Has Vladimir Putin managed to re-glue the American-German alliance? Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung columnist Klaus-Dieter Frankenberger writes that the ‘re-Sovietization’ of Russia has shown that the West depends on U.S.-German cooperation, which makes qualms over surveillance and the Iraq War seem far less significant than they did a few weeks ago.
For the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung Klaus-Dieter Frankenberger starts off this way:
Ever since Putin – still bemoaning the disintegration of the Soviet Union – signaled a geopolitical rollback, Washington and Berlin have been seeking to close ranks. And that is as it should be.
One still recalls this statement: “Spying among friends just isn’t done.” Last year, the chancellor expressed great indignation over the fact that the American NSA had apparently been monitoring her cell phone for years. This outrage was shared by a vast majority of Germans. Friends of America were (and still are) in a tough position. There has been no swan song for German-American cooperation, but the general view is that U.S. spying was a massive breach of trust that would be hard to repair. That is essentially the view today.Today, of course, the West is facing a geopolitical challenge not seen since the end of the Cold War. It faces a Russia that has thrown down the gauntlet, and in the midst of a nationalist fervor, is engaged in a kind of “re-Sovietization light.” So this is no time for resentment or indifference. It is time for the closest possible cooperation and unity among partners, even if it is driven less by empathy and more by a pragmatic need for action.
It is therefore no coincidence that American President Obama considers Germany in general, and the chancellor in particular, pivotal in this crisis: Angela Merkel is his most important European ally. They have spoken several times by phone over recent days to coordinate the Western response to Russia’s actions. Without Germany, and the United States as well, this would be impossible – and only when both, along with their partners, agree on a course of action. In the best case scenario, they will follow the same script (especially when the president and chancellor are well aware that citizens in both of their countries have no desire to see an escalation).
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