Russian President Vladimir Putin has inadvertently achieved what Western allies have long struggled to: get Germany to step up to its role as a major global power with an assertive foreign policy backed by a strong military despite its World War guilt.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz announced on Sunday a dramatic hike in military spending in view of Russia's invasion of Ukraine in what is being heralded as a historic speech that marks a paradigm shift in German foreign and defence policy.Scholz said Germany from now on would invest more than 2% of economic output on defence up from around 1.5 % currently, after years of resisting pleas from NATO allies to do so, and set up a 100-billion-euro fund to re-equip the military.
Germany has for decades faced criticism for not playing a role on the world stage commensurate with its size as Europe's largest economy and overlooking geo-strategic concerns in its pursuit of economic opportunities. In a 180 degree turnaround, Scholz last Tuesday suspended Nord Stream 2 and on Saturday agreed to cut Russia out of SWIFT and said Germany would build up its coal and gas reserves and quickly make good on long-stalled plans to built LNG terminals.Most policy shifts came after on Friday "it became more obvious what Putin had done, and that we have to leave the old ways," a highly-placed German government source told Reuters.
Germany's new three-way coalition vowed when it took office in December to pursue a more values-based foreign policy reflecting growing anxiety over the rise in authoritarianism worldwide and threats posed by strategic rivals like China. "It is clear that we need to invest significantly more in the security of our country in order to protect our freedom and our democracy," he told an emergency session of the Bundestag lower house of parliament.
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