After German Chancellor Olaf Scholz recently announced the export of "Leopard 2" main battle tanks to Ukraine, there have been many discussions from all walks of life about the impact of the "tank loss" on the Russia-Ukraine war situation.
However, it takes time for the Ukrainian army to train, and the supply of tanks from various countries is not as high as Uzbekistan expected. If Russia will launch a large-scale offensive in February and March this year, as Bloomberg recently quoted people familiar with the matter, the batch of tanks has not yet arrived. Ukraine's main battle tanks are probably nothing more than symbolic.
But no matter how effective "Leopard 2" is, Scholz's decision itself is worthy of attention.
Although Germany's armament and arms supply to Ukraine is actually ranked second in the world, higher than that of the United Kingdom and Poland, which seem to have a firm stance on aiding Ukraine, Scholz has always given people a feeling of hesitation. When it comes to military aid to Ukraine, the government either delays it or puts on an attitude of reluctance.
Just like the decision to export main battle tanks this time, Scholz will have to wait until the UK takes the lead in putting pressure on the supply, France's "referring to infantry fighting vehicles as tanks" export technique, Poland threatens to ignore Germany's right to re-export tanks, and the domestic ruling coalition party Green The party has repeatedly slammed the brakes and openly supported the tank's loss to Ukraine. Even after domestic public opinion changed, it decided to "conditionally" agree to export "Leopard 2".
The "condition" is that the United States also export M1 tanks (M1 Abrams), which are not practical for Ukraine, so that Germany can "follow the boss" as a shield.
Would the same be the case if Merkel was still Chancellor?
Pacifism and Perception of Russia
Regarding how to deal with Germany-Russia or Europe-Russia relations, Merkel and Scholz have the same original position.
On the one hand, in Germany after the defeat of the Nazi regime in World War II, "we have learned the value of peace" has become a large part of its self-cognition.
For many Germans, the greatest achievement of the EU is to "achieve peace", and the means to achieve peace is "trade".
From the "Oriental Policy" (Ostpolitik) in which West Germany began to befriend Eastern European socialist countries and import Soviet natural gas in the 1970s, to the "change through trade" (Wandel Policy) that extended to the different relations between Germany and China in the Merkel era. durch Handel), all have this shadow of pacifism.
The picture shows that in December 2021, former German Chancellor Angela Merkel delivered a speech in Berlin before leaving office.
(Getty)
While some non-German Europeans would see this as a glorified package of "mercantilism," probably no one would deny that pacifism is at the heart of German self-identity.
On the other hand, Merkel and Scholz also had an indissoluble bond with the Soviet Union.
Merkel was born in East Germany and is proficient in Russian. Of course, she has a deep understanding of the Soviet Union and Russia, which is considered to have inherited the Soviet Union.
When Scholz was young, he visited East Germany many times and met with young leaders of the East German Communist Party. At that time, he advocated that the Soviet Union should set up nuclear weapons in front of the United States in response to the US plan to set up medium-range nuclear missiles in Europe; In other words, NATO is "aggressive and imperialist".
For many Germans like Merkel and Scholz, the main reason for the peaceful end of the Cold War was not Reagan's toughness, but Germany's soft East policy.
This
variation of the Eastern policy
has never changed during Merkel's 16 years in office.
As early as 2008, she was on the front line resolutely opposing President Bush Jr.’s policy of allowing Ukraine and Georgia to join NATO, so as not to intensify the conflict with Russia; the Russia-Georgia War in 2008, the Crimea incident in 2014, and even The subsequent continuous fighting in Udong-dong did not change the Nord Stream 1 and 2 natural gas cooperation between Germany and Russia.
Even though Russia's invasion of Ukraine did bring conflicts unseen in Europe since World War II, why didn't Scholz step out of Germany as the leader of Europe like Merkel did after 2014 with the "Minsk Agreement"? A path in the spirit of Eastern policy?
After Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky came to power in May 2019, he held four-party talks with French President Macron, then German Chancellor Merkel, and Russian President Putin in Paris in December of the same year to discuss the situation in eastern Ukraine.
(Getty Images)
Powerless?
The first interpretation is that Scholz didn't want to do it, but he couldn't do it.
Domestically, the opposition Christian Democratic Union (CDU), as well as the Green Party and the Free Democratic Party (FDP) within the ruling coalition also advocate being tough on Russia.
Abroad, Scholz, whose political experience is mostly domestic, does not have the prestige of Merkel. He has almost no role in leading the European Union. Anti-Russian Central and Eastern European countries that think they have gained a moral high ground.
If Scholz has the heart and strength, he may be able to propose a more realistic peace plan for Ukraine to try to replace the "politically correct" Western consensus that Ukraine has regained the entire territory (including Crimea).
However, the vestige of the Eastern policy that can still be seen in him at this moment is only his continued willingness to talk to Putin, and even his hesitation in his attitude of aiding Ukraine.
Abandon the spirit of Eastern policy?
The second interpretation is that Putin's invasion of Ukraine has already broken Scholz's previous Eastern policy-style belief in Russia.
Scholz stopped Nord Stream 2 as early as when Putin recognized the independence of the Udon-Donbas states (February 22, 2022).
After the Russian army entered Ukraine, he even declared that Germany had reached a "Zeitenwende" (Turning Point of the Times).
Although there are many obstacles in implementation, this is already an open national policy shift.
Nor is this shift limited to Scholz.
Even Merkel's own remarks after the outbreak of the war revealed similar changes.
In an interview in June last year, although Merkel stated that Russia and Europe must find a way to coexist, when asked whether there was anything wrong with the moderate response to the events in Ukraine after 2014, she only said, "I don't need to. Blame myself for not trying hard," seems to indicate that her attempts to go in the "right" direction have failed.
In another interview in November last year, Merkel also made it clear that "for Putin, only power counts".
German Chancellor Scholz inspects a Bundeswehr base in Bergen and speaks in front of a Leopard 2 main battle tank.
(Reuters)
In Germany's pacifist narrative, "learning the value of peace" actually ignores one point, that is, whether it is Germany or the small European countries that finally joined the European Union in the "post-colonial" era, the value of peace comes from the Only learned after a complete defeat.
The mainstream intuition of the Germans about aiding Ukraine is that the older the person, the deeper the memory of World War II, the less likely they will support the tough policy of aiding Ukraine against Russia.
But recent polls show that older Germans are more supportive of exporting "Leopard 2" to Ukraine. Perhaps, in their eyes, Russia today is more and more like Germany in the past.
However, abandoning the spirit of Orient Policy, Scholz did not propose another direction for the Germans to go.
Of course, Germany (or even France), Russia's close neighbors, will not readily accept the line of thoroughly resisting Russia like the United States on the other side of the Atlantic.
But what else?
Great Wisdom Ruoyu?
The third interpretation is that Scholz has actually secretly accepted the US line, and just wants to win the war of attrition against Russia by "boiling frogs in warm water".
What Germany is most worried about is nothing more than Putin escalating the war to the level of nuclear weapons, or launching attacks on European countries in unconventional ways.
For Putin to upgrade, there must be an opportunity for the West to cross a certain red line.
However, Scholz's slow escalation made every slight escalation in the West look like an action that stepped on the red line, but the accumulation was considerable.
From the perspective of the Germans, the "tank aid to Ukraine" controversy dominated by the English-language media may be a bit "nonsensical."
The German word for a tank is "Panzer", and as early as last summer, Germany had begun to supply Ukraine with a self-propelled howitzer called "Panzerhaubitze 2000" that looked like a tank. Among them, "Panzerhaubitze" translates to "tank howitzer".
When did the line of "tank aid to Ukraine" be stepped on?
No one can tell.
The German-made Panzerhaubitze 2000 that has already been used on the Ukrainian battlefield.
(Wikimedia Commons)
In the end, is Scholz like the third interpretation, "wisdom like a fool", and the second interpretation, "lost direction", or is the first interpretation generally "intentional but powerless" to the spirit of Germany's traditional Eastern policy?
After all, the same group of events can often have reasonable interpretations that are mutually exclusive. The answer to this question is left to the reader to choose. This article only provides you with some different perspectives.
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