more decisive
in bringing about the end of the Soviet Union than threats and military
might. In German eyes, the success of Germany’s unification was epitomized
by George H. W. Bush and his team of cautious realists, whose restraint was
characterized by Bush, who said, “I won’t beat my chest and dance on the
wall,” not by Ronald Reagan urging, “Tear down this wall, Mr. Gorbachev.”11
The German Public’s Image of 9-11 and of the War in Iraq

September 11, 2001, is the single most important factor in contemporary
Germans’ image of the United States. Three of four Germans list the terror-
ist attacks as having shaped their view of America, followed by 53 percent
listing the visit of John F. Kennedy; 44 percent, the Vietnam War; 43 percent,
popular music; and 40 percent, the Berlin Airlift.12 The terrorist attacks of
September 11 unleashed a great wave of public sympathy throughout Ger-
many, and massive demonstrations of moral support took place at the
Brandenburg Gate on September 14. Polls taken immediately after 9-11
found that a majority of Germans believed that life would never be the same
again; in their opinion, it would be less secure and terror attacks could be
expected in Germany as well. As did many in the United States, most Ger-
mans found that 9-11 reaffirmed their commitment to nonmaterial values,
such as the importance of family, friends, children, and free time. However,
unlike in the United States, religious belief did not seem to increase in
importance as a result of the events, consistent with the widespread secu-
larization of German society.
Three-fourths of Germans in one survey reported being horrified by the
attacks, with western Germans more devastated than eastern Germans and
women more than men. About three in four Germans feared that similar
attacks would occur in Germany, and although few would have supported
an indiscriminate response merely for revenge, a clear majority thought the
United States had the right to respond militarily and two-thirds believed that
Germany should offer military support.13 In sum, initial public reaction was
quite supportive of a measured but strong U.S. military response and of the
U.S. campaign in Afghanistan, although West Germans were far more sup-
portive and sympathetic than East Germans. There also was broad approval
of NATO’s invocation of Article 5, the NATO charter’s self-defense clause.
Even at this early stage, however, there were signs of ambivalence. The
German public was about equally divided over the statement by the Social
Democratic defense minister, Peter Struck, that “now we are all Americans.”
Only 44 percent agreed with Schröder’s declaration of “unlimited solidarity”
with the United States, while 47 percent wished he had been more cau-
tious.14 During the first two years of George W. Bush’s administration, the
proportion of Germans holding a favorable opinion of the United States
dropped sharply. While they still had substantial doubts about Bush’s lead-
ership, Bush gained support among Germans after 9-11. Even as late as his
visit to Berlin in May 2002, the public seemed to approve of his efforts to deal
with terrorism. Two-thirds of those surveyed believed that Germany should
comply with the wishes of the United States and should furthermore support
it in the struggle against terrorism. More than half (56 percent) evaluated the
German-American relationship as good, and only 10 percent believed that
it was bad (31 percent believed that it was neither good nor bad). Fifty-five
percent believed that Bush was doing a good job as president, while 38 per-
cent thought that he was doing a bad job. However, views of Bush were
clearly divided along partisan lines, with only 25 percent of Greens and 14
percent of supporters of the neocommunist Party of Democratic Socialism
(PDS) having a positive image, compared with 68 percent of supporters of
the Christian Democratic Union/Christian Social Union (CDU/CSU) and
66 percent of supporters of the Free Democratic Party (FDP). Those iden-
tifying with the Social Democratic Party (SPD) were slightly positive (51
percent, compared with 42 percent negative). However, even at this last high
point, a majority thought that there were more differences than similarities
between American and European values (50 percent, compared with 42 per-
cent who found more similarities).15
These extensive surveys demonstrate that there was broad support for
U.S. efforts to combat terrorism and that in this context German pacifism
was a minor motif. Nevertheless, partisan and east-west differences were
apparent, and they created special problems for Schröder in terms of how far
he could go in supporting Bush’s approach without losing his core elec-
torate. Confidence in Bush was rather thin across the board, but especially
in the Red-Green coalition and in the former East Germany. Clearly, public
support was broken not by the war on terrorism but rather by the impend-
ing war in Iraq. The May 2002 poll cited above found that the Iraq issue
shattered German solidarity with the United States. Sixty-three percent of
the public opposed German participation in U.S. efforts to deal with Iraq,
and of the 30 percent who supported those efforts, only 15 percent sup-
ported military action. Opposition was as widespread in the CDU/CSU as
it was in the SPD, and it went even deeper among the Greens and the PDS.
The escalation of the Iraq issue, first during the 2002 election campaign
and later in the fall and through the following spring, caused the German
image of both Bush and the United States to nosedive. By November 2002,
only one-fifth of the German public thought that the government should
strongly support the United States in a war in Iraq, while one-quarter
strongly opposed such support and one-half thought that allowing Ameri-
cans to use German bases was support enough. Almost 90 percent of those
polled in November 2002 thought that the motives of the United States for
overthrowing Saddam Hussein were related to its need for oil. Two-thirds
believed that the fight against terrorism also was a reason, while less than a
quarter believed that either building democracy in Iraq or humanitarian
concerns were behind U.S. policy. The public was evenly split over whether
George Bush or Saddam Hussein was a greater threat to world peace.16
By February 2003, at the height of the crisis in the UN, 71 percent of

Germans polled said that they supported their government’s refusal to sup-
port military intervention in Iraq, while only 24 percent opposed it. Support
for Schröder’s policy among Greens and SPD partisans was close to 90 per-
cent; levels were lower in the opposition (FDP, 66 percent; CDU/CSU, 56
percent). A majority (56 percent) continued to believe that the Iraq issue
would not cause long-term damage to the broader German-American rela-
tionship, although pessimism on this score was greater among the
opposition than in the governing coalition.17 By March 2003, however, 48
percent believed that German-American relations had been severely dam-
aged, while 38 percent disagreed.18
The Bush Problem

There is no doubt that the image of George W. Bush among Germans suffered
heavily because of Iraq, a result that was part of a longer-term decline in
Bush’s image from its high point after 9-11. The proportion of Germans who
held a good opinion of Bush had fallen to a new low of 10 percent at the start
of the war in Iraq in March 2003, when 73 percent had a bad opinion of
him.19 Personal trust in Bush also had fallen by March: 35 percent of Germans
expressed great or some trust in the president, while 63 percent expressed lit-
tle trust. Only CDU/CSU supporters mustered a slight advantage for Bush.
Less than two years after 9-11, one poll found that 19 percent of those sur-
veyed believed it possible that the U.S. government had been involved
somehow in the attacks. One-third of those under the age of thirty held that
view.20
When asked “What is the problem with the U.S.?” 74 percent of Germans
identified Bush, while only 22 percent thought it was America in general.21
In an international poll of world leaders, Bush received very low ratings on
leadership from Germans, who gave the highest ratings to French president
Jacques Chirac, Russian president Vladimir Putin, and UN secretary general
Kofi Annan. In the United States, by contrast, the highest-ranked leaders
were British prime minister Tony Blair, Bush, and Israeli prime minister
Ariel Sharon.22 The implicit hope behind this analysis is that if the problem
lies in Bush himself, once Bush is gone America will return to a more sensi-
ble and centrist approach. Bush, like Ronald Reagan before him, is viewed by
the German intellectual and political elite and public alike as a reckless and
not very smart cowboy, inexperienced in the ways of the world and danger-
ously naive and ideological. In addition, Bush is seen by many in Germany
as blending conservative politics with evangelical messianism. Both Reagan

and Bush held office during times of national trauma, Reagan having come
to office at a time when American confidence was at a low point following
the Iran hostage crisis, the economy was besieged by inflation and unem-
ployment, Japan appeared to be surpassing the United States as an economic
powerhouse, and the tide of history seemed to be running in the direction
of the Soviet Union and its allies with its invasion of Afghanistan. Both used
a highly nationalist approach to revive American pride and optimism. This
sort of approach sets off alarm bells in post–World War II Germany. Mind-
ful of Hitler, Germans remain suspicious of strong, charismatic leaders who
make emotional appeals to nationalism.
Germans also were distrustful of what they viewed as the militaristic
approach of the Bush administration. While 76 percent of Germans sur-
veyed in a June 2003 Pew Research Center poll believed that Iraq was better
off without Saddam Hussein, 80 percent supported their government’s deci-
sion not to join the war effort.23 A majority believed that the United States
did not try hard enough to avoid casualties, and almost three of four Ger-
mans thought that the U.S.-led coalition was doing only a fair or poor job
of addressing the needs of the Iraqi people. Support for a U.S.-led war on ter-
rorism also had dropped, by 10 points, since the previous survey in June
2002 but remained at a healthy 60 percent. However, a majority opposed the
right of preemptive attack, holding the view that the use of force against
nations that threaten but have not actually attacked one’s country is rarely
or never justified.24
It is not surprising that both the total devastation of their country during
World War II and the deliberate efforts of American governments to eradi-
cate all vestiges of militarism and nationalism in postwar Germany have
made Germans especially sensitive to the prospect of war. An international
survey conducted by the German Marshall Fund in summer 2003 found that
Germans stood out in their unwillingness to believe that some wars could be
just. When asked whether, under some conditions, war is necessary to obtain
justice, only 39 percent of Germans agreed, compared with 74 percent of
Britons and 84 percent of Americans.25 Furthermore, Germans have difficulty
understanding the American sense of invulnerability that existed before 9-11
and the resulting traumatization of American society in the wake of the
attacks. Many Germans fear that this trauma will be used by the Bush admin-
istration for its own ends, just as Hitler took advantage of the German trauma
in the Weimar period. Finally, the lessons of German history also raise the fear
that America will fall prey to the hubris of unchallenged power.26
Over the course of the fateful year from summer 2002 to summer 2003,
not only was there deep disagreement with U.S. policy on Iraq, there also was
even deeper concern about U.S. power and leadership. In Germany and in
Europe generally, the perception crystallized that the United States disre-
gards the views of others in carrying out its policies. In a 2002 Pew survey,
53 percent of Germans believed that U.S. foreign policy considers the views
of others, while 45 percent believed that it does not. While the latter figure
is higher than in other European samples—44 percent in Britain, 36 percent
in Italy, and 21 percent in France—it reveals a strong pool of Germans who
have concerns about American unilateralism.27
That concern was voiced by a number of German officials interviewed for
this book. One senior diplomat put it this way: “It was incomprehensible that
although we disagreed in one area, we got treated as a foe. After a whole gen-
eration had been raised with a transatlantic vision, the sense of partnership
had changed. There is still trust, but more caution and distance. All that had
been developed over decades was suddenly worthless, in light of U.S.
remarks.”28
The administrations of Bush Senior and Bush Junior represented polar
opposites in their approaches to the world and in their reception in Germany
and Europe. The elder Bush’s traditional realist perspective, limited in both
aspirations and commitments, was close to the basic world view of Euro-
peans, who believed that realistic management of problems was far less
dangerous than utopian ideas about ridding the world of evil. The ideolog-
ical voices of the leaders of the younger Bush’s administration, by contrast,
reawakened German fears and stereotypes. George W. Bush’s “axis of evil” as
well as Reagan’s “evil empire” suggested that America was a rather reckless
and dangerous place where such terms were used loosely.29
The strongly unilateralist style of George W. Bush’s administration also
contrasted sharply with the coalition-based approach of his father. The lead-
ership style of the younger Bush’s White House and the Pentagon was
characterized by Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld: “It is less important to have
unanimity than it is to be making the right decisions and doing the right
thing, even though at the outset it may seem lonesome.”30 While one person’s
“unilateralism” is another’s “leadership,” it is clear that the style of the Bush
administration could not have been more ill suited to dealing with a newly
unified and sovereign Germany led by a government that has avowed a for-
eign policy based on stronger assertion of Germany’s interests. This new
psychology is reflected in the statements by the SPD-Green government,
from the chancellor and foreign minister down, that Germany will not “click
its heels” in obedience to the United States and likewise in the analogies
drawn between the U.S. ambassador to Germany, Daniel Coats, and the for-
mer Soviet ambassador to East Germany, Pjotr Abrassimov, and between
President Bush and Caesar Augustus. Even a leading figure in the Christian
Democratic opposition, Wolfgang Schäuble, noted of Rumsfeld’s snub of
Struck at the NATO defense ministers’ meeting just after the German elec-
tion, “The way in which Rumsfeld handled Struck was not the way that
adults deal with each other. A great power must act in a generous way.”31
In many respects, these concerns were not uniquely German but broadly
shared in Europe, and they ran deeper still in France. As Tony Judt wrote
during the war,
Anti-Americanism today is fueled by a new consideration, and it is no
longer confined to intellectuals. Most Europeans and other foreigners
today are untroubled by American products. . . . They are familiar with
the American “way of life,” which they often envy and dislike in equal
parts. . . . What upsets them is U.S. foreign policy; and they don’t trust
America’s current president . . . in part for the policies he pursues and
for the manner in which he pursues it.32
The general level of German confidence in the ability of the United States
to deal responsibly with world problems has varied greatly since polls started
asking this question in 1960. (The question was originally asked by the U.S.
Information Agency in polls it commissioned from German firms; the ques-
tion was later picked up and used by independent German polling firms.)
Data for West Germany from 1960 to 1990 indicate a great deal of volatility
in attitudes, with quick and rather dramatic shifts based largely on events.
Given this volatility, means are not very useful measures, but they do give a
general indication of the direction of trends. During the 1980s, mean ratings
were 42.5 percent confident and 45.6 percent not confident, although con-
fidence in U.S. leadership soared during the unification process. In unified
Germany from 1991 to 2002, mean ratings were 59.7 percent confident and
35.4 percent not confident. The postunification glow faded during the first
half of the 1990s. Roughly half to two-thirds of the public had confidence in
U.S. leadership from the mid-1990s until just before the outbreak of the
Iraq crisis, when the proportion fell to about 49 percent. It is noteworthy that
confidence levels had dropped prior to the beginning of the Schröder cam-
paign for reelection. He and his polling organization had picked up on this
sentiment and played on it when he was looking for an issue to increase his
support among the electorate. The lowest levels of confidence in the United
States before the issue of the war in Iraq arose were recorded during Reagan’s
first term, at the height of the debate over the deployment of American
intermediate-range missiles in Germany. In 1983 only 35 percent of Ger-
mans surveyed had confidence in the U.S. leadership, while 59 percent did
not. Although there was some recovery after agreement was reached on the
missile issue with the new Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, confidence lev-
els stayed at or below 44 percent until the last few months of Reagan’s second
term. The administration of George H. W. Bush did much to regain German
confidence, and levels held up well during most of Clinton’s presidency,
reaching a high of 65 percent at the end of his second term in 2000.33
The America Problem

While Germans tend to see the rift with the United States as primarily a
problem with George W. Bush, distinctions between a nation and its lead-
ership are hardly watertight and there tends to be a spillover effect in both
directions. As David Morris points out in his study of German opinion dur-
ing the Reagan era, “The more the German image of America is shaped by
its policies, the stronger the person responsible for these policies becomes the
focus, namely the President of the United States.”34 As Reagan began to pur-
sue a policy of détente with Mikhail Gorbachev, the German public’s image
of Reagan and its confidence in U.S. policy both improved, even though
Reagan never was a popular figure in Germany and he never enjoyed the
level of confidence there that Kennedy, Richard Nixon, George H. W. Bush,
or Bill Clinton did.
There are indications that the negative German image of the current Bush
administration is having a spillover effect on the broader Amerikabild. Polls
by the Forschungsgruppe Wahlen found a link between “liking” Americans
and supporting German participation in a war in Iraq with a UN mandate.
Of those who said they do not like Americans, 71 percent would not support
a war in Iraq under any circumstances, whereas only 47 percent of those who
liked Americans took this stance.35 This result poses the chicken-or-egg
problem, but there is probably a good deal of interaction between the two
variables. Those with a negative image of America are likely to be critical of
its government’s policies. But those who are favorably inclined toward the
United States but oppose the policies of its government, in this case the
majority of Germans, may experience cognitive dissonance and therefore be
forced to modify either their image of Bush or of America. The latter seems
to be the case as many, especially younger, Germans are beginning to develop
a more critical or differentiated view of the United States as a society. As dur-

ing the cold war, the German left tends to be more skeptical or negative
about both U.S. policies and American society than the more conservative
elements.36
Public opinion studies reveal that there is still a reserve of goodwill toward
the United States, but it has diminished since the Iraq crisis began. When
asked in November 2002 about their feelings about “the American way of
life,” the German public was fairly evenly split, with 38 percent negative and
37 percent positive (25 percent were neither positive nor negative). In this
poll, younger people were more positive about the American way of life than
those aged forty-five and older. The Green voter base, along with the
CDU/CSU voters, were the most positive, while supporters of the SPD were
most negative.37 Attitudes toward the United States among those living in the
former East Germany are not surprisingly more reserved and skeptical
toward the United States, given that their political socialization has differed
from that of residents in the western part of the country. In this respect, east-
ern Germans also are distinctive from citizens of other former Soviet bloc
countries, such as Poland, Romania, and Hungary, which are strongly pro-
American. This is due to a number of factors, including east Germans’
disappointment over unification and their sense of powerlessness. Resent-
ment directed toward western Germans also shapes resentment toward the
United States. To some degree east Germans blame their poor economic
conditions on capitalism and the American model.38
However, Amerikakritik (criticism of America) has grown with Germany’s
distancing on foreign policy. After all the turmoil between the United States
and Europe associated with Iraq, the June 2003 Pew survey found that sub-
stantial damage had been done to the U.S.-German relationship. Those
holding a favorable view of the United States had fallen from 61 percent in
summer 2002, just before the most damaging episodes of the election cam-
paign, to 25 percent in March 2003, at the start of the war.39
Even well after the dust of the war had settled and Bush and Schröder had
done much to repair their personal relationship, evidence of longer-lasting
public damage was still apparent. In an Allensbach survey conducted in Feb-
ruary 2004, 71 percent of respondents believed that the United States
pursued its interests in an egotistical and inconsiderate manner, and about
half continued to lack confidence in the ability of the United States to solve
international problems, given its inability to deal with its many domestic
problems. A mere 20 percent agreed with the proposition that only the
United States, as the sole superpower, could bring peace to the world’s cri-
sis areas.40 These results reflect not only the impact of the Bush administra-
tion’s style during the crisis, but also the administration’s loss of credibility
over the issue of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction and its inability to bring
order to Iraq after the war.
In Germany, Bush’s leadership style produced the view that Americans
did not like Germans. Although 55 percent of Germans polled in 1989
thought that Americans had sympathy for Germans, in mid-2003 only 32
percent believed that Americans liked Germans, while 31 percent believed
that they did not. When asked toward which countries they felt especially
sympathetic, only 11 percent of Germans in February-March 2003 named
the United States, a steep drop from the 27 to 30 percent who named the
United States consistently in the period from 1995 to 2001. In addition,
those who thought that the widespread American influence on the German
way of life was good fell from 37 percent in 1997 to 30 percent in early 2003,
while those who did not like the U.S. influence grew from 39 percent to 51
percent.41 Although one in five Germans today has a relative who immi-
grated to the United States, polls have found that almost two in three
Germans believed that the influence of the United States on the politics,
economics, and culture of Germany is too great (25 percent believed that it
was just about right and 5 percent believed that it was too little.) When
asked in March 2003 whether America was still a model, almost 90 percent
of Germans said no, while 9 percent thought it was.42 Close to a majority
believed that Germany and the United States have been growing apart since
the end of the cold war and that there is a significant gap between the coun-
tries’ values.
When Germans were asked which themes they associate with America,
there was some consistency and some change over the period from March
1991 to March 2003, slightly more than a decade. At both times more than
or close to 90 percent of respondents mentioned world power (94 to 95 per-
cent), criminality (92 to 95 percent), military power (88 to 92 percent), and
drugs (86 to 95 percent). Americans now are also viewed as inconsiderate,
willing to use force, and arrogant, while there has been a substantial drop in
the positive qualities attributed to them, such as being honest, peace loving,
and responsible.43
With the end of the cold war and the absence of a common threat, more
traditional German concerns about American society have returned. These
can be grouped under the following themes: globalization, inequality, and
the costs of risk taking; religion and secularism; race and multiethnicity;
and nationalism, sovereignty, and the postmodern state.
Globalization, Democracy, and Anti-Americanism

Many of the themes that Schröder repeated during the election campaign
tapped into deeper reservations about the direction the United States is tak-
ing. Schröder’s use of the term “German Way” referred not to foreign policy
but to social and economic models and to his desire to distance Germany
from the “American system” and the Anglo-American social and economic
model. As he put it,
The term German Way has nothing to do with international politics.
What was meant is the balance between capital and labor we have cre-
ated domestically. . . . This is what we call Modell Deutschland. This
phrase should make it clear that what has developed in Europe is not
only a single market, but a type of social interaction.44
His use of the term amerikanische Verhältnisse, or American system, was
meant to distance the German social democratic model from the “Anglo-
Saxon” model of Reagan, Thatcher, and the younger Bush. This aversion is
reflected in German public opinion, which also rejects this model. As a Pew
survey found,
In Germany and five of six Eastern European countries surveyed,
broader attitudes concerning the role of government are linked to
opinion of the U.S. approach to democracy. People who say it is up to
the government to insure that no citizens are in need tend to reject
American-style democracy. By contrast, those who favor a more min-
imalist government role favor the American form of democracy by
higher margins.45
While these concerns have been heightened by the wave of corporate
scandals in the United States, they also reflect the more traditional German
ambivalence about America as a social and economic model. Although it is
influenced and tempered by ideology and social class, a broader sense of a
social economy remains in Germany than in post-Reagan America. The
Soziale Marktwirtschaft, or social market economy, is based on the extensive
role of the German state as regulator and guarantor of social equality and
security. It was developed not by the left but by the Christian Democrats
under the leadership of Konrad Adenauer and his economics minister, Lud-
wig Erhard. It is based on a German concept of democracy that emphasizes
positive over negative freedom, with positive freedom emphasizing an active
state role in ensuring the existence of the social and economic conditions
necessary for equality. In contrast, the American idea of democracy is based
on negative freedom, which stresses freedom from the state, with an empha-
sis on equality of opportunity. German concepts are more rooted in the
rights of the group; the American tradition places greater weight on indi-
vidual rights. The longer German tradition was reinforced by the wild swings
during the twentieth century in Germany’s experience of both political and
economic instability. After the rampant inflation of the interwar and imme-
diate post–World War II periods and the specter of mass unemployment, the
German political culture has placed a premium on stability, predictability,
and security. Almost every German national political campaign has been
run on slogans such as “No Experiments” and promises of security.
These differences are behind the traditional German reservations about
American-style capitalism, with its emphasis on competition, on winners
and losers instead of social equality. Worries about the American system
reflect the risk aversion that runs deep in German political culture. When
asked in 2003 whether they would rather live in a country in which risk tak-
ing was rewarded or one in which greater value was placed on security, 71
percent of Germans picked security; only 17 percent preferred more risk
taking. There were no real differences between eastern and western Ger-
mans on this question.46 The comparison with the United States is striking.
When asked whether it is more important for the government to guarantee
that no one is in need or for an individual to be free of the government to
pursue goals, 57 percent of Germans but only 34 percent of Americans opted
for the security option while 39 percent of Germans and 58 percent of Amer-
icans opted for more freedom for the individual. The same 2003 survey
found that by a ratio of 65 to 32 percent Americans disagreed with the state-
ment that “success was determined by forces outside our control,” while the
percentages were reversed in Germany, where 68 percent agreed and only 31
percent thought they were in control of their own success. 47
While these themes have greater resonance on the left with the Social
Democrats and former communists (PDS), they also find an audience on the
center and the right. Germany has never had a Margaret Thatcher or Ronald
Reagan who remade the national political economy. Not only were the
Christian Democrats the creators of the social market economy, they also
have always had a strong social or labor wing. The only party that has been
liberal in the European sense of free market liberalism has been the Free
Democrats, and they have remained a distinct minority. The Greens, with
their greater individualism, have emerged in recent years as neoliberal in
some respects when it comes to economic reform, but they too remain a
minority.
Even during the cold war Germans tended to distance themselves from
capitalism. Polls conducted in 1986, for example, found that only a third of
West Germans believed the concept of capitalism to be positive, and
although not more than a quarter favored socialism, a majority did not
oppose it. The Pew and Marshall Fund surveys as well as the World Values
survey conducted by the University of Michigan reveal other important
divergences between Germans and Americans. A vast majority (70 percent)
of Germans believed that U.S. policies widen the global economic divide.
And although there was widespread approval of American popular culture
and admiration for American technology, only about one-quarter (28 per-
cent) believed that the spread of U.S. ideas and customs is good. About
two-thirds (67 percent) thought that it is bad, a percentage second only to
that in France.
There is a gap between Germans and Americans over ideas of democracy
and also over the state of democracy in Bush’s America. Germans, like most
Europeans, are evenly divided over American ideas about democracy, with
47 percent answering that they like them and 45 percent saying that they do
not. 48 This reflects, in part, the deep democratization of German political
culture since 1949. Germans no longer doubt the efficacy and desirability of
democracy, as many did during the Weimar Republic, but rather embrace it
and apply its standards to the behavior of other states. This is especially
salient in their views of America, given its status as the gold standard of
democratic practice for postwar Germans. There is a sense that since 9-11
Americans have sacrificed democracy for security and have failed to live up
to their own standards in regard to the treatment of the detainees being
held at Guantanamo Bay. Negative attitudes toward John Ashcroft, the
Patriot Act, and what is seen as the general tendency to suppress civil liber-
ties have been reinforced by the popularity of the films and books of the
social critic Michael Moore. All this is reflected in polls showing a drop—
from 67 percent in 1991 to 54 percent in 2003—in the number of Germans
who associated democracy with America.49 In some respects, then, the criti-
cism of American democracy is a sign of the maturity of German democracy,
and it ties into the debate on post 9-11 civil liberties that is occurring in the
United States.
The debate over the need to reform the German economy, which has
reached a high point under Schröder, reflects the tension between the Ger-
man yearning for security and social equality and the pressures of global
competition. For many Germans, on both the right and the left, globaliza-
tion has meant “Americanization,” at the cost of cultural identity and social
stability. Therefore German criticism of American democracy is linked to the

broader angst over change and the loss of security in a more competitive,
bottom line–oriented world.
Finally, Germans tend to be more cautious about the export of democracy
than most Americans. The tradition of what de Tocqueville called “Ameri-
can exceptionalism,” which sees the American mission as tied to the export
of American democratic values, differs from the German view. Germans also
believe in exporting democracy, but they see it as a long and fundamentally
indigenous process. Democratization can be fostered by institutions like the
European Union, but the process is viewed as more akin to gardening than
engineering, with large doses of development aid and assistance through
political foundations and other institutions. The introduction of democ-
racy from the outside through force is seen as unlikely to be successful. In
addition, most Germans do not view the war in Iraq as primarily or even
largely motivated by the desire to build democracy, but rather by economic
and political considerations in the U.S. quest for power.
To some extent German criticism of the United States is also criticism of
globalization. Many aspects of globalization—including the rapid spread of
popular culture, the increase in travel and communication, the immigration
of large numbers of people to countries that think of themselves as countries
of emigration, the growing impact of trade and international finance, and
increases in both the standard of living and social inequality—are closely
linked to the growing American presence in the lives of people everywhere.
Nevertheless, polls do not show too much divergence between American
and German opinion on globalization.
On the overall question on the effect of globalization on their country, 62
percent of Americans and 67 percent of Germans thought it was generally
good while only 23 percent of Americans and 26 percent of Germans
thought it was bad. In Germany as throughout Europe, the young (ages
eighteen through twenty-nine) were the most likely to think globalization
was a good thing. The main reservations about globalization were with the
rapid rate of change and pace of modern life, the pervasiveness of commer-
cialism and consumerism, the growing gap between the rich and the poor,
and, especially for eastern Germans, the lack of well-paying jobs.50
Multiculturalism and Identity

While the American social model has been a target of the left, American
popular culture and aspects of the U.S. social model have been anathema to
elements of the right. The American way of life has represented mass soci-
ety, cultureless materialism, and racial mixing or multiculturalism to those

on the right who reject the westernization of Germany as a loss of Ger-
many’s distinctiveness between the Slavic east and a west that in the past was
considered to exhibit a shopkeeper’s mentality and base materialism. As Ian
Buruma points out, “To ethnic nationalists in Germany and elsewhere,
Britain and France, with their relative openness to immigrants, were seen as
mongrel nations, where citizenship could be bought for a crock of gold.
This is what Hitler meant when he called France, Britain and the United
States ‘Jewified.’”51
For the new right as for the old, the American way of life represented
rootlessness and loss of national identity. During the cold war, some linked
the identity question to the division of Germany, which they saw as being
perpetuated by the United States. After unification and the end of the threat
of the Soviet Union, however, the right was open to a new European Third
Way, between a Slavic Russia in the east and American materialism in the
west.52 Discussions among the Christian Democrats contrasted the Ameri-
can multicultural model and a Leitkultur, or leading cultural model, for
Germany. Schröder’s unilateralism and talk of the German Way appeals to
these elements on the right.
The growing challenge of integrating more than 7 million foreigners (9
percent of the population) has reopened German fears of loss of national
identity. The increase in the foreign-born population is part of the broader
challenge posed by an aging society and low birth rates among Germans.
Germany has had a negative birth rate since 1973; without immigration,
the population will shrink from the current level of 82 million to around 72
million by 2030 and to 59 million by 2050.53 The working-age population
(twenty to sixty-five year olds) will drop by 12 million by 2030 and by 20
million by 2050. Thus, even given immigration rates of 200,000 a year, there
will be a drop in the working-age population of 13 million by 2050. This
means that Germany will need to bring in 500,000 workers a year just to keep
a working population of 42 million by 2050 (the current working-age pop-
ulation is 51 million).54
While Germans do not consider Germany a land of immigration, the coun-
try experienced major waves of immigration in the nineteenth century and
especially after World War II. Between 1945 and 1949, 12 million people emi-
grated or were expelled from what was German territory before World War II
or from areas where large numbers of Germans lived, largely in Poland,
Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and Yugoslavia. In the period before the Berlin Wall
was constructed (1945–61), 3.8 million Germans moved from East Germany
to West Germany, and an additional 400,000 emigrated from 1961 to 1988.

There was another big increase after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of
the USSR, so that between 1988 and 2000 about 2.7 million people with some
German heritage (referred to as Aussiedler) immigrated to Germany.
While the influx of these groups has caused social dislocations, it is the
integration of non-German minorities that has proved most difficult cul-
turally and politically. Many foreign workers came originally under the
Gastarbeiter (guest worker) program from the late 1950s to 1973 in response
to a labor shortage prompted by Germany’s economic recovery. After the
construction of the Berlin Wall and the consequent reduction of the num-
ber of German emigrants from East Germany, West Germany intensified its
recruitment of guest workers. Up until 1973, when recruitment was halted,
foreigners increased in terms of both numbers and share of the labor force.
The labor force participation of immigrants, however, has decreased. Since
then there has been growth in the second-generation foreign population, but
unlike in the United States and elsewhere, these children were not granted
German citizenship at birth, and they remained foreigners under the law.
The Schröder government modified the law in 2000 to allow those born in
Germany to acquire German citizenship by age twenty-three, but only if
they give up any claim to dual citizenship.55
In 2000, the number of legally resident foreigners was 7.3 million, 8.9
percent of the total population. Citizens of the former guest worker coun-
tries continued to make up the largest share of this number, which notably
included 2 million Turkish citizens, of whom 750,000 were born in Ger-
many. Another 425,000 Turks have been naturalized since 1972 and do not
show up in the foreign population statistics. In addition, a large number of
asylum seekers made their way to Germany after the end of the cold war.
While 57,400 individuals applied for asylum in 1987, by 1992 the total had
risen to 440,000. The public reaction against this influx led to severe restric-
tions on granting political asylum, to the point that only 78,564 applications
were filed in 2000.56
The existence of terrorist cells in Germany is related to this large influx of
asylum seekers, some of whom came from countries that suppress Islamic
fundamentalist movements. Approximately twenty Islamic organizations
with a total of 32,000 members were under observation by German author-
ities in 2001, and police estimated that around 100 radicals living in
Germany in 2001 had trained in al Qaeda camps. In a 2004 article on al
Qaeda’s base in Germany, Der Spiegel reported that 270 fundamentalists
were under close surveillance.57
The proportion of immigrants is smaller in the United States than in

Germany, but Americans continue to see their country as a land of immi-
grants. In a Pew survey conducted in 2003, Americans expressed more
tolerance toward ethnic minorities than did Germans. When white Ameri-
cans were asked whether African Americans and Hispanics have a good
influence on the country, 78 percent agreed in the case of African Americans
and 67 percent were positive about Hispanics. When the same question was
asked of Germans regarding Turks living in Germany, 47 percent were pos-
itive and 41 percent were negative; 53 percent also took a negative view of
eastern Europeans living in Germany. However, while Germans were evenly
split on the proposition that their way of life needs to be protected against
foreign influence (51 percent agreed while 48 percent disagreed), more
Americans were concerned about this (64 percent agreed; 32 percent dis-
agreed), and 46 percent of Americans wanted to limit entry of foreigners into
the country. 58
As one German analyst has observed, “It is the rejection of the ideal of a
society as a homogeneous unity which gives American society its extraordi-
nary sense of common identity and insures its special quality of renewal.”59 In
Germany and more broadly in Europe, the melting pot ideal is rejected. As
Anne Applebaum writes,“Immigrants . . . change the nature of the societies in
which they make their home. And many Europeans do not want their societies
to change.”60 These are societies based on a particular ethnic and cultural
identity. In some, such as France, citizenship means not multiculturalism but
assimilation—accepting the culture of the existing society, its language, reli-
gion, and customs. In Germany, citizenship has been based on “blood,” on
German ancestry, although the changes in the citizenship law may be a step
toward acceptance of a broader, more civic concept of citizenship.
The clash between the American and German concepts of identity and
citizenship will lead to more clashes in the future if Americans decide that
they want to apply the standards of their model of a multicultural society to
Germany and Europe. These are societies with different social and cultural
identities that require a sense of cultural and social cohesion, especially as
Europe integrates and globalizes. In many ways, the rest of the world is closer
to Europe and the United States is exceptional in this regard. During the
2002 election campaign, Michael Glos, the spokesman for Edmund Stoiber,
stated that the Christian Democrats rejected the ideal of a multicultural
society. As Applebaum concludes,“European national traditions have served
Europe well . . . giving Europeans secure and comfortable national identities,
creating the social cohesion necessary for democracy and prosperity. We
should hope they find ways to preserve them in the present.”61 On the Ger-
man side, the danger exists that in reacting against the multicultural model,
Germans may fall back into old prejudices about America as a polyglot soci-
ety without an identity or soul. Clearly this is an area that could lead either
to transatlantic tension or to a transatlantic learning process in which Ger-
many adapts itself to the diversity of a multicultural society.
Another aspect of the demographic issue is the implication of a growing
and relatively youthful United States facing an aging and more conservative
Germany and Europe. As John Parker pointed out in his Economist survey,
“By the middle of this century America’s population could be 440–550 mil-
lion, larger than the EU’s even after enlargement, and nearly half China’s
rather than a quarter. . . . America will be noticeably younger then and eth-
nically more varied.”62 He goes on to note that the median age in the United
States today is roughly the same as that in Europe (thirty-six to Europe’s
thirty-eight) but that by mid-century the median age in the United States
will still be around thirty-six while it will be fifty-three in Europe. While pre-
dicting long-term demographic trends has been risky at least since the time
of Malthus, there are some real risks for the transatlantic relationship related
to a widening of the value gap between the countries involved because of
contrasts in their demographic dynamism and ethnic diversity.
As for the German-American relationship, these aspects of America are
not a problem but rather a model for many Germans, especially for the pro-
gressive left, the Greens, and younger members of the SPD, who have
embraced American popular culture and the American lifestyle as well as
multiculturalism. This segment of the left loves America but hates the Bush
administration, while the right has supported the administration while hat-
ing the influence of American popular culture.
Secularism and Patriotism

In spite of the Americanization of large parts of German popular culture, a
number of surveys have found significant and growing differences between
American and European views on secularism, patriotism, and the interna-
tional order. The gap between contemporary Europe and the United States
on secularism and the role of religion in politics widened substantially in the
1990s as Americans became more religious.63 Eighty percent of Americans
believe in God, and 39 percent describe themselves as born-again Chris-
tians; almost two in three believe that it is necessary to believe in God to be
moral. Surveys have found that Americans are much more likely to attend a
church or synagogue and to hold religious beliefs than are Europeans. They
are more likely to believe in God, miracles, and the existence of the devil and
to believe that the world will end in a battle at Armageddon between Jesus
and the Antichrist. 64
The University of Michigan’s World Values Survey found that Americans
tend to be both more patriotic and more religious than Europeans, especially
those in post-Protestant countries such as Germany and Sweden. America is
almost unique in combining self-expression with traditional values, while
Germany follows the northern or Protestant European tendency to rank
high on both self-expression and secularism. This gap has widened with
unification, as eastern Germans are even more secular than their western
counterparts. As a summary of the findings concludes, “Patriotism is one of
the core traditional values and there is an obvious link between it, military
might and popular willingness to sustain large defense budgets. There may
be a link between America’s religiosity and its tendency to see foreign pol-
icy in moral terms. To Americans, evil exists and can be fought in their lives
and in their world. Compared with Europeans, this is a different worldview
in both senses: different prevailing attitudes, differing ways at looking at the
world.”65 This tendency toward moral certainty has grown over the past two
decades. In 1981, 35 percent of Americans and 22 percent of West Germans
believed that clear standards of right and wrong existed that allied to every-
one. By the year 2001, the number of Americans who held that belief had
risen to 59 percent while the German proportion was 30 percent.66
What is worrisome to Germans and other Europeans is the link between
the Christian right and the political right. In the 2000 U.S. presidential elec-
tion, 63 percent of those who went to church more than once a week voted
for George W. Bush and 40 percent of Bush’s total vote came from evangel-
ical Christians. The Christian right has built up a formidable network of
institutions that have provided crucial financial and other support to the
political right, to the extent that in many respects the political and religious
movements have merged. A Pew survey concluded that “over the past 15
years, religion and religious faith also have become more strongly aligned
with partisan and ideological identification.”67 In 1987–88 Republicans and
Democrats were equally likely to express strong personal religious attitudes,
but by 2002–03 a seven-point gap had opened up between the two parties
on this dimension. On the ideological dimension, 81 percent of self-identi-
fied conservatives but only 54 percent of liberals agreed with three religious
belief–based positions.68
For many evangelical Christians, 9-11 was proof of the sad moral state of
the United States. As Jerry Falwell put it, “God continues to lift the curtain
and allow the enemies of America to give us probably what we deserve. . . .

I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists and
the gays and lesbians . . . all of them who have tried to secularize America—
I point the finger in their face and say: You helped this happen.”69
Bush and his presidency were transformed by 9-11. One observer has
labeled this an “epiphany” for Bush, defining the true purpose of his presi-
dency and offering a mission and purpose for a life that he had squandered
in youthful excess before experiencing religious conversion.70 A senior
administration figure said more than a year after the attacks that Bush “really
believes he was placed here to do this as part of a divine plan.”71 The presi-
dent’s emphasis on good and evil and his evangelical language stand in sharp
contrast to the secularism of Europe and of Schröder. When Schröder took
the oath of office for his first term in 1998, he specifically declined the option
to say “So help me God,” the first postwar chancellor not to do so. He
regarded Bush’s religious conviction with anxiety, fearing it would spill over
into a rationale for a larger war against evil throughout the world.
The impact of this growing values gap in foreign policy has not been
lost on European leaders. Javier Solana, the EU’s high representative for
foreign policy and former secretary general of NATO, observed that the
United States and Europe were growing further apart as part of a “cultural
phenomenon” that goes beyond the previous pattern of U.S. foreign pol-
icy swings. Today there is a new unilateralist approach driven by religion:
“It is a kind of binary model. It is all or nothing. For us Europeans, it is dif-
ficult to deal with because we are secular. We do not see the world in such
black and white terms.”72 Solana went on to note that “the choice of lan-
guage on the two sides of the Atlantic is revealing. . . . What for the U.S. is
a war on terrorism, for Europe is a fight against terrorism.” He posited
that a religious society perceives evil in terms of moral choice and free
will while a secular one explains the causes of evil in political or psycho-
logical terms.73
As Tony Judt has observed, it is this “unique mix of moralist religiosity,
minimal provision for public welfare, and maximal market freedom . . . cou-
pled with a missionary foreign policy ostensibly directed at exporting that
same cluster of values and practices” that frustrates Europeans and is driv-
ing a deeper split in the West. 74 Some German interpretations of this link
emphasize the fear that September 11 unified the Christian and political
right and created both a dualist and unilateralist world view that sees ter-
rorism not as a perversion of Islam but rather as deeply rooted in Islamic
tradition. A number of leading Christian conservatives, including an army
general at the Pentagon, have made Islam the enemy, raising the specter of
a clash of civilizations, which Europeans wish to avoid.75
Thus the distinction between the Bush problem and the America prob-
lem may not be as clear cut as many believe. It is important to remember that
the United States is hardly monolithic and that it is in the middle of its own
Kulturkampf (cultural struggle). There are at least two Americas, “one that
is almost as secular as Europe (and tends to vote Democratic), and one that
is more traditionalist than the average (and tends to vote Republican).”76
While this divide subsided in the aftermath of the 9-11 attacks, it had
reemerged by the fall of 2003. A Pew survey conducted at that time found
that the spirit of 9-11 “has dissolved amid rising political polarization and
anger.”77 While it found a widespread sense of both patriotism and threat
from terrorism, it also discovered major gaps between Republicans and
Democrats on foreign and defense policy, which now is greater than at any
time since the late 1980s.
Yet it is probable that the Republicans will dominate the House of Rep-
resentatives for at least a decade and act as a major constraint on any
Democratic president. In addition, the trauma of 9-11 has strengthened the
patriotic, nationalist element in the political and strategic culture and, as
became clear, in Democratic support for the war in Iraq.
More important may be the impact of the changing international struc-
ture on strategic culture. As David Morris concluded in his study of the
German public’s views of America, changes in German views are linked to
the greater fluidity of the international system. The growth in support for
working with both superpowers during the 1980s and early 1990s reflected
the changes in the leadership and policies of the Soviet Union, followed by
its collapse. “As each image is a form of illusion, the change in the German
image of Americans to some extent is a form of disillusionment. . . . One can
only approve that Germans in 1990 no longer felt bound to emotion-laden
categories, which were tied to the stark dichotomy of the Cold War. . . . The
Germans saw the Americans less as a treasured friend than as a highly val-
ued partner, powerful, essential, but also less than perfect.”78
Morris wrote of a “healthy realism” emerging in the new environment. It
is clear that by the middle of 2003 the relationship still contained strong pos-
itive sentiments that could lead to a new and more balanced relationship. But
the danger also exists that the two sides could continue to diverge. The Ger-
man election of 2002 was a watershed event not only in U.S.-German
relations but also in German political culture. It is striking how many taboos
in German politics were either confronted or, in some cases, broken. Not
only did a German chancellor say no to a U.S. president on a crucial issue,
but he also broke the long-standing tradition of German multilateralism

with the use of the term “the German Way” and by his refusal to go along no
matter what NATO, the EU, or the UN decided. In addition, Jürgen Mölle-
mann challenged, although unsuccessfully, the antisemitism taboo by
attacking both Israel and prominent German Jews in the key last week of the
election. Finally, the idea of Germans as victims in World War II emerged as
a serious new theme in German politics and historiography.
Diverging Values and Diverging Interests

The events of the 2002 election signified that something deep was changing
in Germany itself as well as in the transatlantic relationship. What has been
happening is a gradual divergence between the United States and Germany,
fueled by longer-term forces and accelerated by policy differences between
the Bush and Schröder governments. As the Economist concluded in its look
at the growing values gap, “What is different now? Two things. The first is
that the values gap may be widening a little, and starting to affect perceptions
of foreign policy interest on which the trans-Atlantic alliance is based. The
second is that, in the past, cultural differences have been suppressed by the
shared values of American and European elites —and elite opinion is now
even more sharply divided than popular opinion.”79
A third point needs to be made. The strategic glue that has held the two
nations together is weakening and no longer serves to halt the drift. The
fact is that Europe and the United States have always diverged on political,
economic, and social values and that the cold war was a period of artificial
closeness during which the two sides seemed to agree more than they did in
fact because of strategic necessity. The Soviet Union posed both a strategic
and ideological threat, which did much to create “the West” as a political and
cultural concept. With the end of both aspects of that threat comes the end
of the era of transatlantic convergence—and growing divergence.80
These trends will be most important in Germany because of the special
link between German political culture and the United States. The German
identity during the cold war was intimately shaped both with and against
America. Anti-Americanism was never as deep as it was in France and per-
haps Britain. Germans have tended to admire the United States since the
downfall of Hitler, and the drop in the public’s estimation of the Bush
administration has had a far deeper and longer-term effect there than it has
elsewhere in “old Europe.” In many respects Germans have expected more of
American leaders, and the Bush years have been more unsettling as a result.
6
Welcome to the Berlin Republic
T he election campaign of 2002 was conclusive proof that the Berlin

republic had replaced the Bonn republic, the republic of West Germany.
Centered in the Rhineland and facing west, Bonn was close geographically
and culturally to Paris, Brussels, and Amsterdam. It was small, even cozy, and
it reassured rather than frightened both the German people and their neigh-
bors. It was a town—and a republic—without much history. Its scale was
modest, as were its pretensions.
The seat of the Berlin republic, in contrast, is a city of 3.5 million inhab-
itants, located within an hour of the Polish border. The city itself stretches
over 343 square miles, making it one of the largest in Europe in geographi-
cal area. Historical reminders and monuments are everywhere. There is the
Brandenburg Gate; the Reichstag building, torched during the Hitler era;
August Bebel Platz, where the book burnings took place in 1934; the column
celebrating the victory over France in the Franco-Prussian war; the
Landwehr canal, into which Rosa Luxembourg’s body was thrown in 1919.
There are, of course, remnants of the division of the country into east and
west during the cold war: the few remaining segments of the Berlin Wall, for
example, and the ugly and cavernous Palast der Republik, which housed the
East German parliament.
The scale of Berlin symbolizes the new Berlin republic. The new govern-
ment quarter, centered around a renovated Reichstag and a monumentally
large chancellery (which Schröder described to Bush as “my White House”)
is vivid proof of the new self-image of a more ambitious, sovereign, and
Central European Germany. The politics of Berlin are less contained as well.
Berlin has a large working-class population, major intellectual and academic
104
Welcome to the Berlin Republic 105
communities, and a substantial immigrant population of Turks and Ger-

mans from Russia, Poland, and other parts east. The politics of the street and
mass demonstrations is an old Berlin tradition. At the same time, the role of
ideas and of ideology is more prominent than it was in Bonn, given Berlin’s
three universities and its large artistic and literary communities. On the
other hand, business and the commercial middle class are underrepresented.
What is most striking, besides Berlin’s scale and sense of history, is its east-
ernness. There are still two Berlins, east and west, but the east is now the
larger and has received most of the private and public investment since uni-
fication. Well over half of the population of the capital lived their lives in East
Germany, and Berlin was selected to replace Bonn in part because it repre-
sented a visible commitment to unification. Yet the socialization, political
culture, and economic prospects of the more than 17 million Germans who
were born and raised in the former East Germany have been very different
from those of their western compatriots. As the discussion of public opin-
ion in the previous chapter indicates, eastern Germans’ views of the United
States, both as a socioeconomic model and as a world power, are more
restrained and suspicious than those of western Germans.
Berlin Is Not Bonn

Early in the Bonn republic, a famous book titled Bonn ist nicht Weimar
argued that the Bonn republic would avoid the fate of the Weimar Repub-
lic because of the remade political culture.1 Today it is equally appropriate
to add that Berlin is not Weimar, but it also is not Bonn. The 2002 election
suggested the first political and cultural clues to how the Berlin republic
would differ from that of Bonn, and the debate over the war in Iraq rein-
forced the initial indications. During the campaign, a number of key taboos
of the Bonn republic were openly challenged or abandoned, including the
taboo against speaking of Germans as victims of World War II, the taboo
against voicing any criticism that might appear to be anti-Semitic, the aver-
sion to declaring an independent German Way, and of course, the taboo
against a German government openly opposing a major U.S. policy that
Washington saw as vital to its national security. Berlin’s opposition to the
war in Iraq also created a major new departure in German policy toward
France, as Germany abandoned its old practice of positioning itself between
Paris and Washington and instead openly sided with Paris against Wash-
ington, creating, in fact, a counter-coalition that included Russia. Not bad
for one year.
106 Welcome to the Berlin Republic
Germans as Victims
History has been an unhappy burden for post-Hitler Germany, and numer-
ous attempts have been made to come to terms with it or to lessen its weight.
While Germans have been quite forthright in examining the past, there had
been a number of attempts to relativize it. Helmut Kohl described himself
as being of the generation that had been spared direct guilt for the Holo-
caust, and he tried to create a new, “normal” Germany, by which he meant
a Germany that would be treated like Britain and France.
The most vivid and painful demonstration of this attempt was President
Reagan’s visit to the cemetery at Bitburg in May 1985. As one writer noted at
the time, “For Kohl, age is an important part of his credentials. As he viewed
the date on his birth certificate, he felt that he had been given a special mis-
sion. For forty years Germans had lived in psychological isolation, and 1985
was the year he was going to lead the German people out of the desert.”2 The
problem was that the Bitburg cemetery included not only the graves of Ger-
man army soldiers, but those of SS members as well. What Kohl hoped to do
with the wreath laying was what he succeeded in doing with François Mit-
terrand at Verdun: to create a symbolic reconciliation of former enemies. He
also wanted to make World War II look more like World War I.3 As the Amer-
ican historian Charles Maier wrote a few years after the Reagan visit,“Bitburg
history unites oppressors and victims, Nazi perpetrators of violence with
those who were struck down by it, in a common dialectic.”4
This was part of a longer-term effort by a number of leading German
politicians to avoid the “singularization” of Germany (which in the German
political lexicon means being singled out and treated differently because of
Hitler), whether it was in the deployment of nuclear weapons (when Ger-
man leaders demanded that Germany not be the only NATO state on the
continent to accept the missiles on it soil) or in the Two Plus Four negotia-
tions over German unification. One of Kohl’s main points during these
negotiations was that the treaty on German unification should not be
regarded as a peace treaty ending Germany’s World War II enemy status and
that Germans should not be placed in the position of paying reparations to
Poland.
This political track paralleled a new debate among German historians
about the Third Reich, which also took place in 1986, set off in part by events
at Bitburg. This debate (Historikerstreit) centered on the uniqueness of Ger-
man guilt and of the Holocaust. Charles Maier characterized the central
issue of the debate as “whether Nazi crimes were unique, a legacy of evil in
a class by themselves, irreparably burdening any concept of German nation-
hood, or whether they are comparable to other national atrocities, espe-

cially Stalinist terror.”5 Maier went on to argue that the issue of uniqueness
is crucial, because if the Final Solution is not comparable to other cases of
genocide, then “the past may never be ‘worked through,’ the future never
normalized, and German nationhood may remain forever tainted.”6
However, as the Dutch journalist Ian Buruma has pointed out, the Ger-
man people’s historical burden is based not simply on guilt over the
Holocaust but also on “the sense of utter impotence that followed their
defeat.”7 During the election campaign and even more during the buildup
to the war in Iraq, something important happened to Germans’ view of
themselves. Before the pivotal year of 2002, Germans regarded themselves as
the aggressors and criminals of World War II, as perpetrators rather than vic-
tims. The suffering of German civilians during the war was a taboo subject:
“As far as right-minded Germans are concerned—they got what they
deserved for electing Adolf Hitler and supporting his criminal campaigns.”8
Even though there had been discussion and criticism of the Allied bombing
of such cities as Hamburg and Dresden and some attempts to relativize
German guilt by arguing that the Allied tactics were as criminal and savage
as those of the armed forces of the Third Reich, still the brunt of guilt
remained firmly on the German side.9 Postwar German writers, as the nov-
elist Peter Schneider wrote,“considered it a moral and aesthetic impossibility
to describe Germans, the German nation responsible for the world war, as
being among the victims of the war.”10
However, with the publication in Germany in 2003 of Günter Grass’s
novel Krebsgang (Crab Walk) and a number of studies of the bombing of
German cities during World War II, Germans began to look at their history
in a more nuanced way. Grass’s novel tells the story of the sinking of the Wil-
helm Gustloff, a German transport ship named after a Nazi hero who was
murdered by a Jew in Switzerland. The ship, which was carrying German
refugees, was sunk by Russian torpedoes in early 1945, resulting in the death
of somewhere between 5,000 and 9,000 women and children.11 As Grass
writes:
This business has been gnawing at the old boy [referring to Grass him-
self]. Actually, he says, his generation should have been the one. It
should have found the words for the hardships endured by the Ger-
mans fleeing East Prussia: the westward treks in the depths of winter,
people dying in blinding snowstorms, expiring by the side of the road
or in holes in the ice. . . . Never, he said, should his generation have kept
silent about such misery, merely because its own sense of guilt was so
overwhelming, merely because for years the need to accept responsi-

bility and show remorse took precedence, with the result that they
abandoned the topic to the right wing. This failure, he says, was stag-
gering.”12
The Grass novel was a bestseller in Germany, and it is notable because it
was written by a left-wing intellectual who has no sympathy with the Nazi
regime. Grass writes, “We Germans have come up with expressions to help
us deal with the past: we are to atone for it, come to terms with it, go through
a grieving process.”13 Grass’s novel is the story of three generations, a mother
who survived the sinking of the Gustloff; her son, who is part of the 1968
generation; and his son, who “wants acknowledgement for Nazi martyrs
such as Gustloff, whose pompous monuments were obliterated by occupy-
ing armies after 1945.”14 When the son, Konny, goes on trial for murdering
someone he thought was a Jew, his father and mother (now divorced) have
an argument, which the father recalls: “I argued that our son’s unhappi-
ness—and its dreadful consequences—started when he was prohibited from
presenting his view of 30 January 1933 [the date of Hitler’s accession to
power] and also the social significance of the Nazi organization, Strength
through Joy, but Gabi [the ex-wife] interrupted me: ‘Perfectly understand-
able that the teacher had to put a stop to it.’”15 Repression of the past, Grass
argues, is more dangerous than allowing it to be discussed in the open. As
one historian put it, “Too little openness about the past breeds Konny’s.”16
These works were followed by television programs and journalistic
accounts reexamining the fate of the more than 12 million Germans expelled
from German territory in the east in what is now Russia, Poland, and the
Czech Republic, of whom 1. 4 million died in their forced flight westward.17
A dispute between the German and Czech governments broke out over the
legitimacy of the so-called Benes Decrees issued at the end of World War II
by the prime minister of Czechoslovakia, which took away all rights of the
Sudeten Germans expelled from that country to restitution for their prop-
erty. Many of these people now live in Bavaria, and they form an important
pressure group within the Christian Social Union (CSU), the Bavarian affil-
iate of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU).
Pressure from these groups has led even the Schröder government to
agree to the establishment of a Center against Expulsions (Zentrum gegen
Vertreibungen). The center was the idea of a CDU member of Parliament and
chair of the Association of Expellees, Erika Steinbach, and it is supported by
Peter Glotz, a prominent Social Democratic Party (SPD) politician and intel-
lectual. Both of them are from families of expellees, although they were too
young to have shared that experience. A dispute has raged over where the
center would be located, with Steinbach and her supporters pushing for
Berlin while the Schröder government, sensitive to Polish and other Central
European concerns, is promoting a more European center to be based in
Poland. Leading figures in the SPD, including its presidential candidate in
2003, Gesine Schwan, have argued that locating the new center in Berlin
would emphasize the Germanness of the project and would reawaken mis-
trust of Germany by its neighbors. It would also sit in the same city with the
Holocaust memorial that is being built near the Brandenburg Gate and so
might symbolize an equivalence between the suffering experienced by vic-
tims of the Holocaust and that of the expellees.18
While these works and developments raise the question of whether the
massive firebombing of civilians or their expulsion from their homes is a jus-
tifiable response to massive aggression launched by a murderous regime,
more important is what they may reveal about how Germany is changing as
it moves further from the Third Reich. Are concerns justified that this wave
of reexaminations of the past may be a prelude to a desire for revenge and
to revanchism? “Is there a danger that the Germans will conflate their suf-
fering with the vastly greater and more unforgivable suffering they inflicted
on millions of others,”19 or should all this be seen rather as a normal and not
unhealthy development in the collective consciousness and identity of uni-
fied Germany, “which opens their eyes to and enhances their understanding
of the destruction that the Nazi Germans brought upon other nations?”20
Why this discussion, and why now? Peter Schneider, a leading postwar
novelist and interpreter of postwar and postunification Germany, has linked
this change to generation change, arguing that “it was too much to expect
our generation [the 68ers] to identify the perpetrators of the Nazi genera-
tion on the one hand and to consider the fate of German civilians and of
those who were deported on the other.”21 The historical experience and val-
ues of the generations that have followed the 68ers are quite different. These
generations are even further removed from the crimes of the Third Reich,
and they view themselves as ordinary citizens and their country as a “nor-
mal” one, similar to France and Britain.
This change in historical perspective was bound to come, but it was accel-
erated by the war in Iraq, not only because the “shock and awe” bombing
campaign called up images from World War II but also—and more impor-
tant—because the war gave Germans a “rare and intoxicating taste of the
moral high ground.”22 It allowed many to see themselves as morally superior
to Americans, who seemed only too eager to use force in a war that did not
have a clear justification, a war launched not as a response to a clear aggres-

sion but as a matter of choice and for what many believed were for the old
imperialist reasons, especially oil. Another conclusion could have been
drawn—namely that the Germans, of all people, should have been the first
to celebrate the demise of a brutal and murderous dictatorship—but the
condemnation of the unbridled use of American power trumped the bene-
fits of toppling Saddam Hussein’s regime. This image of an imperial America
is one that will not be soon forgotten, and it has had an important part in
the reshaping of German strategic culture.
Jews and Israel

The renewed discussion about the past is inextricably linked to a new assess-
ment of Jews and Germany’s relations with Israel, another special taboo in
the postwar German political and strategic cultures. Successive German gov-
ernments and political leaders have consistently recognized the special
nature of the relationship between Germans and Jews given the horrible
legacy of the Holocaust. This has taken the form of Vergangenheitsbewälti-
gung (the overcoming of the past) as well as a policy of reconciliation with
the state of Israel.23 Germans have accepted their responsibility for the mur-
der of European Jews and have taught the lessons of that experience in their
classrooms as well as examined it in books, the media, and countless dis-
cussions and conferences. As noted, the German government is going ahead
with the construction of a major Holocaust memorial in the heart of Berlin.
The small Jewish community that survived the Third Reich had grown to
only about 30,000 in 1988, although it began to expand with the end of
the cold war and the emigration of Jews from Russia. Currently, less than
100,000 of a total of approximately 200,000 Jews now living in Germany
live a Jewish religious life. In 2002 the immigration rate to Germany, 19,000,
was greater than the immigration rate to Israel.24 Studies continue to indi-
cate that the levels of antisemitism in Germany are lower than in most
western countries.25
The discussion of Germans as victims has been linked to the broader issue
of German guilt for the murder of Jews and Germany’s relationship with
Sharon’s Israel. In Crabwalk, Konny represents the younger generation, which
wants to lash out at the constraints imposed by the past. His generational foil
is a young man named David, who engages in a heated Internet exchange
with the neo-Nazi Konny. Although David portrays himself as a Jew, he is a
gentile named Wolfgang who, in the words of his mother,“became so obsessed
with thoughts of atonement for the wartime atrocities and mass killings,
which, God knows, were constantly harped on in society, that eventually every-
thing Jewish became somehow sacred to him.”26 In their increasingly virulent
chat room exchanges, terms like “Jewish scum” and “Auschwitz liar” are
hurled back and forth, leading to this passage: “‘Death to all Jews’ bubbled to
the digital surface of contemporary reality: foaming hate, a maelstrom of
hate. Good God, how much of this has been dammed up all this time, is
growing day by day, building pressure for action.”27
The Grass novel was accompanied by Martin Walser’s Death of a Critic,
in which the German protagonist murders a German-Jewish critic, leaving
the impression that the murder was “tantamount to killing a tyrant.”28 This
followed a famous speech given by Walser in 1998, in which he opposed the
construction of the Holocaust memorial and suggested that the Auschwitz
chapter be closed so that Germans could live their lives as normal people.
Walser argued that the principle of never forgetting the past had been
“instrumentalized” for the purposes of “negative nationalism,” that is, to
justify the division of Germany on the grounds that a reunified Germany
would lead to a new Auschwitz. According to Walser, a Holocaust memorial
“in the center of the capital will be a football field–sized nightmare” repre-
senting the “banality of the good.”29
This cultural climate was reflected in the political arena near the end of
the election campaign of 2002, when a leading German politician, Jürgen
Möllemann, a member of the liberal Free Democratic Party, challenged the
taboo of antisemitism. Sensing that this could tip the election to a coalition
of his Free Democrats and the Christian Democrats, Möllemann became
openly critical of Israel and of prominent German Jews. He denied that his
statements were meant to be antisemitic, but they were clearly on the bor-
derline. Möllemann had been involved with Arab nations and interests for
many years and was one of the most open advocates of closer German-Arab
ties, so it is problematic to link his sentiments to a broader antisemitism. In
any case, he set off a larger discussion of antisemitism in Germany. He
explicitly stated in an interview with Der Spiegel that the public should be
prepared for more breaking of taboos in the future: “We must speak out on
things that other politicians for whatever reasons have also made taboo. The
gap between what the political class says and what people feel is great.”30 At
the beginning of the German election campaign, on April 4, 2002, Mölle-
mann stated in a newspaper interview on the issue of Palestinian terrorism
against Israel, “ What would one do if Germany were occupied? I would
defend myself too, with force. . . . And I would do this not only in my coun-
try but also in the country of the aggressor.”31
He was openly critical of Michel Friedman, a prominent German Jew, tel-

evision talk show host, and vice president of the Central Council of Jews in
Germany, as well as of Israel. In his personal attacks he used language that
made it clear that Friedman’s religion and the link between being a Jew and
being a supporter of Israel were his main targets. He accused Friedman,
“with his intolerant and hateful manner” of expressing himself, of sharing
in the responsibility for the increase in antisemitism in Germany, saying, “I
repeat my unfortunately deep impression that the policies of Mr. Sharon and
the unacceptably aggressive and arrogant style of Mr. Friedman against any
critic of Mr. Sharon has unfortunately awakened anti-Israel and antisemitic
resentments.”32 He later issued a half-hearted apology, which was rejected by
Paul Spiegel, the chairman of the Central Council of Jews in Germany.
The attacks on both Friedman and Israel by Möllemann set off a debate
in the FDP between the older Möllemann and the younger party leader,
Guido Westerwelle. Westerwelle at one point was quoted as saying, “I am
proud to be a German. The young want to be free of the pressure of having
to go around with a bowed head and slouching through life.”33 Westerwelle
never took a strong position against Möllemann, leading to speculation that
in its quest to gain 18 percent of the vote, the new FDP had decided on a
populist Haider strategy to pull in disaffected Germans.34 If so, the strategy
had little impact; an analysis of the vote indicated that the “Möllemann
effect” had little influence on the final vote. What hurt the FDP was not
Möllemann but its failure to declare itself as a partner in a CDU/CSU gov-
ernment.35 When asked to assess the Möllemann effect, a leading specialist
on German-Jewish relations concluded, “Society reacted correctly—
although it took the FDP a long time—and distanced itself from Mr.
Möllemann. Had the FDP received 2 percent more votes in the parliamen-
tary election, we would have had a different republic. Antisemitism would
have been acceptable again.”36
Möllemann committed suicide the next year, but his death did not mean
that the well he tried to tap was entirely dry. Möllemann was the vice chair
of the FDP and the leader of its largest state party, in North Rhine–West-
phalia. Under his leadership the FDP gained a large 9.8 percent of the vote
in the May 2000 state elections in North Rhine–Westphalia, with the key slo-
gan being “breaking taboos.”37 A year after the election of 2002, a CDU
member of Parliament was forced out of the Bundestag when he made anti-
semitic comments. There were other indications that old taboos were either
collapsing or being challenged. In Jörg Friedrich’s The Fire, he uses language
that had previously been used only in connection with the Holocaust, refer-
ring to the Allied bombings of Germany as “death by gassing” and using the
word “crematorium” to describe the incendiary effects of the fire bomb-
ing.38 What was also striking in the Möllemann case was the lack of much
public opposition to his statements by leading groups like the churches or
the trade unions. The Central Council of Jews in Germany was left pretty
much on its own.39
There was a clear and growing link between the growing conflict in the
Middle East and the breaking of the antisemitism taboo in Germany. As
Michael Wolffsohn, a German Jew, has observed, “The historical-psycho-
logical chemistry between the two populations (Germans and Israelis)
doesn’t mix.”40 Israel remains one of the most unpopular countries in Ger-
mans’ mental map of the world, and the Israelis are “the unloved Jews.”
Why? The historical lessons drawn by both countries from the Holocaust
could not be more different. While the Germans have turned against
nationalism, Israel was formed on the premise that only a nation-state
could protect Jews. While Germany is thoroughly secular, Israel is a reli-
gious state. The binding of Israelis to the land brings back memories of the
discredited Blut und Boden ideology of the Third Reich, in which Germany
was described as a nation exclusively for Germans. Finally, Germans and
Israelis have very different views about the legitimacy of the use of force
and of war as an instrument of politics, differences that have deepened
with the rise of the Likud and the Sharon government. While Germans
stress multilateralism and cooperative security agreements, Israelis view
rejecting the use of force without reciprocal action by the Palestinians as
“appeasement.”41
Rather than the cosmopolitanism of the prewar German Jews—which
was so bitterly attacked by the racist and nationalist right in Germany—Ger-
mans now confront the nationalism of the Jewish state at a time when
Germany itself has embraced a postnationalist cosmopolitanism. The criti-
cism of Israel is linked to that of the United States for the same reason, namely
that “both anti-Americanism and anti-Zionism oppose modern nation-states
that insist on older ideas of power.”42 As one leading German Jew put it,
“There was practically no Jew in Germany who demonstrated against the
American war in Iraq. . . . The USA is regarded in the Jewish world as a guar-
antor of Jewish security, not only in Israel but also in Germany.”43
The spillover of these varying images of legitimacy and power into U.S.-
German relations is also apparent regarding the neocons and Germany. The
neocons are strong supporters of Israel and, in many cases, of the Likud
version of Israel’s security interests. Peter Steinfels wrote of their origins
that “many of them were, of course, Jews coming of age in a decade that saw
fascism triumph and Nazi power swell till it exploded into world war and the
Holocaust.”44 As Stanley Hoffmann wrote, “there is a loose collection of
friends of Israel, who believe in the identity of interests between the Jewish
state and the United States— two democracies that, they say, are both sur-
rounded by foes and both forced to rely on military power to survive.”45
The neocons were sensitive to any evidence of antisemitism, first in the
Soviet Union (Richard Perle was a key figure in shaping the Jackson-Vanik
amendment linking progress toward détente with the USSR to the liberaliz-
ing of Jewish immigration) and later in Europe and the Middle East. The
long shadow of the Holocaust was especially important to them, and they
considered strong support of Israel essential to avoiding another Holocaust.
They also tended to view the world in terms similar to those of Likud mem-
bers, emphasizing the need for toughness in dealing with terrorism and
seeing any attempts at accommodation with groups or causes linked to ter-
rorism as dangerous appeasement.
The links among the neoconservatives, evangelical Christians, foreign
policy hardliners, and lobbyists for the Israeli government in Washington
are, as Ian Buruma notes, united by “a shared vision of American destiny and
the conviction that American force and a tough Israeli line on the Arabs are
the best ways to make the United States strong, Israel safe, and the world a
better place. . . . If one thing ties neoconservatives, Likudnik, and post–cold
war hawks together, it is the conviction that liberalism is for sissies.”46
German attitudes about the United States and Israel are more subtly
linked in that both America and Israel have served as models for Germany.
The new criticism allows Germans some psychic relief in the sense that if the
desire for power is behind the actions of the United States and Israel, then
perhaps the Germans were not so distinctive in their evil. The Israeli psy-
choanalyst Zvi Rex put it concisely, “The Germans will never forgive the
Jews for Auschwitz.”47 Germans remain extremely uneasy in their relation-
ship to Jews, and images of Israeli bombing of Palestinian civilians allows
them to regain some of the moral high ground. The link between German
views of the United States and Israel has been reinforced by the closeness of
the U.S.-Israeli alliance. It is instructive that the former justice minister,
Däubler-Gmelin, directly compared President George W. Bush with Hitler.
By “killing the fathers,” American as well as German, new generations of
Germans can emerge with a more “normal” identity.
Thus the dynamic between Germans’ views of Israel and of Jews has some
important similarities to the dynamic between their views of Bush and of the
United States. Germans believe that it is possible to separate the two: they
can be critical of Bush without being anti-American and critical of Sharon
without being anti-Israel or antisemitic. Logically and perhaps even empir-
ically, that is true. Yet there is also a subterranean element at work, and it
should not be ignored. Generational change is creating a new mix of both
rational and subconscious elements.
The German Way and Europe

The 2002 election campaign damaged the Schröder government’s relation-
ship not only with the United States but also with some of its key partners
in the EU and especially with some of the states joining the EU in 2004.
While Germany was not significantly isolated within Europe on the question
of Iraq, Berlin’s break with a common European approach was unsettling to
its EU partners and harmed efforts toward a serious European Security and
Defense Policy (ESDP).
With the end of the cold war and the unification of Germany, concerns
arose in both Europe and the United States that a unified Germany would be
more unilateral. Both Margaret Thatcher and François Mitterrand tried to
block German unification in 1989 and 1990 for fear that a unified Germany
would mean a dominant Germany and lead to a German Europe rather than
Genscher’s European Germany.48 Although the first Bush administration was
a strong supporter of German unification, by 1992 concerns already were
apparent in the United States that “America’s future competitors would be
Germany and Japan.“ Henry Kissinger had argued that growing “German
domination of Europe” was lessening American influence there, and Brent
Scowcroft, George H. W. Bush’s national security adviser, worried about
increasing “West-West” conflict.49 Many of these concerns subsided during
the 1990s due to the strong multilateral and Euro-Atlanticist orientation of
Helmut Kohl as well as Germany’s preoccupation with the reintegration of
eastern Germany. However, they reemerged in 2002.
A new discussion about the German role in Europe was raised by Chan-
cellor Schröder’s use of the term deutscher Weg during the 2002 campaign.
While he claimed to have used the term to emphasize a domestic Modell
Deutschland, its invocation evoked memories of the Sonderweg, or special
German path, especially among Germany’s European partners.50 As one
commentator noted,
Historically, the German Way has stood for a separate national way, a
going it alone . . . for a special role that Germany had taken for a vari-
ety of reasons. . . . In Schröder’s campaign speech of August 5 in

Hanover, he moved himself away from neoliberalism and bankrupt
capitalism; he separated himself from the no-longer-role-model U.S.
and retreated from unconditional submission to American foreign
and military policy. He looked for a formula to give meaning to his
mood and found a false one . . . with the detour of the German Way.51
The evocation of the German Way and the refusal to participate in a war
in Iraq, even if sanctioned by the United Nations Security Council, marked
a real break from the multilateralist consensus of Zivilmacht (civilian power)
Germany. It helped to weaken the role of the UN during the Iraq crisis and
placed severe limits on Germany’s role. This proved not to be a singular
event. It was followed by a more unilateral approach in the European Union,
reflected in Germany’s open violation of the limits on deficit spending set by
the Growth and Stability Pact (whose anti-inflationary guidelines were
insisted upon by the Kohl government and the Bundesbank) and its push for
the recognition of the rights of the large EU states during negotiations on the
EU constitution, which were finally concluded in 2004.
This marked an important departure from what the German scholar
Joachim Krause has called the German school of multilateralism. This
school, grounded in the Ostpolitik experience and the diplomacy involved in
German unification, seemed to prove “that determined efforts to negotiate
with adversaries and to entangle them in an endless debate have the poten-
tial to solve problems as fundamental and deeply rooted as the East-West
conflict.”52 It depended on the strict observance of international law, reliance
on multilateralism and consensus building, renouncing the use of force
without a UN mandate, and broadly defining security to include human
rights and protection of the environment. Or as another German scholar,
Gunther Hellmann, succinctly put it, the criterion for real multilateralism is
“foreign policy initiatives that strengthen rules and norms and thereby nar-
row the room for states to maneuver.”53
The actions of the Schröder government were increasingly outside of this
paradigm and signaled a more made-in-Berlin approach to both the United
States and Europe. This new approach was not designed to strengthen inter-
national norms and institutions at the expense of German independence, but
rather to enhance German freedom of action, even if it meant weakening
international institutions. This reflected a new sense among both the German
public and the elite that Germany should take a less sentimental or emotional
approach toward its key partners and say no when its interests clash with those
of its partners. It was part of what Hellmann described as the “power politics
resocialization of German foreign policy.” The “normalization” of German
policy had occurred, but under a Red-Green rather than a Christian Demo-
cratic government, and it implied, rather than a European Germany,“that not
only Germany, but also Europe, would be more German.”54
No More Kohls: New Generations of German Leaders

The challenging of taboos can be explained not only by the changed strate-
gic circumstances of the post–cold war world, but also by generational
change. The U.S.-German relationship is facing what the German journal-
ist Jochen Thies has called “a double generational break” on both sides of the
Atlantic.55 The implications of a changed international environment are
being drawn on both sides of the Atlantic by new generations of leaders
who, as Henry Kissinger observed at the beginning of the crisis, “have not
shared the experience of the war and of postwar reconstruction.”56
A generation’s identity is based on its adoption of a set of similar values
and perspectives that distinguishes it from other age cohorts and continues
to do so throughout its existence. This contrasts with identity based on stage
of life, according to which the young are always more open to change (pro-
gressive or radical) than their parents but become more like their parents as
they age and take on social responsibilities. Generations are shaped by one,
or both, of two sets of major influences. One set is associated with radically
different historical contexts and experiences, which tend to separate one
generation from another given the different lessons and values that they
draw from living in different historical epochs. Generations that are shaped
by war or depression are likely to have different political and social values
than those shaped by peace and prosperity. The gap between the World War
II generation and the baby boomers in the United States is an example of the
impact of sharply different historical experiences on different generations’
values and political agendas.
While historical events like major wars or the attacks of 9-11 are dramatic
markers for new generations, a rapidly changing social milieu associated with
rapid economic growth also creates a generational effect. The concept of
postmaterialism in advanced industrial societies illustrates the link between
economic change and value change, with a strong emphasis on generational
change.57 The postmaterialist generations have been shaped by the prosper-
ity of the postwar social welfare state, who tend to place values associated with
self-fulfillment above those associated with material security. Generations
shaped by the depression and the scarcity of postwar Germany, for example,
are more likely to place a higher priority on economic security and on law and
order, creating a gap with the generations that were brought up in a pros-
perous and secure West Germany. Generational change is especially
important in Germany because of the number of dramatic historical breaks
in the twentieth-century German experience and because of the rapid social
and economic transformation of the country after World War II.
The changing German self-image has coincided with the coming to
power of the first fully postwar generation, the 68ers—those born right after
World War II through the early 1950s and shaped by the protests of the late
1960s. The current leadership comes from this generation. However, Ger-
hard Schröder and Joschka Fischer are not classic 68ers. Although both were
activists during the protests against U.S. policy in Vietnam, neither attended
a university and consequently neither was part of the best educated and
therefore leading element of their generation. Yet their experience during
their formative years, like that of the classic 68ers, shaped their view of the
United States, which accepts an American lifestyle while remaining critical
of the country’s global role. The left-leaning leadership of this generation
came of age opposing U.S. policy, not, as in Kohl’s and Schmidt’s generation,
supporting it. As a column in the Financial Times put it, “Former Chancel-
lor Kohl’s government was very much one of technocrats with socially
conservative values. With Gerhard Schröder’s SPD, the 68 generation came
to power; former student activists, civil rights campaigners, and Baader-
Meinhof defense lawyers are all present in the upper echelons.”58
The extent to which Schröder was willing to use criticism of the Bush
administration as a theme in his reelection campaign and the positive
response it received from much of the electorate—not to mention the more
critical references made by other leading figures in the SPD—indicates the
difference between this generation and that of Kohl as well as the changing
generational makeup of the public. As Der Spiegel put it, “Joschka Fischer
was nineteen years old when he threw stones at the police in Stuttgart. In
essence, the street protesters of that time, who today occupy the highest
positions in government, have repeated their resistance against an American
war organized and directed from the White House and Pentagon.”59
These generational perspectives could be seen in the new Red-Green for-
eign policy. The new German chancellor, delivering his first official
statement of government policy to the new Bundestag in November 1998,
declared that his government represented “a generational change in the life
of our nation.”60 The constraints that had weighed down the previous gen-
eration had been overcome to the point that Germans had long been a “nor-
mal people” and the new generation could look to the future “without guilt
complexes” and “unselfconsciously represent their own interests.”61 Schröder
and Fischer had little time for the pathos of the Kohl era, for the hand hold-
ing with Mitterrand at Verdun or with Reagan at Bitburg. Schröder saw
himself as Germany’s CEO and his policies as based on rational cost-bene-
fit analysis rather than the emotions and symbols of the past.62 Fischer saw
himself as the leader of the Realo, or realist, faction of the Greens, which
believed that nothing could be accomplished without power and that ideol-
ogy had to be compromised to attain it.
Much of Schröder’s policy toward the United States was based on his
belief that Germany had earned a place at the table by committing its armed
forces in Kosovo and Afghanistan and behaving as a “normal” nation. As the
Iraq crisis demonstrated, he was bitter when he felt he was not consulted and
involved in decisionmaking. As his biographer Jürgen Hogrefe put it,
“Schröder wants a new role for Germany—self-confident and insistent. He
wants to define a national interest that doesn’t dissolve into the EU or
NATO.”63 Both Schröder and Fischer wanted to create a foreign policy with
a more distinctive profile, highlighting its differences with the United States
in order to demonstrate the new German self-confidence. Yet they were ini-
tially frustrated in their attempt by the need to support the United States in
both Kosovo and Afghanistan while fuming at what they saw as the unilat-
eralist provocations of the Bush administration over the Kyoto treaty, the
International Criminal Court, and other multilateral projects. The pressure
to resist also grew within both the left faction of the SPD and the Greens.
Not only do the 68ers have an ambivalent view of the United States, their
view of Europe also is quite different from that of the Kohl generation.
Schröder was the first chancellor who did not feel emotionally bound to the
postwar consensus that European integration should take priority over Ger-
man national interests and policies.64 His relation to Europe is entirely
pragmatic and instrumental, unencumbered by the emotional and histori-
cally driven commitment to Europe of both Adenauer and Kohl. Where
Kohl saw European enlargement as part of a vision of a Europe whole and
free—and even as a matter of war or peace—Schröder focused on the costs
of enlargement to Germany and was sensitive to the public’s worries that
Germany would become the paymaster of Europe.
The 68ers have had an impact in the areas of environmental policy and
immigration law, and they have broadened the growing consensus that
Germany should engage only in the limited and multilateral use of force.
They remain, however, sandwiched between the World War II and immedi-
ate postwar generations, which shaped the Federal Republic after the war,
and the Gen Xers and 89ers, which will soon follow them. The 68ers were not
shaped by major political events but rather by the prosperity and rapid eco-
nomic growth of West Germany. They are a political generation that believed
in mass political action and that, in addition to creating the ecopax move-
ment (the merger of the environmental and the peace movements) and the
Greens, streamed into the SPD. Their contribution to the German political
culture was the “killing of the fathers,” their revolt against the generation that
had collaborated with or actively participated in the Third Reich.
Yet this is a generation of leaders largely inexperienced in world politics
and international economics. They spent most of their careers in the oppo-
sition during the long reign of the Schmidt and Kohl governments; in many
respects they reflect the parochialism of many of their generational coun-
terparts in the United States. For them it was the Primat der Innenpolitik, the
primacy of domestic politics over foreign policy. The parliamentary parties
had a difficult time recruiting foreign and defense policy specialists from this
generation, much as the parties in the U.S. Congress before September 11
had a difficult time getting high-flyers to take assignments on the Senate For-
eign Relations Committee or the House International Relations Committee.
No one in the Greens has the interest or experience in foreign affairs to suc-
ceed Fischer, and the depth chart is not much better for the SPD or for the
CDU.
The second postwar generation, often called the Gen Xers, will succeed
the 68ers. Also referred to as the Generation Golf, after the bestselling novel
of that name, these are people born in the mid-1950s to early 1960s, who are
now in their forties.65 Their views were shaped by the oil crises of the 1970s
and the economic shocks of the 1980s. They were the first to come of age
during the “limits of growth” era, the first since the end of World War II to
experience lower expectations of growth. Ecological issues and the great
missile debate of the 1980s, in both the east and west, also shaped their
views. Their image of America was one of Reagan and of a certain U.S. reck-
lessness, and they credit Gorbachev, not Reagan, with ending the cold war.
When the Berlin Wall came down, members of this generation in the west-
ern part of Germany were more wary of unification than the Kohl
generation and in this regard shared the skepticism of another prominent
68er, Oskar Lafontaine, the Social Democratic candidate who lost to Helmut
Kohl in 1990. In the east, this generation was on the cusp between those who
would benefit from unification and those left behind.66
A third postwar generation, the 89ers, is waiting in the wings. It has been
shaped by a great historical event, the end of the cold war and the unifica-
tion of Germany. Born roughly between the 1970s and early 1980s, members
of this generation have come of age in a time of slow economic growth and
talk of Germany as the new sick man of Europe. Unlike the 68ers (and partly
because of the 68ers), who used Germany’s past against their fathers, this
group has a much weaker link to and feeling of responsibility for that past.
They feel that while the past cannot be forgotten, they should not continue
to be held responsible for the crimes of previous generations and that in
some respects the past “was often used as a pretext for inaction.”67 They
remain concerned about political and social issues, and much of their agenda
is a postmaterialist one. Unlike the 68ers, they are not attracted to the SPD.
They tend to be social and liberal at the same time, and many support the
Greens, yet they are far more skeptical of politics than the 68ers and have not
streamed into the major political parties. They focus their efforts on prag-
matic results at the local level, working through personal networks, the
Internet, and NGOs. They are concerned about practical problems that affect
them directly. This is a cohort whose members can be characterized as “prag-
matic idealists”; they do not think of themselves as a generation because
they do not believe in collective identities. They are more likely to shift their
allegiance depending on the personalities of the leaders, especially if they are
seen as charismatic, rather than remain loyal to the same party, and they may
be the precursor of a more volatile Berlin republic.
This generation has come of age during the rise and crash of the German
shareholder economy and its technology-driven Neuer Markt. 68 Members of
the youngest segment of this cohort (now in their late teens to mid-twenties)
place greater stress than the next two older cohorts on performance, secu-
rity, and power. They also have less interest in the environment than their
predecessors in the mid-1980s.69
These will be the leaders of the new, “normal” Germany. They tend to be
pro-European, with about half wanting the EU to develop into one state, and
they tend to favor enlargement of the EU to incorporate countries to Ger-
many’s east. As one major study of their attitudes concluded, “Europe is a
reality for the young.”70 They also regard Germany’s new role in a pragmatic
manner, free of the old left-right dichotomy. About 42 percent want to see
Germany speak up for its interests in the world more, and a third want to see
Germany have more influence. About a third want to maintain current lev-
els of cooperation with the United States, with about a fifth each wanting
either to decrease or increase it. A clear relative majority supports the inter-
national involvement of the German armed forces in UN and other inter-

nationally sanctioned operations. A more assertive approach to foreign
policy, what Schröder called for as a “new self-confident German foreign pol-
icy,” finds resonance with the younger generations.
The big question concerns the impact of the Iraq war on those born in the
early to mid-1980s, who now are of high school and university age. Like the
generation of 1989, this group, which might be called the Golfkrieg Genera-
tion, or Gulf War generation, has no memory of the Berlin Wall and the
division of Germany.71 Its image of America has been shaped by the perva-
sive American popular culture but now also by the George W. Bush
administration. This group was more likely to participate in anti–Iraq war
demonstrations. While one in six Germans claims to have participated in a
demonstration against the Iraq war, the proportion of those between the
ages of fourteen and nineteen was one in three. 72 They remain wary of the
political parties as vehicles for collective action but clearly do not fit the
stereotype of an “apolitical generation.”73 They seem to be more open to
the concept of a just war than previous German postwar cohorts and in this
respect are “not naïve peace children.”74 The eighteen- to twenty-four-year-
olds (at least in mid-2003, at the end of the first phase of the war) were
more understanding of the American justification for the war than older
groups. They were more likely to believe that Saddam was a dictator who
held his people in the grip of fear and that he had murdered Kurds. As one
gymnasium (academic track high school) student said in response to
Schröder’s unconditional no to war, “I don’t exclude war as a last resort if
human rights are being damaged, as in Kosovo.” Yet there was almost unan-
imous support for and pride in the stand Schröder took. As one
seventeen-year-old put it, “I am happy that we have a government that can
say no to America, that remains true to its own opinion and will not allow
itself to be influenced.”75 Many saw Iraq as a chance for Germany to demon-
strate a new sovereignty and felt anger over what they viewed as an American
tendency to see all Germans as Nazis. For the first time, many felt proud of
their country and its stand as being unambiguously on the side of peace.
The Bush-Rumsfeld style of leadership was guaranteed to collide with the
values of this new generation. A poll conducted by the CDU’s Konrad Ade-
nauer Foundation in February 2004, almost a year after the height of the
crisis in U.S.-German relations, found that 71.7 percent of Germans believed
that “hardly any other country represents its interests in such an uncaring and
egoistic manner as the USA.”76 The combination of chiding Germans for
their lack of gratitude for what the United States had done for them in the
past and telling them either to follow or to get out of the way was bound to
go against the grain of the younger generations in Germany. Only a relatively
few Germans were old enough to have directly experienced such key events
as the Berlin blockade, the building of the Berlin Wall, or the Kennedy visit
to Berlin. The unification itself is a dim memory to the young and a reminder
of Germany’s new sovereignty to the middle aged. As one high school student
in an East Berlin high school said just before the war in Iraq began, “I think
Germany has been grateful for more than fifty years. I think after fifty years
one can start being independent. The idea that we have to be grateful to the
Americans—why? We financed the Gulf War. Why should we be grateful?
Thirty thousand refugees were bombed in Dresden, so we have to be grate-
ful? Why?”77 While this reflects the perspective of an eastern German, it also
speaks for a generation. In discussions with about 100 high school students
in mid-2003, a reporter for Die Zeit found a widespread belief that the Amer-
ican leadership was arrogant and egotistical and had little regard for
international norms and institutions. This was an America that “listened to
no one” and one that treated the UN as a “high school parliament.”78
Iraq and the Bush administration’s leadership style were a catalyst for the
deep changes already under way in German political culture, reinforcing
the trend toward a more assertive and sovereign Germany. These changes are
paralleled by trends in the United States.
No More McCloys: The New American Generation of Leaders

Generational change in the United States has been similar to that in Ger-
many. The old hands who shaped American postwar policy in Germany are
gone, and they have no successors. During the cold war Germany was the
fulcrum of U.S. policy, and some of the best and brightest American foreign
policymakers—John McCloy, George F. Kennan, Lucius Clay, Henry
Kissinger—made Germany a center of their attention. This was the time
when the influence of the East Coast establishment on foreign policy was at
its height. Composed of bankers and financiers with strong European ties
and, in the words of Henry Kissinger, “leavened by some émigrés,” the estab-
lishment knew and cared a great deal about Germany and Europe.
A look at the ambassadors that the United States sent to Germany indi-
cates the seriousness with which that country was taken: Walter Stoessel,
Arthur Burns, George McGhee, Richard Burt, and Vernon Walters all were
senior figures who had had distinguished careers in the Foreign Service, the
military, journalism, or finance. In addition, there was a slew of lesser-known
but key German hands in the second tier of the State Department. Helmut
Schmidt has placed great emphasis on the impact on U.S.-European rela-
tions of the East Coast foreign policy elite and the later shift of power to the
southern and western states, as well as of the shift in the composition of the
U.S. population away from those of European ancestry.79
The decline of U.S. interest and expertise in Germany was due less to any
decline in the East Coast establishment than to the relative weight of both
Europe and Germany in the world balance. Germany was the cockpit of the
cold war, which ended when the division of Germany ended. As U.S. inter-
ests and priorities shifted to other parts of the world, ambitious foreign
policy players began to make their careers in other regions rather than as
specialists in European or German affairs. The reshaping of the U.S. Foreign
Service, which was based on fears that officers who spent the bulk of their
careers in one region were going native and taking on too much of the per-
spective of those regions, also worked against allowing diplomats to develop
real expertise in the affairs of a particular country. The last generation of
German hands, figures like John Kornblum and J. D. Bindenagel, has now left
the Foreign Service, with no apparent successors.
While Richard Holbrooke was an influential ambassador during the Clin-
ton administration, his tenure was brief and his posting was a consolation
prize for not getting his first choice, Japan. Holbrooke had made his career
in Asian policy and in finance, not in European or German affairs, before he
arrived in Bonn. The American ambassador during the Iraq crisis, Daniel
Coats, was a former Republican senator from Indiana who was given Berlin
as a consolation prize after being rejected for the secretary of defense posi-
tion by Bush and Cheney. He had no real expertise or interest in Germany
prior to his appointment, and he was a very political ambassador, ruffling
German sensitivities with his open criticism of Schröder’s policies. He and
his wife were active evangelical Christians whose attempts to proselytize did
not sit well in the secular German culture.
The strong link provided by the stationing of U.S. armed forces in Ger-
many, especially the U.S. army, also weakened as the military presence fell
from a high of more than 200,000 troops in the 1980s to only about 50,000
in 2003. More than 12 million American service members and their families
had lived in Germany during the cold war, and both they and their families
served as important intermediaries between the two countries and the two
militaries. However, as U.S. military strategy was transformed during George
W. Bush’s administration under the leadership of Donald Rumsfeld, the
prospect of even further reductions of both U.S. military personnel and
their dependents seemed quite high. Rather than maintain large troop
deployments in Europe, the Defense Department shifted to a strategy of
maintaining lily-pad bases to serve as platforms for troops jumping from the
United States and a few European bases to points south and east of Europe.
Plans were to move U.S. forces to new, smaller bases in Poland, Bulgaria, and
Romania and to keep only the key U.S. airbase in Ramstein and a few other
facilities in Germany. While these plans had been gestating for a long time,
the timing made it appear to many Germans that Germany was being pun-
ished for its opposition to the war in Iraq and that the states that had
supported the administration were being rewarded. Whatever the case, the
end result would be a further weakening of the U.S. presence in Germany
and an inevitable weakening of U.S.-German military ties.
The fact that the U.S.-German public dialogue could degenerate so quickly
after five decades of partnership was due in part to the weakening generational
ties on both sides. With the end of the cold war, the growth of parochialism
in both countries became marked. Not only was it difficult to get members of
Congress to take foreign policy–related committee assignments, but foreign
trips, especially to affluent countries such as those of Europe, were quickly
labeled “junkets” by their political opponents and the media. While there is no
doubt a junket quality to a trip to a European capital, members of Congress
have much to gain from maintaining contacts with their foreign counterparts
and developing a sense of foreign perspectives.
The large U.S. and German stake in bilateral trade and investment creates
some links between the countries. The United States has more than $300 bil-
lion in assets in Germany, more than its total assets in Latin America.
Germany accounted for $61.4 billion (4.4 percent) of all U.S. foreign direct
investment (FDI) in 2001 and ranked sixth in the list of top destinations for
American FDI. The U.S. market was even more important to Germany, with
$152.8 billion (11.6 percent) of German FDI going to the United States,
making Germany the fourth-largest investor in the United States. U.S. com-
panies employed more than 400,000 Germans while Germany employed
about 730,000 Americans, making it the second-largest foreign employer in
the United States after the United Kingdom. German exports to the United
States increased by 106 percent in the period 1990–2001 while U.S. exports
to Germany rose by 80 percent.80
Beyond this substantial stake is a common business culture that is devel-
oping among executives of German and American multinational
corporations. A large number of German CEOs and key managers have
MBAs from American business schools and think in the same terms as their
U.S. counterparts. The business communities on both sides were shaken by

the split over Iraq and its potential consequences for trade and investment,
and as a group they brought pressure on both governments to moderate
the dispute. German business in particular was concerned and financed a
number of efforts to help rebuild ties, although there was no real damage
done to business and investment flows during the crisis (in contrast to the
losses suffered by French concerns). Yet business is global and mobile and
does not carry the weight of strategic ties and interests. The profit motive
cannot substitute for strategic interests.
The same can be said in regard to popular culture. American popular and
high culture are widely accepted and admired in Germany. Yet that acceptance
has not served as a buffer against political divergence. On the contrary, it
may have increased the dissonance because the openness of both societies
means that differences are immediately reported and perhaps inflated by the
wide variety of media that connects the countries.
The Bush Generation

As already noted, George W. Bush was remarkably provincial when he
became president, especially so given his social and political background. He
was born in 1946, two years after Gerhard Schröder, but he was of an entirely
different political persuasion. While Schröder reflected the values of his gen-
eration, Bush rebelled against his generational counterparts at Yale during
the Vietnam period. He disliked what he regarded as a weak and exclusive
intellectual elite, best represented by his classmate Strobe Talbott or by Bill
Clinton, another generational counterpart. As James Mann observes in his
study of the leading figures in the Bush foreign policy team,
Americans usually think of the 1960s as the time when the United
States turned to the intellectual left. . . . Amid the campus tumult,
attracting remarkably little notice, there arose a separate strand of
intellectual development. It was conservative in the literal sense of the
word . . . this seemingly contrapuntal campus movement has had
arguably a more significant and enduring effect on American policy
than did the antiwar movement.81
The American generations do not entirely parallel those in Germany
given different historical breakpoints. Neil Howe, a leading analyst of gen-
erational change in the United States, has categorized five postwar American
generations.82
The Bush foreign policy team includes members of the Silent Generation
(Donald Rumsfeld); an in-between group (pre-boomers) born during World
War II but too young for the boomer generation (Dick Cheney, Paul Wol-
fowitz, and Colin Powell); baby boomers (Bush, Hadley, and Libby); and a
Gen Xer (Rice). The key neocons, such as Paul Wolfowitz, Scooter Libby, and
Richard Perle, are second-generation neocons and either boomers or pre-
boomers. The first generation of neocons was born in the 1920s and shaped
by the struggles over Stalinism and fascism during the 1930s. As Peter Stein-
fels wrote, “The political reality that loomed over those years, and that
provided the formative political experience of these men, was the rise of
totalitarianism and the failure of socialism in the face of that threat.”83 The
second generation of neocons were boomers who were shaped by the grow-
ing legacy of the Holocaust, the rise of a Likudist Israel, and the Reaganite
approach to the struggle with communism and the USSR.
The nationalist conservatives had more of a generational mix, including
Rumsfeld from the Silent Generation, Cheney from the pre-boomers, and
Bush from the boomers. They were shaped by the Soviet threat and the cold
war, and they supported the war in Vietnam but did not play an active role
in it. Cheney was once asked why he did not serve in the military during that
time, and he replied, “I had other priorities.” Bush used family connections
to serve in the National Guard. None of the leading neocons had served in
the military, in Vietnam or elsewhere, leading to a real clash with Colin Pow-
ell, his deputy Rich Armitage, and others who did. Powell and Wolfowitz had
a running battle over policy, which was intensified by Powell’s disdain for
those who urged war without having actually experienced it, the so-called
chicken hawks.84
On a late summer evening in September 2003, former chancellor Helmut
Schmidt was the guest of honor at a dinner hosted by the German ambas-
sador to the United States, Wolfgang Ischinger, and his wife, Jutta
Falke-Ischinger, at the ambassador’s residence. Among those attending was
the chairman of the Federal Reserve, Alan Greenspan, and a host of foreign
policy specialists. In his remarks after dinner Schmidt reminisced about his
many visits to the United States and his friendship with Greenspan, Gerald
Ford, and a host of other prominent Americans. Schmidt’s summoning of
the past offered a startling contrast to the present; one could not imagine
either Gerhard Schröder or George W. Bush giving a similar talk.85
In his study of George W. Bush’s key foreign policy team, known as the
Vulcans, James Mann contrasted them to the other key generations of post-
war American leaders, the Wise Men and the Best and the Brightest. The
Wise Men—including Dean Acheson, Averrell Harriman, John McCloy,

Charles Bohlen, Robert Lovett, and George F. Kennan (and Paul H. Nitze)—
were the Truman administration’s foreign policy team and by far the most
successful team in the history of American foreign policy.86 As Mann notes,
they “had come to government from the worlds of business, banking and
international law; their spiritual home was Wall Street and the network of
investment banks and law firms connected to it. . . . [and they] had concen-
trated on constructing institutions, both international and in Washington,
that would help to preserve democracy and capitalism in a threatened
Europe.”87 The memoir of one of the most important of the wise men, Dean
Acheson, was aptly titled Present at the Creation, because they created the
great multilateral institutions of the cold war period: the United Nations, the
World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and NATO.
The Best and the Brightest of the Kennedy administration (Robert McNa-
mara, McGeorge and William Bundy, and Walt and Eugene Rostow) were far
less successful.88 They came from academia and “their spiritual home was
Cambridge, Massachusetts, and the Harvard campus where many had stud-
ied or taught.”89 They had attempted to use academic expertise to counter
the Soviet threat and to extend American influence in the developing world.
Many were veterans of World War II who served, as their president did, as
junior officers. They were much like their young president, feeling that they
represented a generation whose time had come, one that would bring new
vigor and purpose after Eisenhower’s cautious and perhaps tired adminis-
tration. While this group failed badly and tragically in Vietnam, it was wildly
successful in Europe. The high point may well have been President Kennedy’s
famous visit to Berlin in the summer of 1963, of which the British journal-
ist Henry Brandon would write, “No other president spoke for Europe with
such understanding as he did, and I dare say none ever will. [Kennedy cre-
ated the impression] of being a living fusion of the American and European
cultures.”90 Kennedy remains an icon in Germany today, and his adminis-
tration still inspires Germans of all generations.
The generation of the George W. Bush administration, in contrast, is one
that Mann describes as a “military generation.” Their wellspring, the com-
mon institution in their careers, was the Pentagon, although, as stated
previously, they did not serve in the military but worked there as civilians.91
Because of their background in planning, not fighting, wars, they were den-
igrated as “chicken hawks” by their critics during the war in Iraq. They called
themselves the Vulcans after the Roman god of fire, his forge and instru-
ments signifying their sense of power, toughness, resilience, and durability.92
It is not surprising that the Pentagon has played so large a role not only in
the Bush administration’s defense policy but in its overall foreign policy.
The mission of this group was to first restore, then enhance, American mil-
itary power and to make the American military unchallengeable in the
twenty-first century.
With the exception of Colin Powell, few of the current American group
had much real experience with Germany. Rice, a former Soviet specialist, was
involved in the negotiations leading to German unification, and the others
had some NATO experience, particularly Rumsfeld, who served as U.S.
ambassador to NATO. When the crisis between Schröder and Bush broke,
there was no Kissinger or Scowcroft who could pick up the phone and call
a German counterpart with whom he shared confidence and friendship. In
previous administrations, the German hands could help ease tensions. Even
when Henry Kissinger had deep suspicions about the intentions of Willy
Brandt and his key aide, Egon Bahr, over Ostpolitik, he and his advisers still
had what the Germans would call a Fingerspitzengefühl, a feel for the cultural
and political context, which kept differences manageable.93 During 1989
and 1990, when tumultuous events were occurring at breakneck speed,
George H. W. Bush knew all the key international players intimately and
spent hours in personal conversations with Helmut Kohl, Mikhail Gorbachev,
and others.
The current crop of neocons did not trust the Germans and some held
them—and the rest of “old” Europe—in contempt. The nationalist conser-
vatives, who first worried that Germany would challenge U.S. power
immediately after unification, came to regard Germany as irrelevant, assum-
ing that “if we lead, they will follow.” The images of this group had been
shaped by a Europe that had failed the moral test of Hitler and failed again
in the Balkans, a Europe in demographic, economic, social, and even moral
decline. Worse yet, the European countries were no longer serious military
powers that could bring real capabilities to the table.
In summary, the generational cycles in both countries seemed to be shap-
ing leaders who were more inward looking and nationalistic and who had
few friends, associates, or experiences in other nations from which to draw
support in times of stress. To know others may not be to love them, but at
least one can hope to understand their interests and motives. At a session at
the German Historical Institute in Washington held on March 18, 2003, in
which both Henry Kissinger and Egon Bahr took part, Kissinger remarked
that he never thought that the German-American relationship could get so
bad so fast. The rapid decline was the result of serious weakening of the ties
of both sentiment and strategic interest. Part is clearly generational, but the
shifting of interests cannot be overlooked.
Finally there is the problem of the arrogance of power. The leadership of
the George W. Bush administration has been far less cautious than that of his
father, not only because of the predominance of realists and of the G.I. and
Silent Generations in the first administration but also because the power of
the Soviet Union served to restrain American unilateralism. The leaders in
Bush II are the first in U.S. history to be unconstrained by other great pow-
ers. The tendency toward arrogance was already apparent during the Clinton
years, when Secretary of State Madeleine Albright labeled the United States
“the indispensable nation” and remarked that the United States “sees further
than other countries into the future.”94
On the German side, the costs of challenging the United States also have
diminished. For a leadership that no longer felt as constrained by geography,
history, or strategic threats, killing the fathers, American and German, was
a means of shaping a new independent identity. Given these longer-term
trends, the pre-2002 relationship is gone, and a new one will have to be con-
structed by new leaders under new circumstances.
7
From Alliance to Alignment
On September 24, 2003, months after the United States declared the
end of military action in Iraq, Gerhard Schröder and George W. Bush met
at the Waldorf Astoria hotel in New York, where both were attending a meet-
ing of the United Nations General Assembly. The mini-summit was the first
since their meeting in Berlin in May 2002, and it lasted forty minutes, longer
than the half-hour originally planned. Every minute carried symbolic
weight. As Der Spiegel commented, “the entire fate of the German-American
relationship hung on this half hour.” The meeting went well, and the presi-
dent referred to the chancellor by his first name, declaring, “We’ve had our
differences and they’re over, and we’re going to work together.” The chan-
cellor responded, “We very much feel that the differences there have been
have been left behind and put aside by now.”1 Television cameras filmed the
handshakes and smiles.
That meeting was followed by one at the White House on February 27,
2004. It was characterized as warm and resulted in the declaration of the
“German-American Alliance for the 21st Century.”2 This marked the formal
end of the diplomatic crisis that had begun in the summer of 2002, but it did
not imply that things were the same as they were in May 2002. Before he met
with Bush in New York, the chancellor had said that he did not want to kin-
dle a “love affair” with the Americans (“keine ‘Liebesbeziehung’ zu den
Amerikanern entfachen”) but rather to continue with “entirely normal con-
versations.”3 When after the Washington meeting he was asked whether
relations between him and the president had been restored, he answered,
“We have a good working relationship.”4 These carefully chosen words gave
131
132 From Alliance to Alignment
expression to how much had changed in the tone and style of what had
been a close alliance.
If the cold war ended with the fall of the Berlin Wall and the unification
of Germany, the post–cold war period ended with the war in Iraq. While the
chancellor and the president both stated that they wanted to look to the
future, not dwell on the past, some summing up of what happened and why
is needed to develop a realistic picture of what to expect going forward. In
assessing what happened, it is necessary to consider first whether the crisis
could have been avoided, then to look at what remains of common interests
that the two nations could use to form a new, different sort of partnership.
Finally, new problems, both German and American, must be considered.
A Failure of Leadership
When one looks back at events from September 11, 2001, through the inva-
sion of Iraq in the spring of 2003, a number of questions arise. How much
of the crisis was due to a personality conflict? Could alternative actions have
been taken that would have avoided or ameliorated the crisis? As noted at the
beginning of this book, the personalities involved mattered a great deal. As
one adviser in the chancellor’s office put it, “Don’t underestimate the impact
of the personalities of Bush and Schröder. Neither one wanted to take the
first step and admit that he had made a mistake.”5
The Bush administration decided to pursue its policies with or without
Germany. Condoleezza Rice’s characterization of the post-Iraq strategy as
one that would “punish France, ignore Germany, and forgive Russia”
reflected the administration’s faulty assessment that Germany did not
count.6 The White House had concluded that Germany’s ailing economy
and demographic decline meant a loss of dynamism and clout; those factors,
combined with the nation’s reluctance to use military force, made Germany
irrelevant in the Bush administration’s Hobbesian view of the post 9-11
world. By choosing to lead without worrying too much about who followed
and by being quite explicit in its contempt for those who opposed it, the
administration created ideal conditions for the formation of a counter-
coalition.
In dealing with the situation, European nations divided into two broad
camps, joining the German-French-Russian coalition or Tony Blair and his
“new European” allies, Italy, Spain, Poland, and the countries of eastern
Europe. Blair too had real worries about American unilateralism and the
direction in which Bush was headed. He was concerned about the impact on
From Alliance to Alignment 133
the world of a unilateralist United States but calculated that by working as

a close partner he would gain the confidence of the U.S. leadership and thus
some leverage on its policies.7 The U.S. decision to follow the UN track
through Resolution 1441 and the attempt to gain a second resolution was
due to Blair’s influence, as was the commitment of President Bush to the
Middle East peace road map worked out with the United Nations, the EU,
and Russia ( known as the Quartet) in the fall of 2002. Yet Blair failed to pre-
vent the war, and his campaign for a second resolution probably made the
situation worse, both because of the resentment it created within key ele-
ments of the Bush administration and because of the humiliating retreat and
defeat that London and Washington suffered when it became clear that they
did not have the votes they needed in the Security Council. He also paid a
price in Europe. His attempt to build a bridge between the United States and
Europe was rightly dismissed by Chancellor Schröder as working only in one
direction, from Europe to the United States, and he failed to make the Euro-
pean case in Washington. Worse yet, he worked with Berlusconi, Aznar, and
others to further split Europe and pushed Germany deeper into the French
camp, thus undercutting his European policy and the pivotal power role he
wished for Britain. Because of Iraq, the prime minister’s position at home
was weaker while that of both Chirac and Schröder was stronger, at least in
the short run.
The Franco-German strategy was quite different, although its objectives
were similar to those pursued by Blair. The Chirac-Schröder strategy
attempted to enmesh U.S. power in a larger multilateral framework, both to
temper it and to provide it with some legitimacy. To them, the problem of
U.S. power was bigger than any threat posed by Saddam. They believed that
by creating a countervailing coalition, they might channel that power in a
more realistic and restrained direction. It is unlikely that Chirac, even in his
most megalomaniacal moments, thought, as Thomas Friedman was to write
later, that “France wants America to sink in a quagmire there [in Iraq] in the
crazy hope that a weakened U.S. will pave the way for France to assume its
‘rightful place’ as America’s equal, if not superior, in shaping world affairs.”8
As Philip Stephens concisely put the difference in strategies: “The Blair per-
spective had Europe influencing U.S. policy from within. The French view
saw an imperative to challenge it from within.”9 Both Chirac and Blair had
hoped to enmesh American power within a broader multilateral framework,
and both failed.
Schröder also has spoken about Germany working to create a European
counterbalance to the United States. Yet one of his closest advisers describes
his view as one that emphasizes rights and responsibilities. “It is more than
just counterbalancing. One can’t be the slave of the others. Unilateralism,
cherry-picking alliances, can’t be the way. We want to go with the French but
not against the United States. Schröder is not a European power guy, but he
thinks Germany has the right to be consulted and included in a broader
alliance.”10 Blair told the Polish foreign minister on March 13, 2003, that “I
had dinner with Chancellor Schröder last night, and he does not want to be
part of an anti-American alliance.”11 In any case, Germany under Schröder
renewed its choice of France as a close partner, and the ramifications of that
choice will extend beyond Iraq. Surveys of German public opinion done
after the end of the war found both a steep drop in confidence in the lead-
ership of the United States and a sharp rise in support for the European
over the Atlanticist option, seemingly confirming Schröder’s choice.12
However, Schröder’s close alliance with France was a fundamental alter-
ation of traditional policy, under which Germany positioned itself between
Washington and Paris and thereby gained maximum leverage. By firmly
joining the French camp and subordinating its policies to those of France,
Germany lost a good deal of that leverage and flexibility. Schröder did this
more for tactical than strategic reasons, in an attempt to ease the isolation
in which he found himself after being frozen out by the Bush administration.
To some extent Schröder may have emboldened Chirac to pursue a coun-
terbalancing strategy more forcefully than he would have otherwise,
contributing to the deadlock in the UN and the confrontation with the
United States.
Schröder was convinced that an early, unilateral war in Iraq was strategi-
cally unsound and could lead to a more unstable and dangerous Middle East
as well as undermine the fight against terrorism. He would have pursued this
policy even if an election campaign had not been going on at the time,
although his rhetoric might have been different. Yet he miscalculated Ger-
many’s weight and leverage with the Bush administration just as the
administration underestimated Germany’s importance. He did not seem to
fully appreciate the difficulty of confronting a superpower, and he failed to
prevent a war he thought unwise. Could he have found a middle position
between Chirac and Blair and mobilized an EU consensus around it? Could
he have tried to broker a deal at the UN rather than side with France and
Russia? Would he have been better off even by joining Blair in his approach
to the United States? The effect of the approach that Schröder did take was
to weaken the German-American relationship as well as diminish the credi-
bility of both NATO and the UN. Germany’s calling since the catastrophe of
Hitler had been to create and sustain an effective multilateral approach to

international problem solving. In this case its strategy had the opposite effect.
Both Schröder and Bush were responsible for the personalization of the
problem. Here more of the blame goes to Bush, both because of the greater
weight of the United States and the responsibilities that go with leadership
of a great alliance and because of his general tendency to overpersonalize his
approach to foreign policy. After the Däubler-Gmelin affair, the president
was so angry that he told his staff that he wanted to read every statement on
Germany coming out of the White House. He left the impression that he had
decided to personally oversee the U.S. reaction. His deep and continuing
anger foreclosed any serious attempt to limit the damage and give his Ger-
man counterpart an opening to come back toward the United States, if not
on Iraq then on other issues.
Tony Blair tried to play the intermediary. In a meeting with Bush at Camp
David near the end of the German election campaign, he told Bush “that
Schröder had his back to the wall and with public opinion he had to say the
things he did. Blair said he was sure Schröder would want to rebuild bridges.
Crucially, Blair told Bush that after the election, if Schröder did win, he
could ‘turn him’, bring him round to supporting the Americans, or at the
very least to refrain from opposing them.”13 In a meeting with Blair two
days after Schröder’s election victory, the chancellor sought Blair’s advice on
how to repair relations with the United States. Blair advised him to “make
clear that his statements on Iraq during the campaign were a ‘one-off ’,”
meaning that they had been made once but would not be repeated. 14
Schröder tempered the tone of his statements but wisely decided that “doing
a Canossa” would only earn him contempt, not only at home but in Wash-
ington. Schröder had sent a number of signals in the fall that he wanted to
repair relations, but each time the White House forbade U.S. officials to
respond. This may have had the result of pushing the chancellor further
toward Chirac and the French than he wanted to go, thus creating the coun-
tercoalition in the United Nations. Blair in the meantime had become
convinced by reports from British intelligence that Chirac “had decided that
Blair had usurped his own position as natural leader of Europe. It was time
for the French president to reassert himself and to clip the wings of perfid-
ious Albion.”15 Chirac, by this account, was concerned about the close
Blair-Schröder relationship and saw it as a threat to the Franco-German
engine that had driven Europe for so long.
Both Bush and Schröder bear responsibility for the misunderstanding
that emerged over Iraq. They often were vague, brief, and colloquial in their
conversations on this important international issue. The German leader

thought that he was clear in his reservations about going to war in Iraq, but
he raised his concerns as questions rather than as clear reservations or objec-
tions. Bush, not surprisingly, thought that this meant that Schröder was on
board or would at least go along. Bush was equally vague, telling the chan-
cellor on at least two different occasions that he had not made a decision
about invading Iraq and that he would consult Schröder before he did. In
none of these instances was a clear decision reached or articulated. No one
said, “All right, this is what we have agreed to do, and this is how we will do
it.” Subordinates had no directions on how to follow up, and things just lan-
guished. Both Bush and Schröder were gifted domestic politicians with little
interest in foreign policy. They tended to follow their tactical instincts in
their relationship with each other, and that led to a series of unpremeditated
events whose consequences escalated beyond their control.
The Iraq case offers a number of lessons in leadership. The first is that
leadership ability and personalities matter, especially in a fluid environment.
The second is that personalizing policy is almost always a bad idea. Not only
did George W. Bush personalize his struggle with Saddam Hussein, with
disastrous results, he also overpersonalized his relationships with key allies
to the point that he lost both flexibility and sight of deeper political and
national interests. Carrying a grudge or trying to punish a perceived breach
of faith is a luxury that a leader of a great power cannot afford. More gen-
erally, the Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld style of leadership does not put any value
on “buy in,” on gaining the agreement and support of others. This may be
in part the result of the politically polarized climate in Washington, in which
the personalization of the political dialogue had reached new lows in the
1990s. However, that style defies most of the literature on effective leader-
ship, which emphasizes consultation, inclusion, and nonhierarchical forms
of leadership.16 It should not have been surprising that the German leader-
ship would feel free to oppose a decision in which they had no real input,
particularly when they were treated at best as if Germany were a U.S. satel-
lite. Secretary Rumsfeld’s gratuitous insults in particular were sure to result
not only in Germany’s distancing of itself from the United States, but in its
active opposition to U.S. actions.
Schröder also may have been guilty of an element of personalization.
Having fought his way to the top against great odds, he seemed to crave
power as a means of gaining control of a hostile environment and of secur-
ing the respect of others and a sense of self-worth. He may have linked his
personal insecurity to his view of Germany and Germany’s role in the world,
exaggerating its power and influence. He seems to have lost his tactical sense
after his election victory, giving up his flexibility and handing the initiative
to Chirac. While he gained at home, he damaged Germany’s foreign policy
role. In addition, he excluded his key foreign policy advisers, both in the
Chancellery and the Foreign Office, and made a decision with major strate-
gic implications largely on the recommendations of a few political advisers
who had little background in foreign policy.
Beyond Leadership: Deeper Currents of Change

As shown throughout this book, the relationship between Germany and the
United States changed not only because of the personal failings of their lead-
ers but also because of changes in the international power structure and in
domestic politics and political culture. The weakening of the strategic rela-
tionship between the United States and Germany and the greater fluidity of
the international political system, especially in Europe, gave freer rein to
personality and to domestic politics. The crisis over Iraq simply could not
have happened in the bipolar era of the cold war. It could not have happened
in a divided Germany. It could not have happened in the political culture of
the Bonn republic or under any of Germany’s postwar leaders before Ger-
hard Schröder. It also could not have happened while the United States was
engaged in a global competition with a peer power like the Soviet Union. It
could not have happened in an America led by members of the generations
that shaped the international role of the United States after World War II, all
of whom left the scene at the end of the first Bush administration. And it
could not have happened without an America traumatized by the events of
9-11 and the novel and frightening sense of vulnerability that they left in
their wake. Finally, it would not have happened without the radical leader-
ship of the Bush II administration.
All the shared values and the extensive economic network that bound
the United States and Europe could not prevent the astonishingly rapid dete-
rioration of relations between nations that had been close allies for fifty
years. In fact, the political and strategic conflict both reflected and acceler-
ated a growing values gap between Germans and Americans. Although many
argue that democracies are the best safeguard against war and that democ-
racies do not fight other democracies, the Iraq case proves that democracies
can fight wars without the broader support of international institutions and
international law and may even flaunt their rules and norms. It also demon-
strates that democracies can have ugly disputes with other democracies and
that differing perceptions of strategic interests or domestic political imper-

atives can trump the comity of democratic states.
The behavior during this period of much of the mass media in both Ger-
many and the United States, but especially in the United States, did not
generate much confidence in the power of the free press to promote tem-
pered debate or the sensible resolution of problems. The vilification in the
United States of Europeans who resisted American policy, especially the
French but also the Germans, was unworthy of a great democracy. It under-
lined the degradation of the public debate and of journalism in an age of
tabloids and partisan cable television “news” reporting.17
Nevertheless, the strong economic ties between Germany and the United
States remained stable throughout the crisis. While the Franco-American
dispute had serious economic effects on the French, that was not the case in
the German-American flare up, which produced little evidence of boycotts
on either side. However, while the economic interdependence of Germany
and the United States is simply too great to be put at risk by spillover from
the political sphere, it did little to prevent the crisis, although key business
leaders lobbied their respective governments to damp down the conflict.
Those who think that the nations’ economic ties will replace their former
strategic ties as the bond in a new transatlantic relationship are likely to be
disappointed. The logic of the private sector is quite different from the logic
of strategic interests.
One of the most striking consequences of the Iraq crisis was the damage
done to the image of the United States in Germany. One example of the
change has been the growing acceptance of conspiracy theories about 9-11,
a phenomenon that had been limited in Germany although not in Europe.
By fall 2003, however, many Germans had come to believe that either the
U.S. government had been involved in the attacks or knew of them before-
hand but let them occur so that it could pursue a larger agenda. The CIA and
the 11th of September, a book by Andreas von Bülow, a former Social Demo-
cratic parliamentarian and official in the Defense Ministry, implied that the
U.S. government was involved in the plot and that the highjackers were still
alive; it sold more than 90,000 copies, becoming a bestseller. While the book
also met with great skepticism, the author won greater approval for his claim
that the United States was no longer a model of democracy but had become
an unreliable and dangerous power.“We Europeans,” he stated,“shouldn’t be
arrogant. Each of our countries has in the past tried to be the dominant
world power. But I don’t want to be dragged into another world war, one that
will last for years and years.”18 Von Bülow contended that “Muslims wouldn’t
do this because they would know that it would hurt the Muslim world.”
Revelations that surfaced in the United States in 2004 that 9-11 may have
been a pretext for waging a war already planned against Iraq will only deepen
such suspicions.19
A German Marshall Fund survey conducted in June 2003 found that of
all the European publics polled, the Germans exhibited the most dramatic
loss of confidence in the United States and growth in their preference for a
European alternative to American leadership.20 In spring 2004, polls con-
ducted by both the Pew Research Center and the Konrad Adenauer
Foundation found that the damage remained deep. The Pew survey found
that Germans continued to have favorable opinions of Americans and made
a distinction between the Bush administration and the American people. Yet
it found that 63 percent of Germans wanted Germany to be more inde-
pendent of the United States while only 36 percent wanted to remain as
close as before; moreover, 70 percent thought that it would be a good thing
if the EU were as powerful as the United States.21
In the Adenauer Foundation survey, conducted in February 2004, 71 per-
cent of respondents believed that the United States pursues its interests in a
reckless and egotistical manner and one-half did not have confidence in the
ability of the United States as a world power because it has so many prob-
lems at home that it has not been able to deal with.22 At the same time, the
German public understands the importance of Germany’s relationship with
the United States. In the same Adenauer Foundation poll, 90.4 percent
agreed with the statement that a good relationship with the United States is
important for Germany and 80.9 percent believed that a bad relationship
would harm the German economy. However, 68 percent agreed with the
view that a close relationship would increase the danger of terrorist attacks
against Germany.23
The American public’s image of Europeans had recovered somewhat
from May 2003; still, only half of Americans had a favorable view of Ger-
mans, down from the 83 percent favorable rating they held in 2002. The
American public was much less shaken than the German public by the cri-
sis in the relationship. More than half (55 percent) believed that the United
States should remain as close to Europe as in the past, and only 36 percent
favored a more independent approach. Unsurprisingly, conservative Repub-
licans were much more in favor of looser security and diplomatic ties with
Europe (44 percent) than liberal Democrats (24 percent).24 Germans now
regard the United States as a power like any other great power, interested
primarily in expanding its power. It has lost much of its moral authority and
its credibility. It has drained its reserves of moral and sentimental support
in Germany, and they are unlikely to be replenished. As one longtime Amer-
ican German watcher, Ronald Asmus, describes it, “Whereas U.S. military
prowess may be at an all-time high, Washington’s political and moral author-
ity has hit a new low,” a casualty of the actions of the U.S. government as well
as Germany’s changing sense of its own identity.25
The distance between the two societies has grown. The future of the Ger-
man-American relationship will not be founded on sentiment, friendship,
or common values, but rather on the cold calculation of self-interest. No
amount of good feeling or renewed pledges of friendship will overcome the
absence of the mutual strategic interests that bound the countries during the
cold war. The German political culture will no longer give any U.S. govern-
ment the benefit of the doubt. The key question for the future is whether the
common strategic interests that remain can be shaped to give the relation-
ship a realistic basis.
We Can’t Bring Back the Wall: New Challenges and New Interests
The future of the relationship between Germany and the United States after
Iraq will be depend on the lessons the countries draw from the experience
and their interpretation of their national interest and the challenges of the
post 9-11 world. Crises also bring opportunities to reshape and rejuvenate
institutions and relationships. The Iraq case drove Washington and Berlin
apart, but it also brought them closer to new agreement in some areas. The
challenge of terrorism has been taken seriously by both nations, and the
level of cooperation between their police, immigration, and intelligence
agencies has been by all accounts excellent. The United States may yet
emerge from the Iraq experience understanding that both hard power and
unilateralism have real limits and that a war on terrorism has to be multi-
lateral; moreover, it has to include state and society building as well as the
threat of force.
Germans also have gained a better appreciation for the dangers of the new
form of terrorism represented by al Qaeda and its spinoffs. As a leading Ger-
man researcher associated with the Frankfurt Institute of Peace Research
concluded just before the war in Iraq began, “American capabilities in the
fight against transnational ‘megaterrorism’ remain an asset for European
security. The same is true for the U.S. capacity to serve as a stabilizer for
regions in which Europe has a strong interest but is not capable by itself to
pacify, such as the Persian Gulf.”26 Germans understand the dangers posed
by the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and its nexus
with terrorism. The German government has acknowledged the need for a
military element to any nonproliferation strategy, has extended its military
role in Afghanistan, and has pushed for a broader mandate for the NATO
force there, a force co-led for a time by Germany. It has provided more than
7,950 peacekeeping troops in the Balkans and in Afghanistan, the second-
largest contingent after that of the United States. This includes 1,790 forces on
the ground in the ISAF (International Security Assistance Force) in
Afghanistan, and another 610 in Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan
and in the Horn of Africa, where they are engaged in the struggle against al
Qaeda. After the Iraq war began, the German government decided to extend
German troop involvement beyond Kabul to Kundus. The money spent on
peacekeeping has jumped from around 131 million in 1995 to more than
1.5 billion in 2002.
The German contribution, however, has been consistently denigrated by
leading neocons and some senior members of the Bush administration. Just
days before Secretary Rumsfeld’s trip to Germany in June 2003, four German
peacekeeping troops were killed in Kabul, yet he made no mention of this
sacrifice in his speech to the Marshall Center in Garmisch, a speech attended
by his German counterpart, Peter Struck. Germans have a right to com-
plain, as Harald Müller has, that “it is all the more disturbing that leading
U.S. conservative intellectuals badly underrate the military contribution
Europe is making to Western security, despite the gulf between European
and U.S. capabilities. Even more disturbing, people advising the U.S. gov-
ernment, such as Richard Perle and members of the Administration itself,
depict the Europeans as a pacifist bunch of wimps. . . . the Atlantic Alliance
will not survive if European blood is shed on America’s behalf and yet this
arrogant attitude within the U.S. conservative elite persists.”27
The Strategic Agenda

According to a number of analysts on both sides of the Atlantic, the future
of the alliance now lies in creating a new strategic consensus on preventing
the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and on principles for mil-
itary intervention in failed states. Two great regional issues, the European
agenda and the stability of the greater Middle East, also will play a large
role.28 What are the elements of any new consensus likely to be?
Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction

The German-American divergence over strategy remains deep. The Ger-
man strategic culture will not accept unilateral preventive wars. However, in
the wake of the war in Iraq, Germany participated in the EU’s effort to
develop a security strategy to respond to the U.S. National Security Strategy
and has begun to accept that an arms control and cooperative security
regime must be underpinned by the threat of force as a last resort.29 After the
Iraq war, on October 21, 2003, Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer led a team
including the French and British foreign ministers to Tehran, where they
negotiated an agreement aimed at ending Iran’s development of a nuclear
program. The Marshall Fund survey found that the number of Germans
supporting the use of military force against North Korea or Iran increased
substantially if it was done under a UN mandate. For example, only 20 per-
cent of respondents supported the use of military force by the United States
against a nuclear-armed North Korea to force it to give up its weapons of
mass destruction. Support increased to 34 percent if NATO decided to attack
and to 33 percent if the UN Security Council did so. These proportions,
however, are substantially lower than those in France, Britain, and the United
States.30
At the same time, the Bush administration’s approach to the problem of
weapons of mass destruction in the cases of both Iran and North Korea
indicates some acceptance of a multilateral approach and of nonprolifera-
tion agreements backed up by inspections.31 The great damage to the
credibility of the United States caused by its use of faulty or possibly fabri-
cated intelligence data to justify the charge that Saddam Hussein had an
extensive stockpile of weapons of mass destruction—and every intention of
using them—will strengthen the case for obtaining international consensus
before countering WMD threats in the future.
Failed States and Principles of Intervention

Both Germany and the United States agreed in the case of the Balkans that
military force should be used to stop genocide and other massive abuses of
human rights. In the Kosovo war, the Schröder Red-Green government
agreed to send German forces without a UN mandate to stop ethnic cleans-
ing, even though legally Kosovo was a part of Serbia and was not even a
NATO or EU member state. The German government, therefore, accepted
the principle of limited sovereignty. In the case of Afghanistan, again the
Schröder government sent German forces, in support of Operation Endur-
ing Freedom, on the grounds that the Taliban regime had allowed a terrorist
group to launch an attack on a NATO ally. It opposed the war of choice the
U.S. fought in Iraq in part on principle and in part on strategic grounds. Yet
it has agreed that NATO has a role outside of Europe and is participating in
the NATO Reaction Force, which will intervene in countries that either sup-
port terrorism or are unable to prevent it. The Westphalian principle of
nonintervention in the internal affairs of sovereign states has clearly been
weakened by the emergence of the new threats posed by nonstate actors as
well as by the emergence of a new global acceptance of the right of inter-
vention on humanitarian grounds.
There remains a wide gap between a doctrine of preemptive and preven-
tive armed intervention, or what American officials call “anticipatory
self-defense,” and the German view of when such intervention is justified,
but both sides see the need to develop criteria and procedures for dealing
with the problem of nonstate terrorism. Given the heavy cost of the war in
Iraq, even a conservative American administration will be constrained from
launching another preventive war. There also will be a need for a common
approach to the administration of international protectorates, failed states
that go into international receivership.
The Regional Agendas

These broad issues are being played out in specific regions, and they have to
be addressed within the differing political and cultural contexts of those
regions. There are two broad regional areas that are likely to be at the cen-
ter of the German-American relationship over the next decade. One is
Europe, the focus of the U.S.-German alliance in the past, and the other is
the Middle East, where the two countries have never been as close.
The Eastern Agenda

Germany and the United States were close partners in the effort to include
eastern European countries in NATO and continue to share an interest in
stabilizing the part of eastern Europe that lies between Germany and Russia.
The second stage of NATO enlargement, agreed on in Prague in November
2002, will be followed both by EU enlargement and further extensions of
NATO. Major challenges confront both Berlin and Washington in regard to
the democratization of Ukraine and Belarus as well as the continuing prob-
lem of the democratization of Russia and the Caucasus and the stabilization
of their relationship with Europe. The goal of both Germany and the United
States is to lock in democratic and market-oriented systems in the countries
of the region and integrate them into the larger pan-European and transat-
lantic security system. They both want a Russia that is democratic and open
to the outside world, a place that through the effective and consistent rule of
law will prove reliable for foreign investment. They both also have an inter-
est in developing the Russian energy sector and reducing their dependence
on Middle Eastern oil.
The Russia-France-Germany triangle that emerged during the Iraq crisis
is unlikely to lead to a new long-term alliance against the United States
because it would risk isolating these countries and further splitting “old” and
“new” Europe.32 From the German perspective, it would risk reopening fears
in Poland of a new German-Russian condominium in eastern Europe and
thus risk creating a countercoalition within both the EU and NATO.
Nonetheless, Iraq provided indications that the German-Russian relation-
ship is far more fluid than it was during the cold war and that Russia and
Germany are now ad hoc partners. In addition, Russian and German views
on the role of the UN and other international institutions are closer than
German-American views, and Moscow and Berlin have had a common
vision for a UN authority in Iraq. Even so, the overall prospects for cooper-
ation between Germany and the United States on the eastern agenda look
promising given the convergence of the nations’ interests in the region.
The Greater Middle East

One of the enduring facts to arise from the conflict in Iraq is that the status
quo in the Middle East is no longer tenable. Both Germans and Americans
have a stake in ensuring peace and stability in the Middle East, and they are
going to have to look for new approaches and strategies if they hope to suc-
ceed. In some important ways the German and European stake is even
greater than that of the United States, given the proximity of the Middle East
to Europe and Europe’s greater vulnerability to turmoil there. A strong case
also can be made that the Middle East and Central Asia now have replaced
Europe as one crucial area of potential crisis, the other being East Asia. The
Middle East is the region where megaterrorism, the proliferation of weapons
of mass destruction, the absence of stable and democratic states, and the vir-
ulent and destructive ideology of radical Islamists are all converging. Yet
this has always been a region where Europe and the United States have
diverged in terms of perceived interests and strategies.
The gap between Germany and the United States on the Palestinian-
Israeli conflict is one of the widest, dividing both the nations’ publics and
governments. The divergence on Israel is part of a larger European trend, not
one limited simply to Germany. However, there is broader agreement

between Germans (and Europeans) and Americans on specific policy
options and on the long-term objective of a democratic Israel coexisting
with an independent, democratic Palestinian state. The embrace by the Bush
administration of the road map approach to peace was a sign of a willing-
ness in Washington to work with the EU, Russia, and the UN toward a
common resolution of this contentious issue. Neither the U.S. approach,
that the road to Middle East peace led through Baghdad, or the European
approach, that the road to Middle East peace had to go through Jerusalem,
has proven correct.33 Yet the announcement in April 2004 by Bush and
Sharon of a settlement to the Israeli-Palestinian dispute that did not include
the Europeans has reopened the gap and renewed European concerns about
American unilateralism.34
Whether a consensus can be forged given both the vagaries of the region
and the differences in U.S. and European attitudes toward Israel and terror-
ism remains to be seen, but a strong EU-U.S. and possibly NATO role in
ensuring a peace settlement would be a major step to reshaping both NATO
and the U.S.-European relationship. The Bush administration has a clear
interest, after Iraq, in finding a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian issue, given
its broader agenda in the Middle East. However, Germany and the EU con-
tinue to work with Yasir Arafat and the Palestinian Council and remain its
major outside funders. Whether Berlin and Washington agree or diverge on
a strategy for settling this dispute will be an important factor in shaping
their longer-term new relationship.
Beyond the Palestinian-Israeli issue lie other contentious problems,
including Iran, Iraq, and the broader Middle East. Both the American and
European approaches toward regime change in Iran have proven flawed and
ineffective. Yet there is room for a common approach. The Bush adminis-
tration, chastened perhaps by the difficulty of dealing with postwar Iraq, has
embraced a more multilateral approach toward dealing with the problem of
a possible nuclear weapons program in Iran, while Europe, including Ger-
many, realizes that the “critical dialogue” approach, which relies on open
dialogue and the incentive of economic cooperation, has its limits. Ger-
many’s political and economic contacts with Iran are more extensive than
those of the United States, and if Germany decides to use its leverage on the
nuclear issue it would both strengthen the nonproliferation regime and gain
respect in Washington. An important test will be the ability of Germany,
France, and the United Kingdom to follow up on their October 2003 agree-
ment with Iran on the nuclear issue.
Postwar Iraq will continue to be a threat to the U.S.-German relationship.

The Schröder government will offer support for the reconstruction effort
only if there is a realistic prospect of genuine authority being transferred to
the UN and Iraqi groups. While it has a common interest with the United
States in avoiding chaos in Iraq, it knows that there is little public support in
Germany for much German engagement in the country. It also understands
that the United States is committed to making Iraq work. A combination of
the temptation to be a free-rider and strong domestic economic and polit-
ical constraints will limit German involvement to offering such minor
assistance as training Iraqi police in Germany. The Germans also are
likely to continue with the current division of labor, in which they will
play a role in the reconstruction of Afghanistan while leaving Iraq to the
Americans.
The German and broader European engagement in Afghanistan is a case
study in how the transatlantic relationship should be managed. Here, where
a broad coalition with a broad international mandate is linked by a common
perception of threat and a common strategy, the creation of an indigenous
political authority has proved far less divisive than in Iraq. Only a return to
this type of approach by Washington will offer the prospect of broader inter-
national cooperation in the Middle East.
The America Problem

Beyond these extensive strategic and regional challenges lies the broader
area of trade and development. Germany and the United States remain the
two largest trading nations in the world, and both share a deep commitment
to promoting a liberal international trade regime. They will need to work
together closely to continue the momentum toward further liberalization of
world trade and investment against strong protectionist pressures in both
the United States and Europe. On global issues such as an international envi-
ronmental regime, development assistance, international crime,
immigration, and the broadening of an international legal regime, there is
bound to be both conflict and cooperation. It should be remembered that
the crisis over the Kyoto Treaty preceded the Iraq crisis, and the environment
of suspicion and recrimination that it helped create deepened dramatically
over Iraq.
The future of the relationship between Germany and the United States is
likely to depend on the resolution of these broad global governance issues.
On the U.S. side, there must be a return to a coalition approach and to the
earlier American tradition of constructing and renewing international insti-

tutions; there also must be respect for a system of international law.
Americans have a liberal internationalist tradition as well as a unilateralist,
or Jacksonian, tradition. As G. John Ikenberry has put it, “Two distinct
strategies are competing for primacy. One is the liberal multilateralism that
generally characterized the approach of the previous Bush and Clinton
administrations as well as American policy toward the West in the post-
Second World War era. . . . [The other is] a more unilateral—even imperial—
grand strategy, based on a starkly realist vision of American interests and
global realities.”35 The Bush administration clearly chose the latter strategy,
and the result was a transatlantic train wreck that severely damaged the rela-
tionship that had been built by the U.S. and German governments over the
more than five decades since the defeat of Hitler.
If the United States continues with this strategy and seeks to divide
Europe between old and new, the German-American relationship will only
worsen. This strategy will only enhance the French-German-Russian entente
that emerged in 2003, and it also will isolate the closest U.S. ally in Europe,
the United Kingdom, forcing it to make an unambiguous Atlanticist choice
or pushing it closer to old Europe. In particular, if the United States feels
overstretched and in need of legitimacy and material support, it will need a
strong European partner. A policy of disaggregation, however, will make it
much less likely to find one. Ronald Asmus and others are right to advocate
that the United States “settle its differences with France and Germany, the
two leading powers on the continent.”36
This points to one of the central questions posed by the Iraq crisis: is this
a power problem or simply a George W. Bush or a style problem? In his cri-
tique of Europe, Robert Kagan wrote, “Today’s transatlantic problem, in
short, is not a George Bush problem. It is a power problem.” He contended
that when it comes to the use of force, “Democrats have more in common
with Republicans than with European Social Democrats.”37 Andrew Bace-
vich also contends that “American militarism, if that’s what it is, has deep
roots, extended back several decades at the very least. Thus history compli-
cates the question of assigning responsibility for . . . a perversion of U.S.
policy. Indeed, it suggests the possibility that a militarized policy may not be
a perversion at all, but an authentic expression of American statecraft.”38
This question may be answered when a Democratic administration
returns to power. But it raises the deeper question of whether the current bad
state of transatlantic relations goes deeper than ideology, party, or a partic-
ular set of leaders. Is it structural, in the sense that it has to do with the
accumulation of too much unbalanced power? Here the opinions of a

founding father of the U.S. Constitution, James Madison, are especially rel-
evant. Madison warned about the tyranny of majority factions in the
Federalist Papers, and the entire U.S. governmental system is designed to
prevent any faction from accumulating excessive power. Kagan and many
other Americans dismiss attempts by the Europeans to balance American
power as misguided, but the leadership of the Bush administration has
offered Europeans a stark choice: “You’re either a poodle or an enemy.”39 Or
in Bush’s words, “You are either with us or against us.” The accumulation of
great, unchecked power leads to hubris. This rule does not hold just for dic-
tatorships and other authoritarian regimes, but for democracies as well.
During the cold war the United States worked to achieve its national inter-
ests within a multilateral framework because it needed to balance the power
of the Soviet Union. In a strange and often unacknowledged way, the Sovi-
ets were a check on American hubris. Today the only check is the system of
checks and balances designed by Madison and his cofounders and embed-
ded in the U.S. system of government. These checks and balances are not
inconsiderable, and such systems are the reason that democracies seem to
cope with the problem of power better than nondemocratic systems. Yet in
post 9-11 America, there are signs that these internal checks, while necessary,
may not be sufficient to prevent the U.S. government from abusing its power.
The democracies of Europe are the best equipped to deal with this problem.
As David Calleo argues, “Thanks to its own tragic history, today’s Europe is
very much aware of power—above all aware of the terrible temptations and
dangers of unbalanced power.”40
In the end, Kagan and other neocons associate power with wisdom and
assume that European divergences from American leadership are based on
weakness. While it may be true that their limited military capabilities mean
that Europeans are more likely to look for nonmilitary options to solving
problems, more often it simply has to do with differences in judgment and
an understanding of both the dangers of a too-ready resort to military power
and the advantages of “soft power” in a globalizing milieu. The tone of
Kagan’s analysis and that of too many others emanating from the United
States are warning signs, not of European tendencies toward appeasement,
but of hubris and resentment in Washington. Even Kagan concedes this
when he urges a greater “generosity of spirit” on the administration in deal-
ing with its European allies and invokes Thomas Jefferson’s call for “a decent
respect for the opinions of mankind.”Yet he still believes that Europe has lit-
tle to offer the United States in strategic military terms “except a Europe at
peace.” It is this hubris, if followed for much longer, that will undermine
America’s global leadership and isolate it in much the way that Kaiser Wil-
helm II isolated Germany before World War I. As Martin Wolf warns, “If the
U.S. behaves solely as a nineteenth-century power—be it liberal imperialist
or nationalist—of a kind it once abhorred, it will promote a nineteenth-cen-
tury world.”41
Return of the German Problem?

The emergence of the America problem has reopened the German problem.
The increasing fluidity of the international environment combined with the
changing politico-cultural context of the Berlin republic means that many of
the constants of the comfortable Bonn republic are gone. The Berlin repub-
lic now faces, to paraphrase John Foster Dulles, an “agonizing reappraisal” of
its foreign policy options. Does this leave the leaders of the Berlin republic
with the Bismarckian strategy of maintaining shifting coalitions and risk
reopening the old German question about an unanchored Germany?
The German problem was the central strategic and political issue con-
fronting twentieth-century Europe. The strategic problem concerned the
role of German power within the broader European system and the inabil-
ity of the major European powers to balance and contain the rising power
of unified Germany between 1871 and 1945. Two non-European powers, the
United States and the Soviet Union, had to enter the European system in
order to create a new equilibrium, one that was quite stable during the forty-
plus years of the cold war, when Germany was divided into two separate
states, and the bigger one, West Germany, was not much larger in population
than France, Britain, or Italy.42 This problem of power was linked to Ger-
many’s late unification and its geographical setting in the heart of Europe.
Germany unified later than the other major European nations, and thus
when it emerged as a major power at the end of the nineteenth century, it
was a challenge to the more established older states. Its location in the heart
of Europe meant that any expansion of its territory or influence would chal-
lenge a number of states that bordered it or were close to it, in both western
and eastern Europe. In short, even with good intentions, Germany would
have been a problem for the European state system, and, of course, its lead-
ership and intentions were hardly benign for most of this period.43
German reunification in 1990 reopened fears of a resurgence of the Ger-
man problem as a geopolitical challenge, because of both the new imbalance
it created within the European system and the assertiveness of a newly sov-
ereign Germany led by a new postwar generation less constrained by the

Nazi legacy and the transatlantic community. However, the decade follow-
ing reunification did not confirm those fears. Unified Germany, led by the
firmly Europeanist Helmut Kohl, did not seem to conform to the expecta-
tions of the realists, who believed that a more fluid international
environment combined with an increase in national power would lead to a
more nationalist Germany. While it began to enhance its military role, it
did so within a multilateral context and generally continued within a mod-
ified form of the civilian power paradigm. The academic consensus on the
German problem at the end of the century was that Germany had been
transformed. Constructivist and neoliberal paradigms seemed to better
explain Germany’s role in the new Europe than those of the realists. Thomas
Banchoff, in his study of German foreign policy from 1945 through 1995,
concluded that the German problem had been transformed by an institu-
tional and domestic political configuration that constrained German
reactions to changes in the international environment: “In contrast to the
pre-1945 decades, however, German power is embedded in a dense web of
institutions while avowed German interests in a peaceful multilateral and
supranational foreign policy rest upon a democratic political consensus.”44
There have always been two dimensions to the German problem, inter-
nal and external. The internal German problem was related to the failure of
democracy. As Heinrich August Winkler concluded in his study of Ger-
many’s way to westernization, “It was not the solution of the question of
national unity that stood at the beginning of the road to catastrophe, but the
failure to settle the question of freedom.”45 The internal problem has been
solved. Germany is a mature and stable democracy. In a survey of much of
the literature on postunification German foreign policy, Alison McCartney
concluded: “This new international order and Germany’s power/position
in it are not the most important determinants of actual policy choices.
Domestic politics, history, and norms also play crucial roles in defining and
making choices. As such Germany offers further evidence of the limitations
of neo-realist theory.”46 The 1990s may prove, however, to be an interregnum
between two eras, opening with German unification in 1990 and closing on
September 11, 2001.
There have been three fundamental circles to German foreign policy: the
transatlantic, the west European, and the central European (or Mitteleu-
ropa) circles. The German problem has been reopened with respect to the
central importance of the link between the United States and the Berlin
republic. Here the trend seems to suggest a longer-term drifting apart of the
two formerly close partners. This drift may yet turn into an open break,
raising questions about German identity, which to a great extent has been
shaped by the presence and influence of the United States. It also suggests a
danger for Germany: that any weakening of its transatlantic ties may raise
renewed fears in Europe about a Germany unbound. The American con-
nection assured Germany’s European partners that there were restraints on
German power. If that tie is substantially weakened, then old concerns may
return, especially among the newer member states of NATO and the EU,
especially Poland.
The result could be a return of the Bismarckian dilemma—that a pow-
erful Germany in the heart of Europe will create countervailing coalitions
around it—if Europe itself does not prove strong enough to provide a new
framework for German power and aspirations. Otto von Bismarck was
keenly aware of this dilemma; as described by the historian Hajo Holborn:
He . . . most deliberately avoided wrecking the system under which
Europe was ruled by five major powers. The continuity of the inter-
national order of Europe was a conscious aim of Bismarckian
diplomacy, since it would contribute to the security of Germany. In
this sense Bismarck was not only a German but also a European
statesman in the tradition of Metternich, as he liked to state his rejec-
tion of all Great German and Pan-German designs with the
Metternichian phrase that “Germany was saturated.”47
Or as Bismarck himself put it, “When there are five, try to be a trois.”
The German historian Michael Stürmer has written that “the German
Question, put in its crudest form, has always been twofold: To whom does
Germany belong, and to whom do 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.”48 Now that the Atlantic
pillar is weakened if not crumbling, how resilient will the European pillar of
German policy be? David Calleo has posed the German problem in this
broader context:
The Atlantic Alliance assumed Europe to be intrinsically unstable and
therefore to require an external balancing power. The European Union
assumed that Europe was not irremediably unstable: Europeans in
general, and French and Germans in particular, were capable of rec-
onciling their national interests and of harmonizing them into a
collective interest with a common institution.49
The answer to the new German question rests, therefore, on whether the
European construction can and will hold. For Germany, the European pil-
lar 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 Mitteleuropa into the west European pillar by expand-
ing the membership of the EU and NATO. However, the Iraq crisis, the
violation by Germany and France of the EU’s public deficit limits (limits that
were insisted on by the Kohl government to ensure that the euro would be
as stable as the German mark), and the uncertain future of the new EU con-
stitution have raised the specter of a divided 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 and less and less able to fund the largest share of the
EU’s budget, which could have serious implications for the Common Agri-
cultural Policy and the financing of the enlargement of the EU to the east
and south. Given the parochialism of the current generation of German
leaders, the danger signs are abundant that the German question, in a new
form, is about to return to center stage in Europe.
Germany, therefore, faces the prospect of a return to the Bismarckian
dilemma if it confronts a more fluid transatlantic and European milieu than
that which existed during the cold war and the 1990s. Germany has turned
to France and the Franco-German pillar as a means of avoiding the coun-
tercoalitions against German power that occurred after 1871, but whether
that will provide for stability in a larger and more fluid Europe remains
uncertain.
The United States and Germany continue to need each other, and they
must find a new, realistic basis for their relationship. As Zbignew Brzezinski
has persuasively argued, “An essentially multilateralist Europe and a some-
what unilateralist America make for a perfect global marriage of convenience. . . .
Neither America nor Europe could do as well without the other. Together,
they are the core of global stability.”50 In order for this marriage to have a
chance, both the American and German problems must be solved. U.S. lead-
ers must return to the more enlightened form of leadership provided by the
generation of the Wise Men and work toward building a constructive part-
nership with a unifying Europe rather than pursue the chimera of a “policy
of disaggregation” that seeks to divide and conquer. European leaders, with
Germany’s leadership being central, must avoid the temptation to act as a
rival of the United States. They will be much more likely to do so if the
American problem is resolved. In this scenario, Germany could return to a
central position in Europe and would regain some flexibility in its position
by renewing ties with Britain, Poland, and the central European states and
resisting the French temptation to form a new directorate for Europe.
If Germany and the United States part ways, this scenario will be in great
jeopardy. Yet given all the changes—both domestic and international—that
have occurred since 9-11, there will be some parting of the ways, a tendency
toward distancing rather than balancing. If there is to be a new partnership,
it will have to be more one of equals, of real partners, and that will require
great adjustments on both sides of the Atlantic. At the same time, the seri-
ous possibility of a deepening and more permanent rift and the emergence
of a relationship based on rivalry—in short, a split in the West—are greater
than at any time since the end of World War II. Ultimately, those in power
in both Washington and Berlin will be the ones who decide whether to re-
create or destroy a relationship that has proven to be the guarantor of
European stability for more than half a century.
appendix
Chronology of
German-American Relations
September 11, 2001–March 20, 2003
2001
September 11 Terrorists attack the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
Chancellor Schröder announces “unconditional solidarity” with the
United States.
September 12 UN Security Council passes Resolution 1368 (2001), which
acknowledges the attacks as an attack on the United States. Statement by
Chancellor Schröder to Bundestag.
September 14 Two hundred thousand people participate in a demonstra-
tion, Keine Macht dem Terror (No Power to Terrorism), in Berlin.
October 2 NATO invokes Article 5, its self-defense clause.
November 7 Operation Enduring Freedom begins. The German govern-
ment agrees that German soldiers can participate in antiterrorist
missions. There is substantial resistance from parts of the SPD and
Greens.
November 13 Schröder connects a vote in the Bundestag on military mis-
sions with a vote of confidence for his government.
November 16 The Bundestag agrees that German forces can participate
with allies in military actions in the fight against terrorism. A maximum
force of 3,900 soldiers is approved for a period of twelve months.
Schröder wins the vote of confidence.
2002
January 29 Bush gives a State of the Union address describing Iran, Iraq,
and North Korea as an “axis of evil.”
154
Chronology of German-American Relations 155
February 1 Meeting between Chancellor Schröder and President Bush in

Washington. Schröder announces that Germany will take on a larger role
in the war against terrorism.
May 22–May 23 President Bush visits Germany. Bush denies having con-
crete plans for a war against Iraq and believes that Schröder has agreed
not to make Iraq an issue in the German election campaign.
June 2 In a speech at West Point, President Bush floats the idea of “pre-
emptive strike” for the first time.
Beginning of August Heavy floods occur in eastern Germany.
August 2 Chancellor Schröder cautions the United States not to attack
Iraq.
August 5 For the first time, Schröder uses the phrase the “German way” in
connection with his policy toward Iraq. In a campaign speech in Hanover,
he states that Germany will not undertake “any adventures” under his
leadership.
August 18 U.S. ambassador Coats voices the discontent of the Bush
administration with Schröder’s current stance on Iraq.
August 23 First TV debate between Schröder and Edmund Stoiber.
August 26 In a speech in Nashville, Cheney describes the possible return
of weapons inspectors to Iraq as a secondary consideration in any U.S.
decision on whether to wage war. He defends the doctrine of preemptive
strikes.
September 3 Chancellor Schröder excludes the possibility of German sup-
port in a war against Iraq, even if the UN passes an authorizing
resolution. U.S. ambassador Coats describes Germany’s position on Iraq
as damaging for U.S.-German relations.
September 7 In an interview with the Stuttgarter Nachrichten, Ludwig
Stiegler, leader of the SPD Bundestag caucus, compares Ambassador Coats
to the former Soviet ambassador, Pjotr Abrassimov.
September 8 In the Münchner Merkur, Ludwig Stiegler compares Bush to
Caesar Augustus and calls Washington the new Rome. Second TV debate
between Stoiber and Schröder; the Iraq issue swings the debate in favor
of Schröder.
September 12 In a speech at the UN, President Bush asks for a UN reso-
lution to force Iraq to disarm or face the consequences.
September 17 Jürgen Mölleman, deputy leader of the FDP, distributes a
flyer justifying his attacks on Ariel Sharon and Michel Friedman, the
leader of the Central Council of Jews in Germany.
September 18 In a meeting with trade unionists, Minister of Justice
Däubler-Gmelin compares the Bush government’s methods with Hitler’s.
156 Chronology of German-American Relations
September 19 Ari Fleischer, Bush’s press secretary, condemns Däubler-

Gmelin’s remarks. White House releases new national security strategy,
which includes a clause on preventive action.
September 20 Chancellor Schröder sends letter concerning the Däubler-
Gmelin affair to President Bush.
September 21 Condoleezza Rice in interview describes atmosphere
between United States and Germany as poisoned.
September 22 The SPD and Greens return to power with a slim majority
in the new Bundestag.
September 24 Secretary Rumsfeld avoids any contact with Minister of
Defense Struck at a meeting of NATO defense ministers in Warsaw.
October 30 Meeting of Secretary of State Powell and Foreign Minister
Joschka Fischer.
November 8 Meeting of Secretary Rumsfeld and Minister of Defense Peter
Struck in Washington. Rumsfeld calls ties “unpoisoned.”
November 8 First telephone conversation between Chancellor Schröder
and President Bush since the elections. The UN Security Council unan-
imously adopts Resolution 1441, threatening Iraq with “serious
consequences” if it does not comply with previous resolutions.
November 21/22 Chancellor Schröder and President Bush avoid each
other at the NATO summit in Prague; their only contact is a single hand-
shake.
November 27 Chancellor Schröder promises that the United States can
use its bases in Germany in a war against Iraq.
2003
January 7 French prime minister Jacques Chirac tells armed forces chiefs
to be ready “for any eventuality.”
January 13 Meeting between Maurice Gourdault-Montagne and Con-
doleezza Rice, from which France concludes that U.S. military action
against Iraq is inevitable.
January 20 So-called “ambush” of Colin Powell at UN by France and Ger-
many.
January 21 At a campaign rally in Goslar, Schröder says that Germany
would not vote in favor of a UN resolution legitimizing a war against
Iraq.
January 22 Schröder and Chirac issue statement in Versailles declaring
that war was a last resort and would require a UN Security Council deci-
sion. Rumsfeld labels France and Germany part of “old Europe.”
Chronology of German-American Relations 157
January 27 Hans Blix tells the UN Security Council after sixty days of
inspections that Iraq is defying international demands to disarm.
January 30 Wall Street Journal publishes a letter signed by British prime
minister Tony Blair, Spanish prime minister José María Aznar, and six
other European leaders supporting the United States.
February 2 SDP suffers major losses in state elections.
February 5 Powell addresses the UN Security Council, offering what he
calls detailed proof that Iraq is hiding weapons of mass destruction and
maintaining links to al Qaeda.
February 6 Rumsfeld groups Germany with Libya and Cuba on the Iraq
issue.
February 7 Schröder tells SPD parliamentarians that Iraq represents a
“historic decision” with respect to whether one nation will dictate world
affairs.
February 8 Confrontation between Rumsfeld and Fischer at the
Wehrkunde conference in Munich.
February 9 Schröder tells Chirac in a telephone conversation, “I will bring
Putin along. Then we can create a trilateral relationship.”
February 10 Major row erupts within NATO after France, Belgium, and
Germany block a request that the alliance prepare to aid Turkey in case
Turkey is attacked by Iraq.
February 14 UN Security Council holds a crucial meeting to hear an
updated report by the chief weapons inspectors.
February 15 Millions of people across the globe take to the streets to
protest U.S. plans for war.
March 5 France, Germany, and Russia vow to oppose a new UN resolution
backing military action against Iraq.
March 7 Blix and Mohamed ElBaradei present a new report to the UN
Security Council that is more positive about Sadaam’s cooperation on
disarmament.
March 10 Chirac goes on national television to say that “France will vote
no” to a second resolution authorizing war on Iraq whatever the circum-
stances. Russia also vows to veto such a resolution.
March 13 Reacting bitterly to France’s refusal to approve a new UN reso-
lution, Tony Blair says a vote on the resolution is now less likely than
ever.
March 13 White House backtracks, dropping demands for a new UN
Security Council vote on war with Iraq and hinting that it may forgo UN
approval for military action altogether.
158 Chronology of German-American Relations
March 14 President of Chile, Ricardo Lagos, indicates his country’s hesi-

tation regarding voting for second resolution.
March 15 Hundreds of thousands of people join antiwar marches around
the world.
March 16 Britain, Spain, and the United States hold a summit meeting on
the Portuguese Azores Islands in the mid-Atlantic.
March 17 United States tells UN arms inspectors to pack their bags and
leave Iraq.
March 18 Bush goes on national television and gives Saddam Hussein and
his sons forty-eight hours to flee Iraq or face a U.S.-led invasion.
March 18 UN pulls its inspectors out of Iraq.
March 20 War in Iraq begins.
Source: Compiled by Katharina Plueck and Timo Behr with reference to

chronologies in Associated Press World Stream, February 25 and March 26, 2004;
and Agence France-Presse, December 17, 2003.
Notes
Notes to Chapter One

1. Quoted in Steven Erlanger, “Germans Vote in a Tight Election in which Bush,
Hitler, and Israel Became Key Issues,” New York Times, September 22, 2002, p. 14.
2. Samuel Huntington, “The U.S.–Decline or Renewal?” Foreign Affairs (Winter
1998–99), p. 93. Elsewhere Huntington writes, “Healthy cooperation with Europe is
the prime antidote for the loneliness of U.S. superpowerdom”; Huntington, “The
Lonely Superpower,” Foreign Affairs (March–April 1999), p. 48.
3. Joseph Nye, The Paradox of American Power: Why the World’s Only Superpower
Can’t Go It Alone (Oxford University Press, 2002), pp.1–12, quote on p. 29.
4.“Jeder dritte Jugendliche protestiert gegen den Krieg,” Spiegel Online, March 29,
2003 (www.spiegel.de). See also Ian Johnson, “Conspiracy Theories about Sept. 11
Get Hearing in Germany,” Wall Street Journal, September 29, 2003, p. A12.
5. This phrase was used by German defense minister Peter Struck, in trying to
minimize the depth of damage done to the German-U.S. relationship, when he met
with Donald Rumsfeld just after the German election.
6. David Frum and Richard Perle, An End to Evil: How to Win the War on Terror
(New York: Random House, 2003), p. 248.
7. “Freund oder Feind?” Der Spiegel, no. 40, September 30, 2002, p. 118.
8. Schmidt made this remark at the height of the conflict to a group at the Ham-
burg state mission in Bonn, in the author’s presence.
9. The concept of “action dispensability,” which is used in the study of the impact
of personality in politics, is relevant in this context. It refers to the circumstances
under which the actions of single individuals are likely to have a greater or lesser
effect on the course of events. The more malleable the environment, the greater the
impact of individual personalities. See, for example, Gordon J. Di Renzo, “Perspec-
tives on Personality and Political Behavior,” in Personality and Politics, edited by
Gordon J. Di Renzo (New York: Anchor Books, 1974), pp. 3–28.
159
160 Notes to Pages 9–16
10. Interview with author. I conducted a number of interviews in both Germany

and the United States with officials of both governments; the interviews were done
on a confidential basis in order to encourage frankness. The official’s institutional
affiliation and the date of the interview, when available, are noted.
The reference is to Pope Gregory VII, who compelled the German emperor Henry
IV to do penance for three days in the snow at Canossa, where he had come in Jan-
uary 1077 to beg for his excommunication to be lifted.
11. For an extensive and unsympathetic treatment of the Bush dynasty, see Kevin
Phillips, American Dynasty: Aristocracy, Fortune, and the Politics of Deceit in the
House of Bush (New York: Viking, 2004).
12. See the description of the importance of the personal relationship in Bush’s
dealings with Russian president Vladimir Putin in Bob Woodward, Bush at War
(New York: Simon and Schuster, 2002), p. 119.
13. Quoted in Elisabeth Bumiller, “A Partner in Shaping an Assertive Foreign
Policy,” New York Times, January 7, 2004, p. A1. Bush was finally persuaded to meet
with Schröder in September 2003. As the article recounts, “Mr. Bush, simply put, did
not trust him.”
14. Jane Kramer, “The Once and Future Chancellor,” New Yorker, September 14,
1998, p. 10.
15. Jürgen Hogrefe, Gerhard Schröder: Ein Porträt (Berlin: Siedler, 2002), p. 215.
16. Interview with Foreign Office official, December 2002.
17. Kramer, “The Once and Future Chancellor,” p. 9.
18. See Hogrefe, Gerhard Schröder, pp. 199, 208.
19. Ibid., p. 207.
20. “A black swan is an outlier, an event that lies beyond the realm of normal
expectations. Most people expect white swans because that’s what their experience
tells them. A black swan is by definition a surprise.” Nassim Nicholas Taleb, “Learn-
ing to Expect the Unexpected,” New York Times, April 8, 2004, p. A27.
Notes to Chapter Two

1. A chronology of the key events from September 11 through the outbreak of the
war in Iraq on March 20, 2003, can be found in the appendix of this book.
2. Jürgen Hogrefe, Gerhard Schröder: Ein Porträt (Berlin: Siedler, 2002), pp.
209–11.
3. For a concise description of the Taliban–al Qaeda link, see the report of the
9-11 Commission: National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United
States, “Overview of the Enemy: Staff Statement 15,” June 16–17, 2004 (www.9-
11commission.gov [July 16, 2004]).
4. Gunther Hofmann, “Der lange Weg zum lauten Nein,” Die Zeit, May 2003
(www.zeit.de ).
5. Ron Suskind, The Price of Loyalty: George W. Bush, the White House, and the Edu-
Notes to Pages 16–21 161
cation of Paul O’Neill (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2004). Also see “Bush Sought
‘Way’ to Invade Iraq?” CBS, 60 Minutes, January 11, 2004 (www.cbsnews.com/
stories/2004/01/09/60minutes/main592330.shtml [March 2004]); and Richard
Clarke, Against All Enemies: Inside America’s War on Terror (New York: Free Press,
2004).
6. Office of the Press Secretary, “German Leader Reiterates Solidarity with U.S.,”
White House, October 9, 2001.
7. Hogrefe, Gerhard Schröder, pp. 211–12.
8. Bob Woodward, Bush at War (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2002), pp.
179–80. Schröder reportedly was disappointed that Bush did not appreciate the risk
he had taken with the vote of confidence.
9. Oliver Schröm, “Im Visier der besonnenen Fahnder,” Frankfurter Allgemeine
Sonntagszeitung, January 12, 2003, p. 45.
10. Hofmann, “Der lange Weg zum lauten Nein.”
12. Hogrefe, Gerhard Schröder, p. 208; also based on an interview with Michael
Inacker, November 8, 2002.
13. Interview with Inacker.
15. Office of the Press Secretary, “Remarks by President Bush and Chancellor
Schröder of Germany in Press Availability,” White House, May 23, 2002.
16. The Christian Democratic opposition came to believe that Schröder had
actually given Bush a letter stating that he would support a war in Iraq, but there is
no credible substantiation for this suspicion. Ambassador Coats also believed that
Schröder had clearly agreed not to openly oppose the Bush administration’s policy
on Iraq. See also Hofmann, “Der lange Weg zum lauten Nein.”
17. Conversations with staff member of the National Security Council, July 7,
2003.
18. Office of the Press Secretary, “Remarks by President Bush and Chancellor
Schröder.”
19. Bob Woodward, Plan of Attack (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2004), pp. 1,
98–103.
20. Lally Weymouth, “Schröder: We Have a Good Relationship,” Washington Post,
February 29, 2004, p. B7.
21. “President Bush Delivers Graduation Speech at West Point,” June 1, 2002,
www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/06 [June 2002].
22. The major polling organizations had the Christian Democratic Union
(CDU)/Christian Social Union (CSU) with 38 to 40 percent and the SPD with
between 33 and 36 percent in early July 2002. Most alarming, the SPD trailed in its
power center, the state of North Rhine–Westphalia, and with only 42 percent sup-
port in an early July 2002 poll trailed by almost 5 percent its margin there at the same
time in the 1998 campaign. At the end of July, just before Schröder launched a cam-
paign against U.S. policy in Iraq, the SPD had lost another 5 points in the polls and
the opposition had gained 2 points, so that the SPD was trailing the CDU/CSU by
a margin of 43 to 35 percent. “‘Ich oder der’: Gerhard Schröder gegen Edmund
Stoiber—das Protokoll eines Machtkampfes,” Der Spiegel, no. 38 (2002), pp. 62, 66.
23. Interview with Steven Erlanger, July 11, 2003.
24. “Krieg der Worte,” Der Spiegel, no. 38 (2002), p. 20.
25. “Schröder: Keine Beteiligung an Krieg gegen den Irak,” Frankfurter Allgemeine
Zeitung, August 5, 2002, p.1. German text reads: “Schröder sagte öffentlich: ‘Wir
hören wirklich Nachrichten aus dem Nahen Osten, die beunruhigen, bis hin zu
neuer Kriegsgefahr. Ich denke, wir haben nach dem 11 September bewiesen, daß wir
besonnen, auch entschieden reagieren, aber immer besonnen, daß wir Solidarität mit
unseren Partnern leisten, aber für Abenteuer nicht zur Verfügung stehen, und dabei
wird es bleiben.”
26. “Rede von Bundeskanzler Gerhard Schröder zum Wahlkampfauftakt am
Montag, 5. August 2002, in Hannover (Opernplatz).” He also said, “And for those
who believe that this country, this government, will take the comfortable way out,
as Kohl did, and remain out while paying—at that time 18 billion marks—they are
wrong. To them I say, this Germany is a self-confident country. We have not shied
away from the international struggle against terrorism.” (www.spd.de/servlet/
PB/show/1019520/Schr%F6der%20Rede%20WahlkampfauftaktHannover.doc [July
27, 2004]).
27. “Ich oder der,” Der Spiegel, p. 66.
28. Elisabeth Bumiller, “A Partner in Shaping an Assertive Foreign Policy,” New
York Times, January 7, 2004, p. A6.
29. For a discussion of the ideological divisions on foreign policy within the Bush
administration, see chapter 4.
30. The distinction between preemptive and preventive war is discussed in chap-
ter 4. Preemptive war is conducted to counter a direct and immediate threat; a
preventive war is fought to prevent a threat from developing down the road—what
President Bush often referred to as a “gathering threat.”
31. Office of the Vice President,“Vice President Cheney Speaks at Veterans of For-
eign Wars 103rd National Convention, August 26, 2002” (www.whitehouse.gov [July
19, 2004]).
32. “Krieg der Worte,” Der Spiegel, p. 21.
33. Ibid.
34. Office of the Vie President, “Vice President Cheney Speaks.”
35. “Bundestagswahlkampf: TV-Duell: Stoiber Gegen Schröder,” transcript of TV
debate on ARD and ZDF on September 8, 2002.
36. Steven Erlanger, “German Leader’s Warning: War Plan Is a Huge Mistake,”
New York Times, September 5, 2002, p. A9.
37. Interview with Erlanger, July 11, 2003.

42. Conversation with author, March 2003.
43. “Schroeder verlangt neue Ethik in der Wirtschaft; Ablehnung von Krieg gegen
Irak verteidigt,” Associated Press World Stream-German, September 10, 2002. See
also Michael Bourne, “German Poison,” September 26, 2002, USNew.com
(www.usnews.com/usnews/opinion/baroneweb/mb_020926.htm [July 19, 2004]).
44. “Der Krieg der Worte vor Fischer’s Mission,” Die Tageszeitung (taz) Nr. 6894,
November 2, 2002, p.5.
45. The story was originally written by Christoph Müller and published in a
regional newspaper, Schwäbisches Tagblatt. This and other articles on the topic were
published on September 20, 2002, and reprinted on the website of the Frankfurter
Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) on November 19, 2002. See “Hitler: Herta Däubler Gmelin
und das gesprochene Wort,” FAZ NET, November 19, 2002.
46. Interview with Condoleezza Rice in Haig Simonian and others, “U.S. con-
demns ‘poisoned relations’ with Berlin,” Financial Times, September 21, 2002, p. 6.
47. Rolf Beste and others, “Du musst das hochziehen,” Der Spiegel, no. 13 (2003),
p. 56.
48. FAZ NET (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung), November 19, 2002. The German
text, dated 20. September 2002, reads: “Ich möchte Dich auf diesem Wege wissen
lassen, wie sehr ich bedauere, dass durch angebliche Äusserungen der deutschen
Justizministerin ein Eindruck enstanden ist, der Deine Gefühle tief verletzt hat. Die
Ministerin hat mir versichert, dass sie die ihr zugeschriebenen Aussagen nicht
gemacht hat. Sie hat dies auch öffentlich erklärt. Ich möchte Dir versichern, dass an
meinem Kabinettstisch niemand Platz hat, der den amerikanischen Präsidenten mit
einem Verbrecher in Verbindung bringt. Der Sprecher des Weißen Hauses hat mit
Recht auf die besonderen und engen Beziehungen zwischen dem deutschen und
amerikanischen Volk hingewiesen.”
49. The rejection of German participation in a war against Iraq was stronger
among women than men and was especially pronounced among women over the age
of sixty, two-thirds of whom expressed this view. Dieter Roth and Mattias Jung,
“Ablösung der Regierung vertagt: Eine Analyse der Wahl vom 22. September 2002,”
Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte, vols. 49–50 (December 9, 2002), p.12. For a full analy-
sis, with data, see Forschungsgruppe Wahlen (FGW) e.V. Mannheim,
Bundestagswahl: Eine Analyse der Wahl vom 22. September 2002, Bericht Nr. 108
(Mannheim: Institut für Wahlanalysen und Gesellschaftsbeobachtung, September
2002). See also Wolfgang Hartenstein and Rita Müller-Hilmer, “Die Bundestagswahl
2002: Neue Themen—Neue Allianzen,” Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte, vols. 49–50
(December 9, 2002), p. 23.
50. Roth and Jung, “Ablösung der Regierung vertagt,” pp. 12–13.
51. Ibid., p. 12. Confidence in the SPD’s handling of relations with the United
States dropped from 41 percent in September 2002 to 34 percent in October, but

with only 27 percent having confidence in the CDU instead: Hartenstein and Müller-
Hilmer, “Die Bundestagswahl 2002,” pp. 48–49. Comparable figures for the month
after the election, from the Forschungsgruppe Wahlen, can be found in “Der Kan-
zler verliert seinen Vertrauensbonus,” Süddeutsche Zeitung, October 19, 2002, p. 7.
52. Hartenstein and Müller-Hilmer, “Die Bundestagswahl 2002,” p. 38.
53. See, for example, Bill Keller, “Reagan’s Son,” New York Times Magazine, Janu-
ary 26, 2003, p. 62. Keller describes Bush’s vision for the world as “America
rampant—unfettered by international law, unflinching when challenged, unmatch-
able in its might, more interested in being respected than in being loved.” This
attitude is also quite apparent in James Mann’s intellectual biography of the Bush
team, Rise of the Vulcans: The History of Bush’s War Cabinet (New York: Viking,
2004).
54. See Woodward, Plan of Attack, pp. 174–85; for Blair’s role, see also Philip
Stephens, Tony Blair: The Making of a World Leader (New York: Viking, 2004), pp.
215–19.
55. Interview with Erlanger, July 11, 2003.
Notes to Chapter Three

1. Interview with an official in the chancellor’s office, October 2002. I conducted
a number of interviews in both Germany and the United States with officials of
both governments; the interviews were done on a confidential basis in order to
encourage frankness. The official’s institutional affiliation and the date of the inter-
view, when available, are noted.
2. Rolf Beste and others, “Du musst das hochziehen,” Der Spiegel, no. 13 (2003),
p. 56.
3. Interview with senior Foreign Office official, July 2003.
4. Interview with Steven Erlanger, July 11, 2003.
5. Eckart Lohse, “Die Zeit, der grosse Heiler, “ Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung,
November 1, 2002, p. 3.
6. United Nations Security Council, Resolution 1441, November 8, 2002, p. 5.
7. For a full description of the Franco-American negotiations over Resolution
1441, see Philip H. Gordon and Jeremy Shapiro, Allies at War (New York: McGraw
Hill, 2004), pp. 103–14; for the discussions within the Bush administration, see Bob
Woodward, Plan of Attack (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2004), pp. 220–27; for
Tony Blair’s role, see Philip Stephens, Tony Blair: The Making of a World Leader (New
York: Viking, 2004), pp. 215–19.
8. Gordon and Shapiro, Allies at War, p. 114.
9. Quentin Peel and others, “War in Iraq: How the Die Was Cast before Transat-
lantic Diplomacy Failed,” Financial Times, May 27, 2003, p. 11.
10. One of Schröder’s demands has been for Germany to be granted, along with
Japan and other large and important states, a permanent seat on the Security Coun-
cil. Germany and Japan are the second- and third-largest contributors to the UN
budget, and they feel that they should have a larger role in the decisionmaking
process.
11. “Die Hoffung wird immer kleiner,” Der Spiegel, December 30, 2002.
12. Woodward, Plan of Attack, pp. 269–74.
13. See Gordon and Shapiro, Allies at War, pp. 121–25.
14. Peel and others, “War in Iraq,” p. 11.
15. Christian Hacke, “Deutschland, Europa und der Irakkonflikt,” Aus Politik und
Zeitgeschichte, vols. 24–25 (June 10, 2003), p. 9.
17. Beste and others, “Du musst das hochziehen,” p. 58.
18. Gordon and Shapiro, Allies at War, chapter 5.
19. Steven R. Weisman, “U.S. Set to Demand That Allies Agree Iraq Is Defying
U.N.,” New York Times, January 23, 2003.
20.“Es ist nicht Ergebnis meiner Politik, dass Europa gespalten ist,” Spiegel Online,
February 4, 2003 (www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/0.1518,233749,00.html).
21. “The Rift Turns Nasty: The Plot That Split Old and New Europe Asunder,”
Financial Times, May 28, 2003, p. 13.
22. Beste and others, “Du musst das hochziehen,” p. 60.
23. Angela Merkel, “Schröder Doesn’t Speak for All Germans,” Washington Post,
February 20, 2003, p. A39.
24. “Pro-Kriegs-Kurs: Merkels Brief and die Bürger,” Spiegel Online, March 28
2003 (www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/0,1518,242482,00.html [March 2003]).
25. “Pro-Kriegs-Kurs.”
26. See Woodward, Plan of Attack, pp. 319–20; and Stephens, Tony Blair, pp.
229–37.
27. Interview with senior State Department official, July 2003.
28. Stephens, Tony Blair, pp. 234–37.
29. “Die Schröder Rede im Wortlaut,” Die Tagesschau, March 18, 2003
(www.tagesschau.de/aktuell/meldungen/0,2044,OID1649966_TYP4,00.html
[March 2003]).
30. Henry A. Kissinger, “Role Reversal and Alliance Realities,” Washington Post,
February 10, 2003, p. A21. See also Ivo H. Daalder, “The End of Atlanticism,” Sur-
vival, vol. 45 (Summer 2003), p. 147.
31. Interview with senior German Foreign Office official, June 2003.
32. Interview with senior German diplomat, July 2003.
33. Interview with senior German diplomat, July 2003.
34. “Eyes on Iraq; In Cheney’s Words: The Administration’s Case for Removing
Saddam Hussein,” New York Times, August 27, 2002, p. A8.
35. Joschka Fischer, federal minister for foreign affairs, speech to the 40th Munich
Conference on Security Policy, Munich, February 7, 2004 (www.auswaertiges-
amt.de/www/en/ausgabe_archiv?archiv_id=5338 [February 23, 2004]).
36. Remarks in a presentation by Inacker at the American Institute for Contem-

porary German Studies, Washington, January 7, 2004.
37. For background on the German-French-American triangle, see Helga Haf-
tendorn, Stephen F. Szabo, and Samuel F. Wells, eds., The Strategic Triangle: France,
Germany, the United States and the Shaping of the New Europe (Johns Hopkins Uni-
versity Press, forthcoming). See also Christian Hacke, “Deutschland, Europa und der
Irakkonflikt,” and Robert Graham and Haig Simonian, “Prospects for the Franco-
German Relationship: The Elysée Treaty and After,” both in AICGS Policy Report 4
(Washington: American Institute for Contemporary German Studies, 2003). On the
concept of circles of German foreign policy, see David P. Calleo, The German Prob-
lem Reconsidered: Germany and the World Order, 1870 to the Present (Cambridge
University Press, 1978), and David P. Calleo, Rethinking Europe’s Future (Princeton
University Press, 2001).
39. Gordon and Shapiro, Allies at War, chapter 5.
40. Markus Deggerich, “Schröders größtes Solo,” Spiegel Online, February 11,
2003.
41. Interview with senior German Foreign Office official, June 2003.
42. Quoted in Hacke, “Deutschland, Europa und der Irakkonflikt,” p. 9.
43. Deggerich, “Schröders größtes Solo.” This contrasted with public statements
made by Fischer and Foreign Office officials who contended that what Germany was
seeking was a multilateral, not a multipolar, world “in which issues of importance
are decided through discussion and on the basis of international law.” John Vinocur,
“German Official Says Europe Must Be U.S. Friend, Not Rival,” New York Times, July
19, 2003, p. A5.
44. Hacke, “Deutschland, Europa und der Irakkonflikt,” p. 13.
45. Conversation with close Foreign Service adviser to Joschka Fischer, July 2003.
46. Interview with senior State Department official, July 2003.
47. Hacke “Deutschland, Europa und der Irakkonflikt,” p. 10.
Notes to Chapter Four

1. For a more thorough definition and discussion of strategic culture, see James
Duffield, World Power Foresaken (Stanford University Press, 1998), chapter 2;
Stephen F. Szabo, The Changing Politics of German Security (New York: St. Martin’s
Press, 1990); Stephen F. Szabo and Mary Hampton, Reinventing the German Military,
Policy Report 11 (Washington: American Institute for Contemporary German Stud-
ies, 2003); Robert Kagan, “Power and Weakness,” Policy Review, no. 113 (June/July
2002), pp. 3–28; Elizabeth Kier, “Culture and Military Doctrine,” International Secu-
rity, vol. 19 (Spring 1995), pp. 65–93; Douglas Porch, “Military Culture and the Fall
of France 1940: A Review Essay,” International Security, vol. 24 (Spring 2000), pp.
157–80; Stephen Szabo and Joachim Krause, Redefining German Security (Wash-
ington: American Institute for Contemporary German Studies, 2002)
(www.aicgs.org [March 2003]); and Anja Dalgaard-Nielsen, “Gulf War: The German
Resistance,” Survival, vol. 45 (Spring 2003), pp. 99–116.
2. Philip Taubman, “The Bush Years: W’s World,” New York Times Sunday Maga-
zine, January 14, 2001, p. 30.
3. Address delivered at Wake Forest University, October 2000; quoted in Stephen
Fidler and Gerald Baker, “America’s Democratic Imperialists: How the Neo-Con-
servatives Rose from Humility to Empire in Two Years,” Financial Times, March 6,
2003, p. 11. See also James Mann, The Rise of the Vulcans: The History of Bush’s War
Cabinet (New York: Viking, 2004).
4. These classifications are modifications of those offered by Fidler and Baker,
“America’s Democratic Imperialists,” p. 11. The terms democratic imperialists and
assertive nationalists originate with Ivo Daalder of the Brookings Institution and
Charles Kupchan of Georgetown University (both of whom are cited by Fidler and
Baker), and are more fully elaborated in Ivo H. Daalder and James M. Lindsay, Amer-
ica Unbound: The Bush Revolution in Foreign Policy (Brookings, 2003), especially
chapters 1 and 3.
5. Realism “is the most elegant and time-honored theory of international order:
order is the result of balancing by states under conditions of anarchy to counter
opposing power concentrations or threats. In this view, American preponderance is
unsustainable: it poses a basic threat to other states and balancing reactions are
inevitable.” G. John Ikenberry, “Introduction,” in America Unrivaled: The Future of
the Balance of Power, edited by G. John Ikenberry (Cornell University Press, 2002),
p. 3.
6. Condoleezza Rice, “Promoting the National Interest,” Foreign Affairs, vol. 79
(January-February 2000), p. 47.
7. Daalder and Lindsay, America Unbound, p. 46.
8. Taubman, “The Bush Years,” p. 28.
9. The term was originally coined by Alexis de Tocqueville. For a recent discus-
sion of its expression in post-9-11 America, see John Parker, “A Nation Apart: A
Survey of America,” Economist, November 8, 2003. See also Daalder and Lindsay,
America Unbound, pp. 6, 45.
10. Peter Steinfels, The Neoconservatives: The Men Who Are Changing America’s
Politics (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1979), p. 50.
11. See Mann, The Rise of the Vulcans.
12. For a history of the struggle over Stalinism among New York intellectuals, see
William Barrett, The Truants: Adventures among the Intellectuals (Garden City, N.Y.:
Anchor, 1982). One of the earliest studies of the neoconservative movement is Stein-
fels, The Neo Conservatives; see also Elisabeth Drew, “The Neo Cons in Power,” New
York Review of Books, June 12, 2003, pp. 20–22; and Mann, The Rise of the Vulcans.
13. Steinfels, The Neo Conservatives, p. 7.

15. Philip Stephens, “Top of the High Table,” Financial Times, August 9/10, 2003,
p. W3.
16. Euroskeptic is a term used to describe those in Britain who are skeptical of the
idea of European integration and seek to defend British sovereignty against what
they see as the encroachments of the EU. They are very pro-NATO and strive to
guard the “special relationship” that Britain has with the United States.
17. As Steinfels wrote of their origins, “Yet neo conservatism’s quarrel with a lib-
eral intelligentsia persistently critical of commercial civilization and big business
power has set in operation the old law, ’the enemy of the enemy is my friend.’ Neo
conservatism has become out-rightly protective of business interests. Needless to say,
business, long unhappy about the relative lack of ideological support it receives from
the academy, has welcomed the neo conservatives enthusiastically.” The Neo Con-
servatives, p. 10. For more on the influence of Conrad Black, see Jacques Steinberg
and Geraldine Fabrikant, “Friendship and Business Blur in the World of a Media
Baron,” New York Times, December, 22, 2003, pp. A1, A25.
18. Finlandization was a conservative term of opprobrium referring to neutral
Finland, which, due to its proximity to the Soviet Union, did not pursue policies that
would be considered offensive by its large neighbor—in short, appeasement behind
a facade of neutrality and independence.
19. Dana H. Allin, Cold War Illusions: America, Europe and Soviet Power
1969–1989 (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1994), pp. xi, xiii.
20. See Robert G. Kaufman, Henry M. Jackson: A Life in Politics (University of
Washington Press, 2000).
21. Allin, Cold War Illusions, p. 54. Coral Bell wrote, “The neo-conservative
approach is not so historically relativist: It implies instead that the Soviet challenge
is unique and irreconcilable”; The Reagan Paradox: American Foreign Policy in the
1980s (Rutgers University Press, 1989), pp. 11–13.
22. Quoted in Allin, Cold War Illusions, p. 133.
23. David Halberstam, War in a Time of Peace: Bush, Clinton and the Generals
(New York: Touchstone, 2001), p. 60.
24. For more on the weaknesses of the appeasement argument, and its more
recent misuse in the case of Iraq, see Gerhard L. Weinberg, “No Road from Munich
to Iraq,” Washington Post, November 3, 2002, p. B4.
25. Charles Krauthammer,“The Lonely Superpower,” New Republic, July 29, 1991,
p. 23.
26. Quoted in Halberstam, War in a Time of Peace, p. 73.
27. Robert D. Kaplan, The Coming Anarchy: Shattering the Dreams of the post
Cold War (New York: Random House, 2000).
28. Edward Pilkington and Ewen MacAskill, “Europe Lacks Moral Fibre Says US
Hawk,” Guardian, November 13, 2002.
29. David Frum and Richard Perle, An End to Evil: How to Win the War on Terror
(New York: Random House, 2003), especially chapter 8.
30. Christopher Caldwell, “The Angry Adolescent of Europe,” Weekly Standard,
October 7, 2002 (www.weeklystandard.com).
31. Frum and Perle, An End to Evil, p. 246 (emphasis added).
32. For a litany of neocon concerns about Europe, see “Continental Drift,” Amer-
ican Enterprise (December 2002), pp. 24–41; Charles Krauthammer, “Don’t Go Back
to the U.N.,” Washington Post, March 21, 2003, p. A37; and also Krauthammer, “The
French Challenge,” Washington Post, February 21, 2003, p. A27.
33. Helmut Schmidt, “Europa braucht keinen Vormund,” Die Zeit, August 5, 2002
(www.zeit.de).
34. Michael Kelly, “Germany’s Mister Tough Guy,” Washington Post, February 12,
2003, p. A29.
36. Fidler and Baker, “America’s Democratic Imperialists,” p. 11; and Mann, The
Rise of the Vulcans, pp. 177–97.
37. Fidler and Baker, “America’s Democratic Imperialists,” p. 11.
38. See Thomas E. Ricks, “Holding Their Ground,” Washington Post, December
23, 2003, pp. C1–2.
39. Walter Russell Mead, “The Jacksonian Tradition and American Foreign Pol-
icy,” National Interest (Winter 1999/2000), p. 17. See also Daalder and Lindsay,
America Unbound, chapters 1 and 3.
40. See Fidler and Baker, “America’s Democratic Imperialists,” p. 11.
41. Frances Fitzgerald, “George Bush and the World,” New York Review of Books,
September 26, 2002, p. 80.
43. Thom Shanker and Eric Schmitt, “Rumsfeld Seeks Consensus through Joust-
ing,” New York Times, March 19, 2003, p. A16.
44. Quoted in Steven R. Weisman, “Preemption: Idea with a Lineage Whose Time
Has Come,” New York Times, March 23, 2003, p. B1.
45. Dana Milbank, “For Bush, War Defines Presidency,” Washington Post, Febru-
ary 9, 2003, p. A20.
46. Ibid.
47. Bob Woodward, Bush at War (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2002), pp. 48, 49.
49. See Timothy Garton Ash, “Anti-Europeanism in America,” New York Review
of Books, February 13, 2003, p. 34; and Stanley Hoffmann, “The High and the
Mighty,” American Prospect, January 13, 2003, pp. 28–31.
50. Quoted in Woodward, Bush at War, p. 60.
51. “Wolfowitz at Informal Meeting at NATO Headquarters on September 26,
2001, Department of Defense Briefing, September 26, 2001, Federal News Service,
Inc. Also available on www.nato.int/docu/comm/2001/0109-hq/0109-hq.htm#sp.
52. Gunther Hellmann, “Der ‘deutsche Weg,’” Internationale Politik (September

2002), p. 4.
53. Klaus Naumann, “Crunch Time for the Alliance,” NATO Review (Summer
2002).
54. See Patrick E. Tyler, “As Cold War Link Itself Grows Cold, Europe Seems to
Lose Value for Bush,” New York Times, February 12, 2003, p. A14.
55. The National Security Strategy of the United States of America (White House,
September 2002).
56. Ibid., p. 15.
57. Judith Miller, “Keeping the U.S. No. 1: Is It Wise? Is It New?” New York Times,
October 26, 2002, p. B9.
58. Taken from D. Robert Worley, Waging Ancient War: Limits on Preemptive
Force (Carlisle, Penn.: U.S. Army War College, February 2003), pp. 20–21.
59. Quoted in Geoffrey Wheatcroft,“The Tragedy of Tony Blair,” Atlantic Monthly,
June 2004, p. 67.
60. The National Security Strategy, p. 30.
61. Ted Galen Carpenter, Peace and Freedom: Foreign Policy for a Constitutional
Republic (Washington: Cato Institute, 2002), cited in Quentin Peel, “Caught in the
Web of Nation Building,” Financial Times, October 16, 2002, p. 15. For a broad sur-
vey of the intellectual origins of the Bush strategy, see Fitzgerald, “George Bush and
the World,” pp. 80–86; and Mann, The Rise of the Vulcans.
62. Ikenberry, ed., America Unrivaled, p. 9.
63. Daalder and Lindsay, America Unbound, pp. 41–45.
64. See James Mann, “The True Rationale? It’s a Decade Old,” Washington Post,
March 7, 2004, p. B2, and his full account in The Rise of the Vulcans, chapter 12. See
also Fitzgerald, “George Bush and the World.”
65. Worley, Waging Ancient War, p. 22; and Barry R. Posen and Andrew L. Ross,
“Competing Visions for U.S. Grand Strategy,” International Security, vol. 21 (Win-
ter 1996–97), pp. 5–53.
66. For more on the theme of varieties of hegemony, see Andrew J. Bacevich,
American Empire: The Realities and Consequences of U.S. Diplomacy (Harvard Uni-
versity Press, 2002). See also Daalder and Lindsay, America Unbound, pp. 41–45.
67. Title 22, U.S. Code, section 2656 f (d), cited in Worley, Aging Ancient War, p. 3.
68. Quoted in Worley, Waging Ancient War, p. 3.
69. Joseph Conrad, The Secret Agent (New York: Modern Library, 1998 [1907]), p. 28.
70. Lawrence Freedman,“The Third World War?” Survival, vol. 43 (Winter 2001),
pp. 61–88; Strobe Talbott and Nayan Chanda, eds., The Age of Terror (New York:
Basic Books, 2001), p. xi.
71. Fred Hiatt, “Challenging Bush’s World View,” Washington Post, June 9, 2003,
p. A21.
72. Peter Katzenstein, “Same War, Different View: Germany, Japan, and Counter
Terrorism,” International Organization, vol. 57 (Fall 2003), pp. 731–60.
73. Markus Kaim, “Friendship under Strain or Fundamental Alienation? Ger-

many-U.S. Relations after the Iraq War,” International Journal, vol. 59 (Winter
2003–04), p. 6.
74. In one prominent case, two German brothers, Karl and Walter LeGrand, were
arrested in Arizona in 1999, and German consular authorities were denied access to
them, in violation of the 1963 consular rights convention. Unable to get a compe-
tent defense attorney, they were convicted of murdering a bank director and were
sentenced to death. They were both executed. The United States was held to be in
violation of international law by the International Court of Justice in the Hague.
Currently two other brothers, Michael and Rudi Apelt, are being held in Arizona for
the murder of Michael’s American wife for insurance money. This time the German
government has had contact with the defendants and is assisting in their defense;
both are facing the death penalty. The Bonn parliament passed resolutions con-
demning American barbarism. Diplomats met with former governor Jane Hull and
appealed to President Clinton. Germany’s leading psychiatric associations decried
the planned execution of Rudi Apelt as immoral, and the German ambassador has
attended the proceedings and made his government’s objections to the death penalty
known. “Ambassador Speaks Out against the Death Penalty,” Germany Info–
Government and Politics (Washington: German Embassy, October 2003); see also
Georg Bönisch and Gisela Leske, “Gas, Gift oder lebenslänglich,” Der Spiegel (Sep-
tember 22, 2003), p. 64.
75. Christopher Patten, quoted by Steven Erlanger, “Europe Seethes as the U.S.
Flies Solo in World Affairs,” New York Times, February 23, 2002 (www.common-
dreams.org/headlines02/0223-02.htm [July 28, 2004]).
76. James M. Markham,“Fighting Words: Europe Has Its Reasons for Turning the
Other Cheek,” New York Times, January 12, 1986, section 4, p.1.
77. The National Security Strategy, p. 5.
78. Grenville Byford, “The Wrong War,” Foreign Affairs, vol. 81 (July/August
2002), p. 34.
79. Richard Clarke, Against All Enemies: Inside America’s War on Terrorism (New
York: Free Press, 2004).
80. Quoted by Glenn Frankel, “Europe, U.S. Diverge on How to Fight Terrorism,”
Washington Post, March 28, 2004, p. A15.
81. Ibid., p. A26.
82. Dana H. Allin and Steven Simon, “The Moral Psychology of U.S. Support for
Israel,” Survival, vol. 45, no. 3 (Autumn 2003), p. 123.
83. Quoted in Frankel, “Europe, U.S. Diverge on How to Fight Terrorism,”
p. A27.
84. Allin and Simon, “The Moral Psychology of U.S. Support for Israel,” p. 124.
85. See Jon B. Alterman, The Promise of Partnership: U.S.-EU Coordination in the
Middle East, AICGS Policy Report 10 (Washington: American Institute for Con-
temporary German Studies, 2003).
86. Katzenstein, “Same War, Different View,” p. 731.

87. See Sebastian Harnisch and Hanns W. Maull, eds., Germany as a Civilian
Power? The Foreign Policy of the Berlin Republic (Manchester University Press, 2001);
Hanns W. Maull, “Zivilmacht Bundesrepublik Deutschland,” Europa Archiv, vol. 47,
no. 10 (1992), pp. 269–78; and Hanns W. Maull, “Germany and Japan: The New
Civilian Powers,” Foreign Affairs, vol. 69 (Winter 1990/91), pp. 91–106.
88. Robert Cooper, “Why We Still Need Empires,” Observer, April 7, 2002. For the
full version see Cooper’s The Breaking of Nations: Order and Chaos in the Twenty-
First Century (London: Atlantic Books, 2003). In Cooper’s typology, America is a
modern state whose culture and approach to the world clashes with the postmod-
ern EU.
89. A comprehensive treatment of this strategy can be found in Timothy Garton
Ash, In Europe’s Name: Germany and the Divided Continent (New York: Random
House, 1993).
90. Klaus Larres, “Mutual Incomprehension: U.S.-German Value Gaps beyond
Iraq,” Washington Quarterly, vol. 26, no. 2 (Spring 2003), pp. 23–42.
91. Interview with Fox News on September 22, 2003 (www.foxnews.com/
story/0,2933,98006,00.html [July 28, 2004]).The relevant part of the interview reads:
“Question: What has happened with the Germans? Have you been in touch with
Schroeder? What’s going on there? Bush: I haven’t had a chance to visit with him yet.
. . . I just look forward to talking to him. I think that the idea of—he needs to answer
this question better than me, but I think he got into an election and the German peo-
ple are essentially pacifists because of their—many still remember the experience of
World War II. And they may not have seen Saddam Hussein as evil a person as a lot
of other people have.”
92. Stephen M. Walt, “Two Cheers for Clinton’s Foreign Policy,” Foreign Affairs,
vol. 79 (March/April 2000), p. 68.
93. For a concise formulation of these restraints, see Dalgaard-Nielsen, “Gulf
War.”
94. Gunther Hellman, “Deutschland in Europa: eine symbiotische Beziehung,”
Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte, vol. 48 (2002), p. 26. “On central questions of inter-
national politics, from climate change to the International Criminal Court and to
policy toward Iraq, the two most important members of NATO were marching more
decisively than ever in different directions.”
95. While 76 percent of the German public found German-American relations to
be “good” or “very good” in September 2002, at the end of the election campaign, 46
percent opposed the participation of German troops in a war against Iraq, even
with a UN mandate, while 50 percent supported participation with a UN mandate.
Only one month after the election, those numbers had shifted slightly more in favor
of military participation with a UN mandate. Confidence in the Social Democratic
Party’s handling of relations with the United States dropped from 41 percent in
September to 34 percent in October—although only 27 percent expressed confi-
dence in the Christian Democratic Union’s policy toward America. Forschungs-

gruppe Wahlen (FGW) e.V. Mannheim, Bundestagswahl: Eine Analyse der Wahl vom
22. September 2002, Bericht Nr. 108 (Mannheim: Institut für Wahlanalysen und
Gesellschaftsbeobachtung), pp. 48–49; figures from the FGW for the month after the
election can be found in “Der Kanzler verliert seinen Vertrauensbonus,” Süddeutsche
Zeitung, October 19–20, 2002, p. 7.
96. Josef Joffe, “The Alliance Is Dead. Long Live the New Alliance,” New York
Times, September 29, 2002, sec. 4, p. 3.
97. Howard W. French and Don Kirk, “Amid Mounting Protests, U.S.-Korean
Relations Reach a Low,” International Herald Tribune, December 12, 2002, p. 4.
98. See Ronald D. Asmus and Kenneth Pollack, “The New Transatlantic Project,”
Policy Review, vol. 115 (2002), pp. 3–18; Daniel Hamilton, German-American Rela-
tions and the Campaign against Terrorism (Washington: American Institute for
Contemporary German Relations, 2002); and Peter Rudolf, “Deutschland und die
USA—eine Beziehungskrise?” Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte, vol. 48 (2002), p. 23.
99. Hanns W. Maull, seminar presentation at the American Institute for Con-
temporary German Studies, Washington, March 22, 2004.
Notes to Chapter Five

1. Henry A. Kissinger, “The ‘Made in Berlin’ Generation,” Washington Post, Octo-
ber 30, 2002, p. A23.
2. Quoted in John Vinocur, “U.S. and Germany Still Estranged,” International
Herald Tribune, November 20, 2002, p. 1; See also Christian Hacke, “Deutschland,
Europa und der Irakkonflikt,” Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte, vols. 24–25 (June 10,
2003), p. 14.
3. Quote from Hans W. Gatzke, Germany and the United States: A Special Rela-
tionship? (Harvard University Press, 1980), p. 48.
4. Norbert Seitz,“Der Juniorpartner ist’s zufrieden: Zum deutsch-amerikanischen
Verhältnis,” in Europa oder Amerika? Zur Zukunft des Westens, edited by Karl Heinz
Bohrer and Kurt Scheel, in a special edition of a quarterly journal, Merkur: Deutsche
Zeitschrift für europäisches Denken, Sonderheft 617/618 (2000), pp. 1021–25.
5. Gatzke, Germany and the United States, p. 32.
6. Ibid., p. 5.
7. Seitz, “Der Juniorpartner ist’s zufrieden,” p. 1022.
8. David B. Morris, “Auf dem Weg zur Reife: Amerikabilder in der westdeutschen
Öffentlichkeit,” in Die USA und Deutschland im Zeitalter des Kalten Krieges:
1968–1990, vol. 2, edited by Detlef Junker (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt,
2001), p. 766.
9. See Stephen F. Szabo, The Changing Politics of German Security (New York: St.
Martin’s Press, 1990), and Morris, “Auf dem Weg zur Reife.” See also Helga Haften-
dorn, Security and Détente (New York: Praeger, 1985), and the essays by Philipp
Gassert, “Mit Amerika gegen Amerika,” pp. 740–49, Kori Schake, “NATO-Strategie
und das deutsch-amerikanische Verhältnis,” pp. 211–21, and Michael Broer, “Zwis-
chen Konsens und Konflikt: Der NATO Doppelbeschluss, der INF Vertrag und die
SNF Kontroverse, pp. 234–44, in Junker, ed., Die USA und Deutschland.
10. John Lukacs, The End of the Twentieth Century and the End of the Modern Age
(New York: Ticknor and Fields, 1993), p. 86. A notable exception was Helmut Kohl,
who viewed the deployment of INF missiles in Germany as the key to German uni-
fication and the peaceful end of the cold war: Helmut Kohl, with Kai Diekmann and
Ralf Georg Reuth, Ich Wollte Deutschlands Einheit (Berlin: Propyläen Verlag, 1996).
See also Stephen F. Szabo, The Diplomacy of German Unification (New York: St. Mar-
tin’s Press, 1992), pp. 14–16.
11. The Bush quote can be found in Philip Zelikow and Condoleezza Rice, Ger-
many Unified and Europe Transformed (Harvard University Press, 1995), p. 105;
Reagan made his famous speech at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin on June 12,
1987.
12. Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann, Ein Gefühl echter Freundschaft: Die Deutschen
haben großes Vertrauen zu Frankreich (Allensbach: Institut für Demoskopie Allens-
bach, May 14, 2003), table 5; also published in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung,
May 14, 2003.
13. Poll results from a survey conducted by Forsa and published on November 7,
2001. All of these surveys were provided by Forsa; I have the tabulated data tables.
Forsa, a polling organization like Gallup, is located in Berlin; its official title and
address are Gesellschaft für Sozialforschung und statistische Analysen mbH, Max-
Beer-Straße 2, 10119 Berlin.
14. Institut für Demoskopie Allensbach, “Terror in Amerika: Die Einschätzung in
Deutschland,” telephone poll, September 13, 2001; Renate Köcher, Neue Agenda der
inneren und äußeren Sicherheit (Institut für Demoskopie Allensbach, October 17,
2001). See also Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann, “Terror in America: Assessments of the
Attacks and Their Impact in Germany,” International Journal of Public Opinion
Research, vol. 14 (2002), pp. 93–98.
15. Forsa, Meinungen zum deutsch-amerikanischen Verhältnis vor dem Besuch des
amerikanischen Präsidenten in Deutschland, survey released May 22, 2002.
16. Forsa, Meinungen zum Verhalten der Bundesrepublik gegenüber den USA bei
einem Irak Krieg, survey published November 30, 2002.
17. Forsa, Meinungen zum Verhalten der Bundesrepublik im Irak Konflikt, survey
published February 7 and 8, 2003.
18. Forsa, Meinungen zum Verhältnis Deutschlands zu den USA, survey published
February 13 and 14, 2003; Thomas Petersen, Verletzte Gefühle: Die Auseinanderset-
zung um den Irak Konflikt schadet der deutsch-amerikanischen Freundschaft
(Allensbach: Institut für Demoskopie Allensbach, March 19, 2003).
19. Petersen, Verletzte Gefühle. For a report on these findings, see Frankfurter All-
gemeine Zeitung, March 19, 2003, p. 5.
20. The survey was conducted by Forsa for Die Zeit and was reported in Spiegel
Online, July 23, 2003 (www.spiegel.de).
21. Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, Views of a Changing World:
June 2003, Second Major Report of the Pew Global Attitudes Project (Washington,
June 2003), pp. 19, 22 (www.people-press.org [June 2003]).
22. Ibid., p. 30.
23. Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, Views of a Changing World.
24. Ibid., p. 28. Interestingly, not only did the publics of the United States, Britain,
Australia, and Canada believe that military preemption may be justified, but 42 per-
cent in France also held this view.
25. German Marshall Fund of the United States and the Compagnia Di San Paolo,
Transatlantic Trends 2003, a report released by the German Marshall Fund in Wash-
ington in the summer of 2003, p. 14. The Germans, however, were generally in the
European mainstream on this question, although on the low end. The average for all
Europeans polled in this survey was 48 percent.
26. Gustav Stesemann, foreign minister during the Weimar period, once com-
mented that it was remarkable how consistently American ideals corresponded to
American material interests. See Ulf Poschardt, “Lieben oder hassen wir die
Amerikaner?” Welt am Sontag, September 9, 2002 (www.welt.de/daten/
2002/09/29/0929pg359365.htx).
27. Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, What the World Thinks in
2002, Pew Global Attitudes Project (Washington, June 2003), p. 58 (www.people-
press.org [June 2002]).
28. Interview with senior Foreign Office official, June 2003.
29. The struggle between the ideological and realist wings in Bush Senior’s
administration is described by David Halberstam in War in a Time of Peace: Bush,
Clinton, and the Generals (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2001); see especially
pp. 57–75.
30. Quoted in Philip H. Gordon, “Bridging the Atlantic Divide,” Foreign Affairs,
vol. 82 (2003), p. 80.
31. Quoted in Poschardt, “Lieben oder hassen.”
32. Tony Judt, “Anti-Americans Abroad,” New York Review of Books, May 1, 2003,
pp. 24–27, quote on p. 25.
33. U.S. Department of State, Office of Research, Europeans and Anti-American-
ism: Fact vs. Fiction (September 2002), table A.2, pp. 42–44.
34. Morris, “Auf dem Weg zur Reife,” p. 770.
35. This paragraph is based on data reported by Dieter Roth of Forschungs-
gruppe Wahlen (FGW) at a conference sponsored by the Friedrich Ebert
Foundation, Washington, December 16, 2002.
36. FGW data confirm that around the time of the German national election of
2002, about 52 percent of Germans thought that Germany’s most important part-
ner was the United States, followed by about 41 percent who saw France in this role.
The Christian Democrats were more pro–United States on this measure: 63 percent
identified the United States as Germany’s most important partner, followed by 51
percent of SPD supporters and 42 percent of Greens. Germans also continued to
report that they “like” Americans: about 72 percent in western Germany and about
57 percent in the east. These proportions did not vary significantly from equivalent
data reported in 1991.
37. Forsa, Meinungen zum Verhalten der Bundesrepublik gegenüber den USA bei
einem Irak Krieg, November 30, 2002.
38. For example, while only 16 percent of those living in what had been West Ger-
many believed it possible that the U.S. government was involved in the 9-11 attacks,
29 percent of those in the former East Germany held this view. Forsa poll reported
in “Umfrage zu 11. September: Jeder Fünfte glaubt an U.S. Verschwörung,” Spiegel
Online, July 23, 2003 (http://premium-link.net/$62535$1349223697$/
0,1518,258299_eza_00050-258299,00.html). For more on the distinctiveness of east
Germans from the publics in other former Soviet bloc countries see Richard Bern-
stein, “The Germans Who Toppled Communism Resent the U.S.,” New York Times,
February 12, 2003, p. A7.
39. See Pew Research Center, Views of a Changing World, p. 19.
40. “Den Deutschen ist Amerika zu rücksichtlos,” Spiegel Online
(www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/[February 27, 2004])
41. Petersen, Verletzte Gefühle.
42. Forsa, Meinungen zum Verhalten der Bundesrepublik im Irak Konflikt, Febru-
ary 7 and 8, 2003; Forsa, Meinungen zu den USA und einer Erhöhung des
Verteidigungsetats, March 27 and 28, 2003.
43. Petersen, Verletzte Gefühle, tables 1 and A12.
44. “Am Ende der ersten Halbzeit,” Die Zeit, August 15, 2002, p. 3; for a stimulat-
ing and data-filled discussion of this concept and of German misconceptions of the
U.S. social and economic model, see Olaf Gersemann, Amerikanische Verhältnisse:
Die falsche Angst der Deutschen vor dem Cowboy-Kapitalismus (Munich: FinanzBuch,
2003).
45. Pew Research Center, What the World Thinks in 2002, p. 64.
46. Elisabeth Noelle, Ein Gefühl echter Freundschaft, table 4.
47. Pew Research Center, Views of a Changing World, pp. 105, 108.
48. For a summary of the University of Michigan data see “Living with a Super-
power,” Special Report: American Values, Economist, January 4, 2003, p. 20. For data
on the cold war period see Gassert, “Mit Amerika gegen Amerika,” p. 751.
49. Petersen, Verletzte Gefühle, table A12.
50. Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, The 2004 Political Landscape:
Evenly Divided and Increasingly Polarized (Washington, November 5, 2003), pp. 71–91.
51. Ian Buruma, “How to Talk About Israel,” New York Times Magazine, August
31, 2003, p. 33. As Michael Teitelbaum, program director of the Alfred P. Sloan Foun-
dation in New York and coauthor with Jay Winter of A Question of Numbers: High
Migration, Low Fertility and the Politics of National Identity (Hill and Wang, 1998),
put it: “The French think that what they call the Anglo-Saxon model is a multicul-
tural model of integration in which everyone speaks their own language and doesn’t
necessarily learn the common language—and they don’t really become British,
Canadian or American”; quoted in Barbara Crosette, “Europe Stares at a Future
Built by Immigrants,” New York Times, January 2, 2000, section 4, p.1.
52. See Gassert, “Mit Amerika gegen Amerika,” pp. 759–60.
53. The birth rate is 1.3 children per woman; a rate of 2.2 is needed to maintain
current population levels.
54. Josef Schmid, “Bevölkerungsentwicklung und Migration in Deutschland,”
Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte, vol. 43 (October 2001), pp. 20–30; Philip Martin,
“Germany: Managing Migration After 9-11” (Washington: American Institute for
Contemporary German Studies, April 11, 2002) (www.aicgs.org).
55. For the first time, children born to foreigners in Germany automatically
receive German citizenship, provided one parent has been a legal resident for at
least eight years. Children also can hold the nationality of their parents, but they
must decide to be citizens of one country or the other before age twenty-three. In
August 2000, Germany introduced a “green card” system to help satisfy the demand
for highly qualified information technology experts. In contrast with the American
green card, which allows for permanent residency, the German version limits resi-
dency to a maximum of five years. Through this new immigration program, about
9,200 highly skilled workers entered Germany through August 2001, with 1,935
Indians accounting for the largest group. Veysel Oezcan, “Germany: Immigration in
Transition,” Migration Information Source, Migration Policy Institute, July 2004
(www.migrationinformation.org/Profiles/display.cfm?id=235 [July 30, 2004]).
56. Oezcan, “Germany: Immigration in Transition.”
57. Dominik Cziesche and others, “Als Wäret Ihr im Krieg,” Der Spiegel, no. 13
(2004), pp. 24–38.
58. Pew Research Center, Views of a Changing World, pp. 94, 96, and 112.
59. Richard Herzinger, “Was für den Westen zählt, oder: Sind amerikanische
Werte auch unsere Werte?” Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte (May 3, 2002), p. 5.
60. Anne Applebaum, “Europe, Not Sure What to Make of Itself,” Washington
Post: Outlook, May 5, 2002, p. B1.
61. Ibid.
62. John Parker, “A Nation Apart: A Survey of America,” Economist, November 8,
2003, p. 7.
63. This gap with Europe includes Canada as well. See Clifford Krauss, “Canada
Stance on Social Issues Is Opening Rifts with the U.S.,” New York Times, December
1, 2003, p. A1; Pew Research Center, The 2004 Political Landscape, pp. 65–72.
64. See figures cited in Judt, “Anti-Americans Abroad,” p. 27. See also Krauss,
“Canada Stance on Social Issues,” p. A1, and Parker, “A Nation Apart.”
65. “Living with a Superpower,” p. 20. For more detailed analyses of the World
Values Survey, see Ronald Inglehart and Wayne E. Baker, “Modernization, Cultural
Change, and the Persistence of Traditional Values,” American Sociological Review, vol.
65 (February 2000), pp. 19–51.
66. Petersen, Verletzte Gefühle, table A13.
67. Pew Research Center, The 2004 Political Landscape, p. 67.
68. Ibid.
69. John F. Harris, “God Gave U.S. What We Deserve, Falwell Says,” Washington
Post, September 14, 2001.
70. Ivo H. Daalder, “The End of Atlanticism,” Survival, vol. 45, no.2 (Summer
2003), p. 158.
71. Laurie Goldstein, “A President Puts His Faith in Providence,” New York Times,
February 9, 2003, section 5, p. 5; quoted in Daalder, “The End of Atlanticism,”
p. 158–59.
72. Judy Demsey, “Solana Laments Rift between Europe and Religious U.S.,”
Financial Times, January 8, 2003.
73. Ibid.
74. Judt, “Anti-Americans Abroad,” p. 27.
75. See Michael Minkenberg, “Die Christliche Rechte und die amerikanische
Politik von der ersten bis zur zweiten Bush-Administration,” Aus Politik und Zeit-
geschichte, vol. 46 (2003), p. 31.
76. “Living with a Superpower,” p. 20, and Parker, “A Nation Apart.”
77. Pew Research Center, The 2004 Political Landscape, p. 1.
78. Morris, “Auf dem Weg zur Reife,” pp. 773–74.
79. “Living with a Superpower,” p. 20.
80. For more on the thesis of divergence see Parker, “A Nation Apart,” p. 20.
Notes to Chapter Six

1. Fritz René Allemann, Bonn ist nicht Weimar (Cologne: Kiepenheuer and
Witsch, 1956).
2. Geoffrey Hartman, Bitburg in Moral and Political Perspective (Indiana Univer-
sity Press, 1986), p. 16.
3. Ibid., p. 23.
4. Charles S. Maier, The Unmasterable Past: History, Holocaust, and German
National Identity (Harvard University Press, 1988), p. 14.
5. Ibid., p. 1.
6. Ibid.
7. Ian Buruma, The Wages of Guilt: Memories of War in Germany and Japan (New
York: Farrar Straus Giroux, 1994), p. 21.
8. Giles MacDonogh, “Remembrance to Heal Your Soul,” Financial Times,
November 12, 2003, p. W4; see also “Another Taboo Broken,” Economist, November
23, 2002, p. 47.
9. For attempts of relativizing German guilt in the 1980s, see Meier, The Unmas-
terable Past.
10. Peter Schneider, “The Germans Are Breaking an Old Taboo,” New York Times,
January 18, 2003, p. A17, 19.
11. Günter Grass, Crabwalk, translated by Krishna Winston (New York: Har-
court, 2003). The more notable and widest read works include Jörg Friedrich, Der
Brand (The Fire) (Berlin: Propyläen Verlag, 2002); W. G. Sebald, “A Natural History
of Destruction,” New Yorker, November 4, 2002, pp. 66–77; and Anthony Beevor, The
Fall of Berlin 1945 (Viking Books, 2002).
12. Grass, Crabwalk, p. 103.
14. MacDonogh, “Remembrance to Heal Your Soul,” p. W4.
15. Grass, Crabwalk, pp. 201–02.
17. See Stephan Burgdorff and Stefan Aust, eds., Die Flucht (München: DVA/Der
Spiegel, 2002).
18. See “ Warum nicht Berlin?” Stuttgarter Zeitung, August 2, 2004, Kultur, p. 31,
and “Vertreibungs-Zentrum sorgt für neuen Streit,” Süddeutsche Zeitung, March 19,
2004, p. 7.
19. Richard Bernstein, “Germans Revisit War’s Agony, Ending a Taboo,” New York
Times, March 15, 2003, p. A3.
20. Schneider, “The Germans are Breaking an Old Taboo,” p. A19.
21. Ibid. He also writes, “I belong to the generation that declared war on the Nazi
generation with its rebellion in 1968. The student revolutionaries of 1968 simply
banished from their version of history all stories about Germans that did not fit with
the picture of the ‘generation of perpetrators.’ It was the frantic attempt to shake off
the shackles that bound them to the guilty generation and regain their innocence by
identifying with the victims of Nazism.”
22. Bernstein, “Germans Revisit War’s Agony,” p. A19.
23. The standard work on this topic is Lily Gardner Feldman, The Special Rela-
tionship between West Germany and Israel (Boston: Allen and Unwin, 1984).
24. Interview with Julius Schoeps, professor of contemporary history and direc-
tor of the Moses Mendelssohn Center for European Jewish Studies at the University
of Potsdam,“Mehr Juden kommen nach Deutschland als nach Israel,” Das Parlament
53/31-32, July 28–August 4, 2003, p. 11.
25. Michael Wolffsohn, “Endlos nach der ‘Endlösung’: Deutsche und Juden,” Aus
Politik und Zeitsgeschichte, vols. 35–36 (September 2002), p. 4.
29. Martin Walser, Friedenspreis des Deutschen Buchhandels 1998 (Frankfurt:
Suhrkamp, 1998), pp. 18, 20; see also MacDonogh, “Remembrance to Heal Your
Soul,” p. W4.
30. Petra Bornhoeft and others, “Die Probebohrung,” Der Spiegel, May 27, 2002,
p. 22.
31. Julia Naumann, “Chronologie des Antisemitismus–Streits in der FDP,” Agence
France-Presse–German, May 31, 2002.
32. “Mit dem Wirbel um Karsli fing es an: Chronik zu Jürgen Möllemann: vom
Streit mit der FDP bis zum vorläufigen Abschluss des Ermittlungsverfahrens zu
seinem Tod,” Associated Press, July 9, 2003.
33. Bornhoeft and others, “Die Probebohrung,” p. 22. The fact that the FDP did
better among the youngest voters in both western and eastern Germany may be
related to this declaration. See Forschungsgruppe Wahlen (FGW), Bundestagswahl:
Eine Analyse der Wahl vom 22. September 2002 (Mannheim: Institut für Wahlanaly-
sen und Gesellschaftsbeobachtung, September 2002), p. 55.
34. Bornhoeft and others, “Die Probebohrung,” p. 22.
35. Forschungsgruppe Wahlen, Bundestagswahl, p. 33.
36. Schoeps, “Mehr Juden kommen nach Deutschland als nach Israel,” p. 11.
38. Bernstein, “Germans Revisit War’s Agony,” p. A3.
40. Wolffsohn, “Endlos nach der ‘Endlösung,’” p. 3.
41. Wolffsohn, “Endlos nach der ‘Endlösung,’” pp. 3–6, and Edward Rothstein,
“Mutating Virus: Hatred of Jews,” New York Times, May 17, 2003, p. A 21.
42. Rothstein, “Mutating Virus,” p. A21.
43. Schoeps, “Mehr Juden kommen nach Deutschland als nach Israel,” p. 11.
44. Peter Steinfels, The Neoconservatives:The Men Who Are Changing America’s
Politics (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1979), p. 26.
45. Stanley Hoffmann, “The High and Mighty,” American Prospect, January 13,
2003, quoted in Timothy Garton Ash, “Anti-Europeanism in America,” New York
Review of Books, February 13, 2003, p. 34.
46. Ian Buruma, “How to Talk About Israel,” New York Times Magazine, August
31, 2003, pp. 30, 32.
47. This quote has been cited often. One such citation is Josef Joffe, “The Demons
of Europe,” Commentary, vol. 117, no. 1 (January 2004) ( www.commentary-
magazine.com/Summaries/V117I1P31-1.htm [July 30, 2004]).
48. See Stephen F. Szabo, The Diplomacy of German Unification (New York: St.
Martin’s Press, 1992), pp. 46–51, 70–72, and 122; and Philip Zelikow and Con-
doleezza Rice, Germany Unified and Europe Transformed: A Study in Statecraft
(Harvard University Press, 1995), pp. 96–101, 114–18, 165.
49. James Mann, The Rise of the Vulcans: The History of Bush’s War Cabinet (New
York: Viking, 2004), pp. 210–11.
50. See Schröder’s interview with Die Zeit, “Am Ende der ersten Halbzeit,” Die
Zeit, August 15, 2002, p. 3.
51. Heribert Prantl, “Schröder’s Rucksack,” Süddeutsche Zeitung, August 8, 2002
(www.sueddeutsche.de [July 2, 2004]).
52. Joachim Krause, “Multilateralism: Behind European Views,” Washington

Quarterly, vol. 27 (Spring 2004), p. 49.
53. Gunther Hellmann, “Wider die machtpolitische Resozialisierung der
deutschen Außenpolitik,” Welt Trends, vol. 12 (2004), pp. 82–83.
54. Ibid., pp.81, 86. A 2004 poll conducted by the Konrad Adenauer Foundation
found that support for a foreign policy that put German interests first was stronger
among supporters of the CDU/CSU than among Green and SPD supporters but that
45.3 percent of all Germans polled favored this approach while 37.8 percent favored
a human rights–oriented approach and 31.2 percent favored one in which Germany
supports European unification. Respondents were not limited to one response. Viola
Neu, Die Deutschen und die Außen- und Europapolitik: Eine Umfrage der Konrad
Adenauer Stiftung (Berlin: Konrad Adenauer Stiftung, 2004), p. 14.
55. Jochen Thies, “Das Ringen um eine neue Weltordnung,” APZG 25 (June 21,
2002), p. 3.
56. Henry A. Kissinger,“The ‘Made in Berlin’ Generation,” Washington Post, Octo-
ber 30, 2002, p. A23.
57. Ronald Inglehart, “Globalization and Postmodern Values,” Washington Quar-
terly (Winter 2000), pp. 215–28.
58. Rachel Seiffert,“Generation Gap,” Financial Times Weekend, September 21/22,
2002, p. I. There is a large literature on the generation of 1968 in Europe, including
the following: Ronald Fraser, ed., 1968: A Student Generation in Revolt (New York:
Pantheon, 1988); H. Stuart Hughes, Sophisticated Rebels: The Political Culture of
European Dissent 1968–1987 (Harvard University Press, 1988); and, for a good gen-
eral overview, William L. Hitchcock, The Struggle for Europe: The Turbulent History
of a Divided Continent (New York: Doubleday, 2002), pp. 243–68.
59. Karen Andresen and others, “Freund oder Feind,” Der Spiegel, no. 40 (2002),
p. 113.
60. Quoted in Gunther Hellmann, “Deutschland in Europa: Eine symbiotische
Beziehung,” APZG 48 (December 2, 2002), p. 24.
61. Schröder interview with Die Zeit, February 4, 1999, pp. 33–34, quoted in
Hellmann, “Deutschland in Europa,” p. 24.
62. Werner Weidenfeld, Zeitenwechsel: Von Kohl zu Schröder (Stuttgart: Deutsche
Verlags Anstalt, 1999), p. 57
63. Conversation with author, April 2003. See also Jürgen Hogrefe, Gerhard
Schröder: Ein Portrait (Berlin: Siedler Verlag, 2002), pp. 208–16.
64. Michael Thurmann and Constanze Stelzenmüller, “Mit Gewehr, aber ohne
Kompass,” Die Zeit 38/2002 (www.zeit.de).
65. Florian Illies, Generation Golf: Eine Inspektion (Frankfurt: Fischer Verlag,
2002), cited in Rachel Seiffert, “Generation Gap,” Financial Times, September 21–22,
2002, p. I.
66. See Peter Merkl, German Unification in the European Context (Pennsylvania
State University Press, 1993), pp. 40–50.
67. Seiffert, “Generation Gap,” p. I.

68. Neuer Markt (new market) refers to the rise and fall of the equity market in
the high-tech sector. This was a bold experiment in a country with few individual
investors in the stock market; its rapid rise and collapse dashed the hopes of many
young aspiring entrepreneurs in Germany.
69. Matthias Albert and others, “Zusammenfassung und Hauptergebnisse,”
Jugend 2002: 14 Shell Jugendstudie (Frankfurt: Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, August
2002), p. 3. However, the voting patterns in the 2002 federal election indicate that the
89ers and the Gen Xers voted more heavily for the Greens and the Liberals (FDP),
while the Christian Democrats depended disproportionately on the World War II
generation. The 68ers were slightly more likely to vote SPD and Green. Women of
the younger generations were even more supportive of the Greens and the SPD.
Young eastern Germans followed similar patterns, although the support for the
Greens was much less than in the western part of the country. This is consistent with
data indicating that the number of postmaterialists in eastern Germany dropped
during the past decade and that materialists exceed postmaterialists by 7 points.
The neocommunist PDS lost support among the young; it is clearly a party of
middle-aged and old supporters. Forschungsgruppe Wahlen, Bundestagswahl,
pp. 53–56.
70. Albert and others, “Zusammenfassung und Hauptergebnisse,” p. 9.
71. Susanne Gaschke, “Die Postnaiven Friedenskinder,” Die Zeit, September 8,
2003.
72. “Jeder dritte Jugendliche protestiert gegen den Krieg,” Spiegel Online, March
29, 2003 (www.spiegel.de).
73. Markus Deggerich,“Generation Golfkrieg: Augen zu und Finger hoch,” Spiegel
Online, March 29, 2003 (www.spiegel.de).
74. Gaschke, “Die postnaiven Friedenskinder.”
75. Quoted in Gaschke, “Die Postnaiven Friedenskinder.”
76. Viola Neu, Die Deutschen und die Außen- und Europapolitik, p. 26. While the
numbers were predictably worse among supporters of the Greens and SPD, 66.1
percent of CDU/CSU supporters agreed with this statement.
77. Nina Bernstein, “Young Germans Ask: Thanks for What?” New York Times,
March 9, 2003, p. 3.
78. Quoted in Gaschke, “Die Postnaiven Friedenskinder.”
79. See, for example, Helmut Schmidt, Menschen und Mächte (Berlin: Siedler,
1987), pp. 264–80.
80. For these data see Joseph P. Quinlan, Drifting Apart or Growing Together? The
Primacy of the Transatlantic Economy (Washington: Center for Transatlantic Rela-
tions, Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins
University, 2003).
81. Mann, The Rise of the Vulcans, p. 21.
82. They include the G.I. Generation, Silent Generation, Boomers, Generation X,
and the Millennial Generation. Neil Howe and Bill Strauss, Millennials Rising: The
Next Great Generation (New York: Vintage, 2000).
83. Steinfels, The Neoconservatives, p. 26.
84. Mann, The Rise of the Vulcans. James Bamford referred to the Cheney quote
in an opinion piece, “Untested Administration Hawks Clamor for War,” USA Today,
September 12, 2002: “Last month, Vice President Cheney emerged briefly to give sev-
eral two-gun talks before veterans groups in which he spoke of ‘regime change’ and
a ‘liberated Iraq.’ ‘We must take the battle to the enemy,’ he said of the war on ter-
rorism. Cheney went on to praise the virtue of military service. ‘The single most
important asset we have,’ he said, ‘is the man or woman who steps forward and puts
on the uniform of this great nation.’ But during the bloodiest years of the Vietnam
War, Cheney decided against wearing that uniform. Instead, he used multiple defer-
ments to avoid military service altogether. ‘I had other priorities in the ‘60s than
military service,’ he once said. ”
85. Based on author’s impressions as a guest at the event, September 16, 2003.
86. The phrase is taken from the book by Walter Isaacson and Evan Thomas,
The Wise Men: Six Friends and the World They Made (New York: Simon and Schus-
ter, 1986).
87. Mann, The Rise of the Vulcans, p. xiii.
88. The term comes from David Halberstam’s devastating study, The Best and the
Brightest (New York: Random House, 1969).
90. Quoted in Thomas Alan Schwartz, Lyndon Johnson and Europe: The Shadow
of Vietnam (Harvard University Press, 2003), p. 10.
92. Ibid., p. x.
93. For Kissinger’s concerns, see Henry A. Kissinger, White House Years (Boston:
Little, Brown, 1979).
94. Transcript of NBC’s Today Show, February 19, 1998, “Secretary of State
Madeleine Albright Discusses Her Visit to Ohio to Get Support from American Peo-
ple for Military Action against Iraq”: Albright: “But if we have to use force, it is
because we are America. We are the indispensable nation. We stand tall, and we see
further than other countries into the future, and we see the danger here to all of us.
And I know that the American men and women in uniform are always prepared to
sacrifice for freedom, democracy, and the American way of life.”
Notes to Chapter Seven

1. Dana Milbank and Colum Lynch, “Bush Fails to Gain Pledges on Troops or
Funds for Iraq,” Washington Post, September 25, 2003, p. A22; see also “Die Gerd und
George Show,” Spiegel Online, September 25, 2003.
2. “Schmeicheleien im Oval Office,” Spiegel Online, February 27, 2004

(www.spiegel.de/politik/ deutschland/0,1518,288256,00.html).
3. Matthias Streitz, “Sticheleien vor dem Treffen,” Spiegel Online, September 24,
2003 (www.spiegel.de).
4. Lally Weymouth, “Schroeder: ‘We Have a Good Relationship,’” Washington
Post, February 29, 2004, p. B7.
5. Interview with Chancellery official, June 2003.
6. Quoted by Jim Hoagland, “Three Miscreants,” Washington Post, April 13, 2003,
p. B7.
7. See John Kampfner, Blair’s Wars (London: Free Press, 2003), chapters 12 –14;
Peter Stothard, Thirty Days: Tony Blair and the Test of History (New York: Harper
Collins, 2003), p. 87; and Philip Stephens, Tony Blair: The Making of a World Leader
(New York: Viking, 2004), ch.12.
8. Thomas Friedman, “Our War with France,” New York Times, September 18,
2003, p. A27.
9. Stephens, Tony Blair, p. 227.
10. Interview with author, April 2003.
11. Quoted in Stothard, Thirty Days, p. 42.
12. A Year after Iraq War Mistrust of America in Europe Ever Higher, Muslim Anger
Persists (Washington: Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, March 16,
2004), pp. 6–9; Viola Neu, Die Deutschen und die Außen- und Europapolitik: Eine
Umfrage der Konrad Adenauer Stiftung (Berlin: Konrad Adenauer Stiftung, 2004),
pp. 25–26.
13. Kampfner, Blair’s Wars, p. 242.
14. Kampfner, Blair’s Wars, p. 243.
15. Stephens, Tony Blair, p. 226.
16. For a good survey of this literature, see Peter G. Northouse, Leadership The-
ory and Practice (Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage Publications, 2004) and Harvard
Business Review on What Makes a Leader (Harvard Business School, 2001), pp. 1–25,
153–76.
17. A study done by PIPA of the views of Americans regarding their information
levels and the accuracy of people’s views of the facts during the Iraq war found that
those who got most of their news from Fox News and CBS were the least well
informed on the facts of the war while those who received their information from
Public Broadcast news and television were the best informed, followed by those who
watched NBC news. Steven Kull, Clay Ramsay, and Evan Lewis, “Misperception, the
Media, and the Iraq War,” Political Science Quarterly, vol. 118, no. 4 (Winter
2003–2004), pp. 569–98; see especially pp. 581–86.
18. Ian Johnson, “Conspiracy Theories about Sept. 11 Get Hearing in Germany,”
Wall Street Journal, September 29, 2003, p. A12.
19. See, for example, the books by Bob Woodward, Plan of Attack (New York:
Simon and Schuster, 2004); Ron Suskind, The Price of Loyalty: George W. Bush, the
White House, and the Education of Paul O’Neill (New York: Simon and Schuster,
2004); and Richard Clarke, Against All Enemies: Inside America’s War on Terrorism
(New York: Free Press, 2004).
20. The German Marshall Fund of the United States and the Compagnia Di San
Paolo, Transatlantic Trends 2003, a report released by the German Marshall Fund in
Washington in the summer of 2003, pp. 8–11.
21. Pew Research Center, Mistrust of America in Europe Ever Higher, pp. 8–9.
22. Pew Research Center, Mistrust of America in Europe Ever Higher, pp. 7–9; Neu,
Die Deutschen und die Außen- und Europapolitik, pp. 25–26.
23. Neu, Die Deutschen und die Außen- und Europapolitik, p. 27.
24. Pew Research Center, Mistrust of America in Europe Ever Higher, p. 8.
25. Ronald D. Asmus, “Rebuilding the Atlantic Alliance,” Foreign Affairs, vol. 82,
no. 5 (September-October 2003), p. 22.
26. Harald Müller, “Terrorism, Proliferation: A European Threat Assessment,”
Chaillot Papers, no. 58 (Paris: Institute for Security Studies, March 2003), p. 87.
27. Müller, “Terrorism, Proliferation,” p. 88.
28. See, for example, Asmus, “Rebuilding the Atlantic Alliance,” pp. 23–31; and
Charles Grant, Transatlantic Rift: Bringing the Two Sides Together (London: Centre
for European Reform, 2003); and Henry A. Kissinger and Lawrence H. Summers,
Renewing the Atlantic Partnership (New York: Council on Foreign Relations, 2004).
29. The original version of this strategy was presented in what was known as the
Solana paper, after Javier Solana, the EU’s High Representative for the Common
Foreign and Security Policy: Javier Solana, “A Secure Europe in a Better World”
(Thessaloniki,Greece: European Council), June 6, 2003 (http://ue.eu.int).
30. The comparable numbers supporting participation in military action were,
in France, 41 percent (United States only), 47 percent (NATO), and 45 percent (UN);
in the United Kingdom, 37 percent (United States), 55 percent (NATO), and 56 per-
cent (UN); in the United States, 58 percent (United States), 68 percent (NATO), and
72 percent (UN): German Marshall Fund and Compagnia Di San Paolo, Transat-
lantic Trends 2003, pp. 29–31.
31. For more on this topic, see Charles Grant, Transatlantic Rift, pp. 84–91.
32. For more on this trilateral relationship, see Karin L. Johnston, “The United
States, Russia, and Germany: A New Alignment in a Post-Iraq World?” AICGS Pol-
icy Report 9 (Washington: American Institute for Contemporary German Studies,
2003).
33. See Jon B. Alterman, “The Promise of Partnership: U.S.-EU Coordination in
the Middle East,” AICGS Policy Report 10 (Washington: American Institute for Con-
temporary German Studies, 2003).
34. Judy Demsey and Heba Safeh, “EU condemns Bush over Israel stance,” Finan-
cial Times, April 16, 2004, p. 1.
35. G. John Ikenberry, “American Grand Strategy in the Age of Terror,” Survival
vol. 43/4 (Winter 2001–02), p. 25.
36. Asmus, “Rebuilding the Atlantic Alliance,” p. 29.

37. Robert Kagan, “Power and Weakness,” Policy Review no. 113 (June/July 2002),
pp. 3–28.
38. Andrew J. Bacevich, “Vicious Circles,” Washington Post Book World, February
29, 2004, p. 5. See also Bacevich, American Empire: The Realities and Consequences of
U.S. Diplomacy (Harvard University Press, 2002).
39. Quoted in Jeffrey Fleishman, “Iraq One Year Later: U.S.-European Relations
Turn Pragmatic,” Los Angeles Times, March 25, 2004, Part A, p. 1.
40. David P. Calleo, “Power, Wealth, and Wisdom: The United States and Europe
after Iraq,” National Interest, vol. 72 (Summer 2003), p.15.
41. Martin Wolf, “America May Not Like the New World It Is About to Create,”
Financial Times, March 12, 2003, p. 13.
42. The classic formulation of this interpretation remains that of A.W. DePorte,
Europe between the Superpowers: The Enduring Balance (Yale University Press, 1979).
43. See David Calleo, The German Problem Reconsidered (Cambridge University
Press, 1978).
44. Thomas Banchoff, The German Problem Transformed: Institutions, Politics
and Foreign Policy, 1945–1995 (University of Michigan Press, 1999), p. 175. See also
John S. Duffield, World Power Forsaken: Political Culture, International Institutions,
and German Security Policy after Unification (Stanford University Press, 1998); Ali-
son McCartney, ”International Structure Versus Domestic Politics: German Foreign
Policy in the Post Cold War Era,” International Politics, vol. 39, no.1 (March 2002),
pp. 101–10.
45. Heinrich August Winkler, Der lange Weg nach Westen: vom Dritten Reich bis
zur Wiedervereinigung, vol. 2 (Munich: Beck Verlag, 2000), p. 655.
46. McCartney, “International Structure,” p. 109. See also Volker Rittberger,
“Approaches to the Study of Foreign Policy Derived from International Relations
Theories,” in Comparative Foreign Policy Analysis: Theories and Methods, edited by
Margaret Hermann and Bengt Sundelius (Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice Hall,
2004).
47. Hajo Holborn, A History of Modern Germany 1840–1945 (Princeton Univer-
sity Press, 1969), p. 236.
48. Michael Stürmer, “Welcome to the German Question, Once Again,” draft
article for publication in Die Welt.
49. Calleo, Rethinking Europe’s Future (Princeton University Press, 2001), p. 27.
50. Zbigniew Brzezinski, The Choice: Domination or Leadership (New York: Basic
Books, 2004); the quote is taken from the review written by David Ignatius, “Voice
of Experience,” Washington Post Book World, February 29, 2004, p. 5.
Index
Acheson, Dean, 128 Bacevich, Andrew, 147

Adenauer, Konrad, 7, 8, 76, 79, 92 Baker, James, 24, 53, 54, 58
Afghanistan: German military support Balkan conflict, 58, 141, 142
in, 17, 23, 44, 76, 141, 142; Schröder Banchoff, Thomas, 150
on U.S. policy in, 16; U.S. unilateral- Basque terrorists. See ETA
ism in, 17 Benes Decrees, 108
Albright, Madeline, 130 Berger, Sandy, 57
Allin, Dana, 57 Berlin, 104–05
Al Motassadeq, Mounir, 18 Berlusconi, Silvio, 43, 133
al Qaeda, 16, 18, 63, 67, 72; in Ger- Bindenagel, J.D., 124
many, 70, 97. See also Terrorism bin Laden, Osama, 16
Al-Shehhi, Marwan, 18 Bismarck, Otto von, 151
American Enterprise Institute, 56 Blair, Tony: on German position in
Anti-Americanism, 79–82, 88, 89–103, Europe, 134; as intermediary
113, 118 between U.S. and Germany, 135;
Antisemitism: in Europe, 58; in Ger- and need for second UN resolution,
many, 60, 103, 105, 110–12; 32, 43, 133; U.S. public opinion of,
neoconservative reaction to, 114 85; U.S. relations and position in
Applebaum, Anne, 98 Europe, 132–33
Ashcroft, John, 70, 94 Blix, Hans, 42–43, 46
Asmus, Ronald, 147 Bohlen, Charles, 128
Aspin, Les, 65 Bolton, John, 55
Asylum refugees in Germany, 97 Bonn republic, 105–23
Atta, Mohammed, 18 Brandon, Henry, 128
Aznar, José María, 39, 43, 73, 133 Brandt, Willy, 7, 8, 70, 76
Brzezinski, Zbignew, 152
Baader, Andreas, 70 Burns, Arthur, 123
Baader Meinhof, 68, 70 Burt, Richard, 123
187
188 Index
Buruma, Ian, 107, 114 Center against Expulsions, 108–09

Bush, George H. W.: comparison to G. Central Council of Jews in Germany,
W. Bush administration, 5, 53, 62, 112, 113
87, 130; foreign policy, 53, 58, 62, Chanda, Nayan, 69
67, 87; German public opinion, 89; Chemical and Biological Weapons
on German unification, 5, 82, 115; Treaty, 15
on pacifism of Germany, 76; rela- Cheney, Richard: in Bush (G. H. W.)
tions with world leaders, 129; and administration, 53, 61; nationalist
traditional realists, 54, 58; on U.S.- conservative foreign policy, 61–62;
German relations, 4, 8, 10 on preeminence of U.S., 67; on
Bush, George W.: attitude toward regime change in Iraq (8/02), 24–25;
Europe, 5; background, 9, 52–53, on terrorism, 68; and UN resolu-
126; and Cheney’s speech, 26; com- tions on Iraq, 32; on weapons
parison to G. H. W. Bush inspections in Iraq, 46–47
administration, 5, 53, 62, 87, 130; Chile, on Iraq war resolution, 43
foreign policy, 52–53, 54, 55, 61; on Chirac, Jacques: on Blair-Schröder rela-
future of German relations, 6; Ger- tionship, 135; German public
man public opinion, 82–89, 91; opinion of, 85; opposed to Iraq war,
Pentagon-State Department feud, 42, 43, 48–49; relationship with
53; and UN speech (9/02), 32; on Schröder, 12, 37, 38–41, 133, 134.
war on terrorism, 18. See also Bush- See also French-German relations
Schröder relationship Christian Democratic Union (CDU),
Bush-Schröder relationship: back- 16, 31; on American way of life, 90;
ground, 9–13; in Berlin (5/02), and Bavarian affiliate, 108; on Bush
19–22; Bush’s praise of German ally, administration, 84; foreign policy
19, 131; Daübler-Gmelin’s remarks, experience of, 120; and German
30–31, 135; failure of leadership, political economy, 93; on multicul-
132–37; in NYC (9/03), 131; person- turalism, 98; and national identity,
ality differences, 6, 9–12, 132, 135, 96; on NATO missile deployment, 8;
136; and reaction to September 11, opposition to Schröder’s Iraq policy,
15–17; and reelection of Schröder, 41; opposition to U.S. Iraq policy,
28–29, 31–32; telephone conversa- 41, 84
tion (11/02), 35; in Washington Christian right in U.S., 100–01
(10/01), 16; in Washington (2/02), Christian Social Union, 108
18; in Washington (2/04), 131–32 Civilian power in Germany, 74–77
Byford, Grenville, 72 Civil liberties vs. national security,
70–71, 94
Caldwell, Christopher, 59 Clarke, Richard, 16, 73
Calleo, David, 148, 151 Clay, Lucius, 123
Capitalism, German views on, 93–94 Clinton, Bill, 4, 8, 67, 89
Carter, Jimmy, 7, 79 Coats, Daniel, 20, 28, 124
Catholic Church, 41 Cocteau, Jean, 81
CDU. See Christian Democratic Union Cold war: as check on U.S. hubris, 148;
Index 189
and German-U.S. relationship, modation, 58; support for Bush’s

80–81, 103; German vs. U.S. views Iraq policy, 39–40
on end of, 82, 120; and neoconserv- European Union (EU): coordinator for
ative thinking, 58. See also Détente counterterrorism, 73; defense force
Conrad, Joseph, 67–68 for, 76; German role in, 3, 6, 13, 19,
Cooper, Robert, 75 39, 115, 152; potential power of, 2;
Culture clash, 52–78; civilian power in relations with U.S., 2–4; Turkish
Germany, 74–76; German-U.S. membership proposed, 35
divergence, 77–78, 103; military Evangelical Christians, 114
force in Germany, 76–77; nationalist
conservative viewpoint in U.S., Falwell, Jerry, 100–01
60–62; neoconservative viewpoint FDP. See Free Democratic Party
in U.S., 55–60; traditional realist Feith, Douglas, 55
viewpoint in U.S., 53–55 Finlandization of Europe, 57
Czech-German relations, 108 Fischer, Joschka: background, 118; on
German relationship with France,
Daalder, Ivo, 54, 66 49; on German relationship with
Däubler-Gmelin, Herta, 1, 29–30, 114, U.S., 50; in Iran nuclear program
135 negotiations, 142; Kelly’s criticism
Democracy, German view of, 92–95 of, 60; on lack of evidence for Iraq
Détente, 7, 57–58, 76 war, 40–41, 47–48; leadership style,
De Villepin, Dominique, 37–38, 40, 42 119; on lessons of Nazi past, 17; on
Diepgen, Eberhard, 8–9 public attitude toward war in Iraq,
Dresden fire bombings, 107, 113 22; relationship with Powell, 35; on
UN Resolution 1441, 37; Wolfowitz
Eagelburger, Lawrence, 24, 54 meeting (9/01), 16
Eastern agenda and U.S.-German rela- Fitzgerald, Frances, 61–62
tionship, 143–44 Floods in Germany, 21–22
Eastern German public opinion, 83, 84, Foreign policy. See specific countries and
100, 105, 123 leaders
Economic views of Germans, 93–94 France: anti-American sentiment of, 88;
89ers, 121–22 antiwar sentiment, 48–49; EU role,
ElBaradei, Mohamed, 42–43 3; knowledge of U.S. plans in Iraq,
Election procedure in Germany, 22 36; and UN Resolution 1441, 36, 38.
An End to Evil (Perle and Frum), 59 See also French-German relations
Erhard, Ludwig, 8, 92 Free Democratic Party (FDP), 84, 93,
Erlanger, Steven, 22, 26, 28 112
ETA, 68, 73 Freedman, Lawrence, 69
Europe: Bush (G. W.) administration French-German relations: coalition
view of, 64–65; German question as formation, 3, 11, 12, 38–41, 44,
focus of, 152; nationalism, 3; neo- 48–51, 105, 133–34, 144, 152; Elysée
conservative views on, 57, 59; old vs. treaty, 7, 8, 38; on Iraq war policy,
new, 10, 59; preference for accom- 37, 38–41, 49
190 Index
Friedman, Michel, 112 Gordon, Philip, 49

Friedman, Thomas, 133 Gourdault-Montagne, Maurice, 36
Friedrich, Jörg, 112–13 Grass, Günter, 107–08
Frum, David, 6, 59 Greene, Graham, 71
Greens: anti-U.S. sentiment of, 16, 90;
Gabriel, Sigmar, 37 and economic reform, 93; foreign
Gatzke, Hans W., 80 policy experience of, 120; and Iraq
Gedmin, Jeffrey, 56 issue, 31, 37; and reelection of
Generation change: in Bush adminis- Schröder, 21, 24
tration, 126–27; 89ers, 121–22; Gen Greenspan, Alan, 127
Xers, 120; and German views on Growth and Stability Pact, 116
World War II, 109; Gulf War genera- Guantanamo Bay prisoners, 71, 94
tion, 122; in leadership, 117–26; Guest worker program, 97
68ers, 109, 118, 119–20
Genscher, Hans Dietrich, 4, 75 Haass, Richard, 24
Gen Xers, 120 Hacke, Christian, 50, 51
German public opinion: anti-Ameri- Hagel, Chuck, 24, 54
canism, 80–82, 89–103; on Bush Harriman, Averrell, 128
administration, 82–89, 91, 122; on Hegemonist strategy, 66–67
democracy, 92–95; and generation Hellmann, Gunther, 116, 117
change, 117–23; on globalization, Heritage Foundation, 56
94–95; images of U.S., 79–103; on Hitler, Bush compared to, 1, 29, 114,
Iraq, 27, 37, 41, 82–85, 109–10; loss 135
of confidence in Schröder, 34; loss Hoffmann, Stanley, 114
of confidence in U.S., 139–40; on Hogrefe, Jürgen, 119
military action against nuclear- Holborn, Hajo, 151
armed countries, 142; on Holbrooke, Richard, 124
multiculturalism and national iden- Holocaust, 106–08, 110–11
tity, 95–99; on patriotism, 99–103; Hoover Institution, 56
response to September 11, 17, Howe, Neil, 126
82–85; response to U.S. policy on Hudson Institute, 56
Iraq, 5–6, 31, 33, 84; Schröder on Huntington, Samuel, 2
antiwar sentiment of, 22–23, 45–46; Hussein, Saddam, 16, 20, 73. See also
on secularism, 99–103. See also Iraq war
Eastern German public opinion
German Way. See Schröder, Gerhard Ignatieff, Michael, 66
German-U.S. relations. See U.S.-Ger- Ikenberry, G. John, 147
man relations Immigration to Germany, 80, 96–98,
Globalization: German view of, 94–95; 110; Jewish, 110
terrorism and, 68 International Criminal Court, 15, 119
Glos, Michael, 27, 98 International Monetary Fund, 8
Glotz, Peter, 108–09 Iran nuclear program, 142, 145
Gorbachev, Mikhail, 82, 89, 120 Iraq: dispute prior to war, 44–47; post-
Index 191
war events, 47–48; reconstruction Kerry, John, 69

efforts, 146; Spain’s withdrawal Kissinger, Henry: on generational
from, 73. See also Iraq war changes in leadership, 117; on Ger-
Iraq war: Bush’s concerns, 63; Euro- man-American relations, 44, 79,
pean view of, 74; French and U.S. 129; on German unification, 115;
differences, 37–38; German assis- neoconservative views of, 55; U.S.
tance announced, 35; German foreign policy under, 7, 8, 123
conditions for entering, 18–19; Ger- Kohl, Helmut, 4, 8, 11, 76, 106, 115, 118
man public opinion, 84, 122; Kölsch, Eberhard, 39
Schröder’s stance in reelection, Kornblum, John, 8–9, 124
22–28; start of, 43–44; UN failure to Kosovo war: German participation in,
authorize, 42–44; U.S. intelligence 17, 23, 76, 119, 142; lessons learned
as basis for, 46; U.S. public opinion, from, 18
32; U.S. troop movements prior to, Kramer, Jane, 12
40 Krause, Joachim, 116
Ischinger, Wolfgang, 25, 127 Krauthammer, Charles, 55, 58
Islam, American view of, 101–02 Kristol, Irving, 55
Islamist fundamentalists in Germany, Kristol, William, 55
97 Kyoto Treaty, 15, 119, 146
Israel: European views of, 58, 74,
144–45; German assistance prom- Lafontaine, Oskar, 120
ised during Iraq war, 34; German Lagos, Ricardo, 43
views of, 74, 110, 113–15, 144–45; Larres, Klaus, 76
Iraq war seen in terms of U.S. policy Letter of Eight, 39, 41
in, 63; neoconservatives support Levitte, Jean David, 39
for, 113–14. See also Middle East Libby, I. Lewis (“Scooter”), 55, 67, 127
conflict Libya, 71
Ivanov, Igor, 38 Likud party, 113, 114
Lindsay, James, 54, 66
Jackson, Henry, 57 Lovett, Robert, 128
Jackson-Vanik amendment, 114 Lugar, Richard, 24, 54
Jews, 110–15. See also Antisemitism; Lukacs, John, 82
Holocaust
Joffe, Joseph, 77 Madison, James, 148
Jones, James, 40 Madrid, terrorist bombings in, 73
Judt, Tony, 88, 101 Maier, Charles, 106–07
Mann, James, 67, 126, 127–28
Kagan, Robert, 55, 147, 148 Maull, Hanns W., 75, 78
Kastrup, Dieter, 23, 25 McCartney, Alison, 150
Katzenstein, Peter, 74 McCloy, John, 123, 128
Kelly, Michael, 58, 60 McGhee, George, 123
Kennan, George F., 123, 128 Meinhof, Ulrike, 70
Kennedy, John F., 7, 79, 89, 128 Merkel, Angela, 41
192 Index
Mexico, on Iraq war resolution, 43 operations, 44, 143; and war on ter-
Middle East conflict: escalation of, 63; rorism, 17
European vs. U.S. view of, 71, 74; North Korea, 77, 142
German view of Palestinian terror- Nye, Joseph, 2
ism, 111; strategic agenda of U.S.
and Germany in, 78, 144–46 O’Neil, Paul, 16
Military bases (U.S.) in Germany, 35, Operation Enduring Freedom, 17, 141,
124–25 142. See also Afghanistan
Military force of Germany, 76–77 Ostpolitik, 7, 8, 57, 76, 116, 129
Mitterrand, François, 115
Möllemann, Jürgen, 103, 111–12, 113 Pacifism of Germany, 76, 81, 84
Moore, Michael, 94 Palestinian terrorism, 111
Morris, David, 89, 102 Parker, John, 99
Müller, Harald, 141 Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS),
Multiculturalism, German view of, 21–22
95–99 Patten, Christopher, 56, 71
Munich Syndrome, 58 Perle, Richard, 6, 55, 57, 59, 114, 127,
141
National identity in Germany, 95–99 Perthes, Volker, 74
National Interest, 56 Pflüger, Friedbert, 27, 79
Nationalism, German suspicions of, 86 Pleuger, Guenter, 36, 42, 46
Nationalist conservatives in U.S. for- Powell, Colin: on Iraq war, 63; on need
eign policy, 60–62, 127 for second UN resolution, 32, 39;
National Security Strategy of the United relationship with Fischer, 35; as tra-
States of America, 64–65 ditional realist, 54–55, 127; at UN
NATO. See North Atlantic Treaty ministerial-level Security Council
Organization meeting (1/03), 37–38; UN speech
Naumann, Klaus, 28, 64 justifying war on Iraq, 40, 42
Neoconservatives in U.S. foreign policy, Powell doctrine, 54
55–60; on Israel, 113–14; in rela- Preemptive military force, 65–67, 86,
tions with Germany, 127, 129, 141; 143
after September 11, 62–63 Preventive war, 65–66, 143
New Atlantic Initiative, 56 Putin, Vladimir, 13, 85
New Republic, 56
Nitze, Paul H., 128 Qadhafi, Muammar, 71
Nixon, Richard, 7, 89
North Atlantic Treaty Organization Reagan, Ronald: at Bitburg cemetery,
(NATO): defense support to Turkey, 106; German view of, 7, 82, 85–86,
41, 46; diminished importance, 64; 89, 120; neoconservatives and, 55,
enlargement of, 64, 143; Germany’s 58
role in, 8, 44, 64, 76, 143; and missile Red party. See Social Democrats (SPD)
deployment in Germany, 7–8, 58; Reelection of Schröder, 31–33; and
Reaction Force for counterterrorism German political parties, 21, 24, 27;
Index 193
and Schröder’s stand on Iraq war, 10, 27, 43–44, 134; relationship with
22–28, 31, 118; U.S. misassessment Blair, 135; relationship with Chirac,
of Schröder’s chances, 10 12, 37, 38–41, 133, 135; secularism,
Religious beliefs of Americans, 99–101 101; Stoiber debate (9/02), 26. See
Rex, Zvi, 114 also Bush-Schröder relationship;
Rice, Condoleezza: and Cheney’s Reelection of Schröder
speech, 26; on countries that did Schwan, Gesine, 109
not support Iraq war, 132; on Scowcroft, Brent, 24, 53, 54, 62, 115
Daübler-Gmelin’s remarks, 1, Security: German views on, 93; U.S.
29–30, 31; on Iraq war decision, 24, focus after September 11, 69
27; on Kyoto Treaty, 15; as tradi- September 11 terrorist attacks: Bush’s
tional realist, 54; view of Germany, epiphany, 101; conspiracy theory,
10, 12, 129 138–39; effect of, 68; German
Robertson, George, 15–16 response, 17, 70, 82–85; U.S. foreign
Rodriquez Zapatero, Jose Luis, 73 policy after, 62–63, 70
Rumsfeld, Donald: background, 127, Shapiro, Jeremy, 49
129; dealings with Struck, 34, 88; on Sharon, Ariel, 63, 85
French-German stand on Iraq, 39; 68ers, 109, 118, 119–20
on German refusal to support Iraq Social Democrats (SPD): anti-U.S. sen-
war, 40; ignoring German peace- timent of, 16, 28–29; on Center
keepers, 141; on Middle East policy, against Expulsions, 109; foreign pol-
61; as nationalist conservative on icy experience, 120; and Iraq issue,
foreign policy, 62; and UN resolu- 31, 37; on missile deployment, 8;
tions on Iraq, 32; on U.S.-German and reelection of Schröder, 21, 24,
relations, 28, 30; on U.S. unilateral- 27; Schröder’s relationship with, 11;
ism, 87 state election losses, 40
Russia: in coalition with France and Solana, Javier, 40, 73, 101
Germany, 3, 11, 41, 44, 105, 144; South Korea, 77
German relations, 13 Spain, 73
SPD. See Social Democrats
Safire, William, 58 Spiegel, Paul, 112
Schäuble, Wolfgang, 27, 88 Steinbach, Erika, 108–09
Schily, Otto, 70 Steinfels, Peter, 55, 56, 60, 113–14, 127
Schmidt, Helmut, 7–8, 59–60, 70, 76, Stephens, Philip, 133
79, 124, 127 Stiegler, Ludwig, 28
Schneider, Peter, 107, 109 Stoessel, Walter, 123
Schröder, Gerhard: background, 9, Stoiber, Edmund, 12, 21, 26, 27, 38, 80
11–12, 118; on Cheney’s speech, 25, Straw, Jack, 43
26; Erlanger interview (9/02), 26, Struck, Peter, 25, 34, 83, 88
28; foreign policy, 12–13; on Ger- Stürmer, Michael, 151
man Way, 10–11, 92, 96, 103, 105, Summers, Lawrence, 8
115–17; leadership style, 119; on
opposition to U.S. policy on Iraq, Talbott, Strobe, 69, 126
194 Index
Tenet, George, 18 42–44; German and French roles in,

Terrorism, 15–33, 67–74; Bush- 36, 42; Powell’s speech, 40, 42. See
Schröder conflict over, 17–19; also UN Resolution 1441
European readiness to accommo- UN Resolution 1441, 35–44; French-
date, 58–59; European readiness to Russian-Chinese goal, 36; German
counter, 44; European view of war decision not to support war policy,
on, 70–74; globalization and, 68; 38–41, 43–44; and need for second
history of, 67–68; Madrid bomb- UN resolution, 32, 39, 43, 133;
ings, 73; and Schröder’s reelection unanimous approval, 36; U.S. goal,
campaign, 19–33; terrorist-spon- 36; wording, 36
sored states, 69; U.S. view of war on, U.S. foreign policy: nationalist conser-
68–70, 73. See also September 11 vative view, 60–62; neoconservative
terrorist attacks view, 55–60; preeminence of U.S. as
Thatcher, Margaret, 58, 115 goal of, 66–67; preemption vs.
Thies, Jochen, 117 deterrence, 65–67; after September
Trade issues, 146 11 terrorist attacks, 62–63; tradi-
Traditional realists in U.S. foreign pol- tional realist view, 53–55. See also
icy, 53–55 Unilateralism of U.S.; specific presi-
Truman administration foreign policy dents and countries
team, 128 U.S.-German relations: background,
Turkey, 35, 41, 46 7–9, 80–82; business links, 125–26;
Turks in German population, 97 chronology, 154–58; and culture
clash, 52–78; damage after Schröder
Unification of Germany, 4, 104–30, reelection, 32–33; and Däubler-
149–50; British and French efforts Gmelin’s remarks, 1, 29–30;
to block, 115; Bush (G. H. W.) pol- discussions on war (2/02), 17–19;
icy on, 5, 82, 115 discussions on war (5/02), 20–21;
Unilateralism of Europe, 40 eastern Europe agenda, 143–44; fail-
Unilateralism of U.S., 18, 77; encour- ure of leadership, 132–37; future of,
aged by European countercoalition, 6, 140–43, 146–49, 152–53; and gen-
3–4; German view of, 31, 87; long- erational change in leadership,
term effect, 147; in Middle East, 117–26; German security and, 77;
145; nationalist conservative view, import of rift, 2–4, 44, 137–40; Mid-
62; preeminence as goal of, 66–67; dle East agenda, 144–46;
Schröder’s position on, 26 neoconservative view, 59–60; strate-
United Nations (UN): and Bush posi- gic shift in, 1–2, 3, 13–14, 44–47,
tion on Iraq, 32, 42–44; Iraq 50–51, 132; U.S. conditions for heal-
mandate as German preference, 19; ing, 35. See also Bush-Schröder
postwar reconstruction of Iraq, 47; relationship
weapons inspections in Iraq, 42–43.
See also UN Resolution 1441 Victimization viewpoint. See World
United Nations Security Council: fail- War II
ure to pass Iraq war resolution, Vilnius 10, 39
Index 195
Voigt, Karsten, 27 Weekly Standard, 56, 59

Von Bülow, Andreas, 138–39 Westerwelle, Guido, 112
Will, George, 58
Walser, Martin, 111 Winkler, Heinrich August, 150
Walt, Stephen, 76 Wolf, Martin, 149
Walters, Vernon, 123 Wolffsohn, Michael, 113
Walzer, Michael, 67 Wolfowitz, Paul: Fischer meeting
Warner, John, 54 (9/01), 16; on Iraq war, 63–64; on
War on terrorism. See Afghanistan; Middle East policy, 61; neoconserv-
Operation Enduring Freedom; ative views, 55, 127; on U.S.
Terrorism preeminence, 67
Weapons of mass destruction: faulty Woodward, Bob, 17–18, 20–21, 63
intelligence on, 40–41, 46, 47–48; World War II, German view of, 103,
strategy to prevent proliferation of, 105, 106–10
141, 142; and terrorism, 68, 69; U.S.
foreign policy on, 64–65. See also Zakheim, Dov, 54
UN Resolution 1441

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Parting

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The paper used in this publication meets minimum requirements of the

Composition by OSP, Inc.

including his grateful and fortunate son

2 From Unlimited Solidarity to

7 From Alliance to Alignment 131

T his book really began in 1974, during my first professional

mation, and ideas with me as I tried to construct a contemporary history of

Germany, in turn, is central to the answer that Europe provides to this

Not Your Father’s Germany

In their handling of German unification, George H. W. Bush and his

Personality Conflicts and Strategic Interests

got; Diepgen responded with comments about Kornblum’s behavior, imply-

Bush, Schröder, and the Failure of Leadership

man Way” he reopened concerns in Europe about a new German national-

The Black Swan

T he Bush-Schröder relationship got off to a rocky start. On the chan-

Signs of Troubled Times Ahead

The Storm Breaks

General Tommy Franks, in February of 2002.19 So when Bush told Schröder

The turning point came in an election speech that Schröder delivered in

Nevertheless, in his second televised debate with Stoiber, on September 8,

Fanning the Flames

What’s an Election Among Friends?

response was positive, it did not have much of an impact in Germany or on

The main channel of communication between the two countries at this

The Struggle over Resolution 1441 Begins

The Germans were caught between their interest in improving relations

Goodbye, Washington: Schröder Chooses France

February 5 speech about specific Iraqi violations. This strengthened the

in the framework of international terrorism. German intelligence

On the contrary, there is a great danger that it would provide false

After the Storm

The Shift to France

France plays a very meaningful role in world politics. It has a vision of

Minister Fischer’s characterization of the U.S.-German relationship as

The German-American relationship was fundamentally altered by the

The Traditional Realists

cate of this perspective within the administration, as well as the primary

The most influential first-generation neocons were East Coast Jewish

phasis on soft power and nonmilitary instruments of statecraft, and an

predicted that the unilateralist school would be in the ascendancy for at

between Defense Secretary Cheney and everyone else”—although “Cheney

The Epiphany of 9-11

conservative project. The events of September 11 brought the president and

However, the president continually referred to a gathering danger, rather

Terrorism: No Common Assessment of a Common Threat

it either by threats, persuasion or bribes.”69 In Conrad’s time, great faith was

To Europeans, the Bush administration’s approach to fighting terrorism

Civilian Power versus Power Politics

German strategic culture is the concept of civilian power (Zivilmacht), devel-

use of force by a German government remain quite explicit. Force can be

The End of Comfortable Paradigms

responding to a broad sense of uneasiness and concern about the Bush

Traditional German Anti-Americanism

Earlier strains of German anti-Americanism were muted by a number of