Paul Taylor is a contributing editor at POLITICO.
A year after German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s historic speech declaring a Zeitenwende, an epochal turning point, in his country’s foreign and defense policies due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the leader is still getting lousy reviews from outside Germany — and to some extent at home too.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has publicly berated Berlin time and again for its reluctance to send weapons to Kyiv, and the international commentariat — especially English-language media — has lambasted Scholz for his supposed timidity and weak leadership.
For many commentators, including prominent German hawks, the soft-spoken Social Democrat is always a day late and a tank short in supporting Ukraine. Several European governments — especially Poland but also the Baltic states — have shunned diplomatic niceties, accusing Scholz of appeasing Russian President Vladimir Putin, reneging on promises to backfill their arsenals, or hiding behind the United States and dithering while Ukraine burns.
But wait! Just think how far Germany has shifted in only a year.
A nation scarred by its own history of aggression has swung away from a broadly bipartisan, pacifist consensus against supplying arms to conflict zones, and it is now agreeing to send tanks, armored fighting vehicles, air-defense missiles and artillery to Ukraine. It has also gone from relying on Russia for 40 percent of its gas to shutting down the Nord Stream 2 pipeline and ending all purchases of Russian gas since last September.
Berlin, once Moscow’s biggest Western business partner, has also embraced sweeping sanctions.
These are giant, wrenching changes for any nation — and Germany is tackling the momentous changes with earnestness. No drama, no strikes and protests, no bragging about leading the world in standing up to Putin or being Kyiv’s best friend.
Moreover, this coalition, which includes detente-loving Social Democrats and anti-nuclear Greens, has initiated a fundamental — if belated — overhaul of Germany’s hollow armed forces and their rusting equipment. Just three days after the invasion, Scholz’s surprise announcement of an additional five-year €100-billion fund to refurbish the Bundeswehr now gives it the potential, over time, to fulfill its assigned core role in NATO’s land defense of continental Europe.
This won’t happen overnight, but Scholz has begun to lay the foundations.
To be sure, implementation continues to be deficient in several areas. The defense ministry has been tardy in ordering ammunition or streamlining its over-complex arms procurement process — something that cost Christine Lambrecht her job as defense minister.
But the main charge against Scholz is that he always seems to wait until the last minute to make decisions, and only after massive international pressure, thus appearing to be dragged reluctantly into a U-turn rather than showing bold leadership early. And, indeed, Berlin’s stature in the Western alliance has suffered as a result.
However, that charge can more justifiably be leveled against Scholz’s conservative predecessor, Angela Merkel, who showed scant interest in defense during her 16-year tenure.
Merkel continued to increase dependence on Russian gas, pressing ahead with Nord Stream 2 even after Moscow seized and annexed Crimea in 2014, stoking war in eastern Ukraine. She also ignored Washington’s warnings about the trap she was entering.
Curiously, Merkel’s ultima ratio (last resort) dogma of acting only at the last possible minute to rescue partners during the eurozone debt crisis, didn’t prevent her from being fêted as the European Union’s compromise-broker par excellence.
Meanwhile, Scholz’s domestic and foreign critics maintain that it’s only their constant browbeating that got him this far. However, in truth, his measured pace testifies to deep historical sensitivities — as well as the political and legal complexities — of sending German-made panzers and arms to fight Russia on Ukrainian soil, even if Putin is clearly the aggressor.
It’s also a reflection of the wide dispersal of power in Germany — from the chancellery to key ministries run by different parties, the parliament (Bundestag) and its various powerful parliamentary committees, the governing coalition’s steering committee, the constitutional court, and state governments that control the upper house (Bundesrat).
French Minister of the Economy Bruno Le Maire recalls how Merkel once came close to tears when under fierce pressure from former French President Nicolas Sarkozy, trying to swiftly establish a joint fund to underpin Europe’s wobbling banks during the 2008 financial crisis. “Nicolas, I’m not as powerful as you,” she had lamented to the French leader.
It was the Western occupying powers after World War II that insisted on such strong checks and balances in the federal republic’s post-war constitution. So, it’s hardly fair to blame Scholz for being slow. Of course, that won’t stop his critics, as German-bashing taps into a deep vein of anti-German sentiment that runs from Warsaw to Tallinn and from London to Athens.
But before armchair strategists start beating up on Scholz for failing to roll out the tanks fast enough and supply warplanes to Ukraine, they should ponder what kind of Germany they really want. Do they really want Berlin to throw its geopolitical weight around unilaterally instead of being the modest, plodding Bundesrepublik of the last seven decades?
Scholz was right to hold back on the Leopard 2s until Washington agreed to contribute some of its own tanks — and not just for political cover at home but for reasons of alliance solidarity. Indeed, it turns out some countries that pressed him to pony up aren’t ready to part with their own tanks now, he complained at the Munich Security Conference.
Scholz may not be the greatest communicator. He can certainly be artlessly blunt about saying nein before he finally says ja, rather than using the slippery “nothing is off the table” evasions favored by British and French leaders. But the German chancellor has managed to hold a political consensus together in his country.
So, here’s two cheers for Olaf Scholz. He’ll deserve the third, the day he takes greater account of his European partners in his economic policies.