Weekly Reads 07 (Europas neue Rolle)
Europa ohnmächtig in der Weltgeschichte, Europa ohne USA und NATO, Polen als Atommacht?, Entwicklungshilfe in der Krise
Guten Mittag aus Salzburg,
ich halte es diese Woche kurz: Nach einigen Nachtfahrten per Bus von Sofia über Belgrad, Novi Sad, Zagreb und Ljubljana bin ich nun mit einer gewissen Erschöpfung in Salzburg angekommen. Der Newsletter ist diese Woche deswegen verkürzt. Meine Weekly Reads sind zwar dabei, allerdings nur in unkommentierter Fassung. Ich weiß – manche lesen den Newsletter nur wegen meiner Kommentare, aber zeitlich ist das erst ab nächster Woche wieder möglich.
Gerade der Aufenthalt in Serbien hat mir imponiert. Im Gegensatz zum nun doch sehr schönen und hippen Ljubljana und dem verregnet-unspektakulären Zagreb (mit einem tollen Museum of Contemporary Art) war die Zeit in Belgrad und Novi Sad schon allein aufgrund der aktuellen Geschehnisse sehr eindrücklich. Hier hatte ich mal wieder das Gefühl, mit Studierenden zu sprechen, die wissen, dass es in ihren Aktionen um etwas Konkretes geht.
Diese Erfahrung macht man an vielen Orten auf dem Balkan und in Osteuropa und sie ist einer der Gründe, warum mich Ost- und Mitteleuropa seit einigen Jahren stärker anzieht als Frankreich oder die USA. Der Schriftsteller Philip Roth hatte nach einem Besuch in Prag in den 1960ern einmal resümiert, er lebe in einer Gesellschaft, „in der für einen Schriftsteller alles geht und nichts zählt“, während für die tschechischen Schriftsteller „nichts gehe und alles zähle“. Heute geht in Osteuropa deutlich mehr, aber es zählt weiterhin einiges – gerade in diesen Zeiten.
Viel Spaß mit meinen Reads!
1. Knecht Donald und sein Herr Wladimir (Dieter Schnaas, WirtschaftsWoche)
“Warum dieser knappe Blick auf Koselleck, Nietzsche, Hegel? Nun, er könnte helfen, die historische Lage ein kleines bisschen besser zu verstehen, in der Donald Trump, Wladimir Putin und die Europäer gerade versuchen, Geschichte zu schreiben. Hat Deutschland zum Beispiel, als großer Verlierer des 20. Jahrhunderts, als Bonner und Berliner Republik seiner Zivilisationsverachtung und Gewaltgeschichte „aufgenötigte Erkenntnisgewinne“ abgerungen (Koselleck)?”
“Natürlich mögen sehr idealistisch gestimmte Geister das Weltgericht auch dann noch bestimmt und vernünftig finden, die Weltgeschichte als zweckhaftes Geschehen begreifen, als quasitheologisch erhöhter Weltgeist, der sich seiner Akteure bedient, um aus eigenem Recht und zu eigenem Zweck über sie hinweg zu walten. Nur muss auch ihre Antwort auf Hegels Frage, „welchem Endzwecke“ diese Geschichte dient, indem wir sie „als… Schlachtbank“ betrachten, „auf welcher das Glück der Völker, die Weisheit der Staaten, und die Tugend der Individuen zum Opfer gebracht worden“, dann notwendig regressiv, fast zynisch ausfallen: Weil Geschichte als Geschichte halt Geschichte macht – wieder und wieder.”
“Europa ist sowohl für den Erhalt seines Friedens als auch seiner Freiheit buchstäblich schlecht gerüstet. Daher sitzen sie in Brüssel, Berlin und Paris jetzt nicht nur am Katzentisch der Weltpolitik – sondern auch der Europapolitik. Wir Europäer schreiben nicht Geschichte, weder als Sieger noch Verlierer. Sondern die Geschichte überschreibt gerade Europa – und den Stift führen andere, führen strongmen, die entweder am Erhalt des Friedens oder der Freiheit in Europa (oder an beidem) nicht im Geringsten interessiert sind.”
2. The U.S. Has Changed Its Mind About Europe (Phillips Payson O’Brien, The Atlantic)
“Today, Trump and his movement—which dominates the Republican Party—declare that they despise liberal Europe. In the now-infamous Signal chat, when Vance appeared to endorse a delay in bombing Yemen, he implied that Europe would benefit disproportionately from an American attack on the Houthis. The vice president visited Greenland yesterday as part of an American effort to wrest the island from Denmark, a faithful NATO member.”
“Under these circumstances, a key question is whether European leaders can now emotionally break away from the United States. They have outsourced their strategic thinking, and arguably sacrificed their self-respect, for so long that they no longer know how to defend their continent by themselves. As Trump has moved progressively closer and closer to Putin, European leaders continued to think they could build bridges with Trump’s White House and maintain the Atlantic alliance for a few more years.
Extreme optimists might hold out hope that, however dangerous Trump is, he will be in office only for a few years, and NATO’s unity can be restored once he leaves. But how likely is the post-Trump Republican Party to return to an Atlanticist outlook? Comments by Vance, perhaps the likeliest of Trump’s political heirs, suggest that such a reversion is a long way off. And even if the Democrats regain power, they cannot simply undo the damage Trump has caused. Europe needs to start facing the future, not harkening back to a probably lost past.”
3. The Future of the Zeitenwende: Scenario 5—Poland Becomes a Nuclear Power (Fabian Hoffmann, Internationale Politik Quarterly)
“Therefore, for Poland to seriously consider an active nuclear weapons program with the objective of becoming a nuclear power, Poland’s security environment would have to change dramatically. This might involve abandonment by the United States and US withdrawal from NATO, as well as a massive Russian rearmament program that reconstitutes and potentially even increases Russia’s conventional threat vis-à-vis Poland and its European allies. (NO: das ist basically was passiert ist)
In addition, Polish nuclear proliferation would be more likely if it occurred against the backdrop of a broader nuclear proliferation wave. Since the early Cold War, policymakers and analysts have been concerned about a global nuclear proliferation chain reaction, where proliferation by one state sparks proliferation in the next. While proliferation may not necessarily beget proliferation, there are a number of country dyads for which the acquisition of nuclear weapons by one country may drastically increase the likelihood that the other state follows suit.” (NO: das ist basically, was passieren wird)
How Poland would go about acquiring nuclear weapons depends on several factors, most notably the availability of a nuclear-armed patron that would facilitate Poland’s nuclear proliferation. In addition, Poland’s desired nuclear posture would play a role in determining the country’s proliferation trajectory. A key motivating factor of a Polish nuclear weapons program would likely be abandonment by the United States. As a result, it is unlikely that the US would provide Poland with technical assistance, or provide economic and military cover to enable Poland a sheltered pursuit of nuclear weapons in the face of military threats and economic sanctions.
Given that Poland would have to fear Russian preemptive action, especially in a world where Washington had withdrawn from NATO, Poland’s best bet would be to hide its nuclear ambitions for as long as possible. In this regard, Poland would likely aim to present the world with a fait accompli once its nuclear weapons program has started to bear fruit. At least initially, Poland might aim for a minimal nuclear deterrent in the form of a couple of nuclear warheads. Later on, Poland might consider how to increase the robustness of its nuclear deterrent.
Poland’s nuclear acquisition path would be strongly facilitated if it received substantial assistance from abroad. A prime candidate might be South Korea, which retains a relatively high degree of nuclear latency. In a world where South Korea has already proliferated, a willing and able Seoul could accelerate Poland’s nuclear weapons program. This assumes of course that South Korea would be willing to bear the political and economic ramifications of such assistance. Without outside assistance, Poland’s path toward a nuclear bomb would be much more difficult and likely would take significantly longer.
4. The End of NATO, or The Sixth Impossible Thing (Adam Garfinkle, The Quilette)
“The first five of these impossible things complement and pave the way for the sixth—the demolition of NATO. As anyone who has worked high enough in government knows, the foreign policy of a great power is always at least partly an extension of its domestic politics and a projection of its wider political culture. So, then, what of the particular projection we witnessed these past weeks?
NATO still exists on paper, but operationally, it has been killed in a four-act drama followed by a macabre after-party (ongoing). There will be those who insist that NATO’s Article V guarantee is still alive and well, and that Ukraine is an exception because NATO real-estate is not at risk. Should the Russians attack a NATO member-state, they claim, Article V will rise and shine. This argument is backwards.”
“It is important to keep two truths in mind when assessing the significance of recent developments. First, NATO was never just a military alliance. It has always been, at least for its core members, a collective-security arrangement—albeit a lopsided one—with integrated military, economic, diplomatic, and normative dimensions. Donald Trump, zero-sum thinker that he is, has never understood this. Which is why he imagines that funding for NATO is just a kind of protection racket, just another part of his larger delusion that the US government ought to be a profit-making corporation of which he is CEO. He has never understood that allowing some European free-riding did not negate the net value of NATO to the United States.
Second, the extension of a US security umbrella to Europe was never an act of charity. It was the result of a studied conclusion that US national-security interests were best served by preventing European wars that dragged in the United States. NATO was not just about deterring the Soviet Union. It was as much about replacing historical European enmities with new habits of trust and cooperation. By guiding and supporting the creation of the European Union, postwar US policy has accomplished its goal with remarkable success.
That is why those who believe the Europeans are hopelessly squabbling tribes are living in an obsolete reality. Such people like to point out that, from the collapse of the Western Roman Empire until the advent of NATO, at least two—and usually more—centres of power in Europe were eternally at each other’s throats. That much is true. But thanks to US power and perseverance, and the pressure of circumstances, intra-European hostility has finally been laid to rest.”
5. How to truly improve foreign aid (Editorial Board, Washington Post)
“Plenty of good arguments can be made in favor of reforming foreign assistance — to make it more effective and efficient. But neither the president nor cost-cutter Elon Musk has articulated them. Their ridicule of specific aid programs only muddles the important debate over how to ensure that foreign aid serves its core mission: to improve the lives of billions living in the world’s most impoverished nations.”
“The global turn against aid stems from more fundamental problems — starting with tight budgets in donor countries. Notably, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, coupled with China’s new assertiveness in Asia, is compelling countries across the Western world to spend more money on defense. Their foreign aid budgets offer a politically convenient source of funding.”
“Indeed, the broad global conversation about what foreign assistance can achieve needs to be better focused. But aid is not “ridiculous — and, in many cases, malicious — pet projects of entrenched bureaucrats,” as the White House described it. Aid cannot be the solution for all of the problems that impoverished countries face. But it is a necessary building block for a better world.”
bis nächste Woche und liebe Grüße,
Nikolai