FES

The united Germany in the post-bipolar world
/ Eckhard Lübkemeier. - [Electronic ed.]. - Bonn, 1993. - 41 S. = 100 Kb, Text
. - (Studie der Abteilung Außenpolitikforschung im Forschungsinstitut der Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung ; 56). - ISBN 3-86077-111-6

Electronic ed.: Bonn: EDV-Stelle der FES, 1997

© Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung

Just as many other states, united Germany is seeking its proper place in the fluid environment of the post-bipolar world. Two factors unique to Germany are complicating this quest: the challenge of unification and - similar to the Japanese case - the combination of the country's past and (geographic) position with its newly-gained power. Against this background, the paper identifies and discusses Germany's interests and responsibility on the Western and European layer as well as the global layer.

I. Introduction

The single most important determinant of (West) German foreign policy during the Cold War was the division of Germany and the resulting frontline status of its two political parts. Next to ensuring the survival and well-being of its citizens, West Germany's ultimate foreign policy objective was overcoming the division, thereby reuniting the country and restoring its full sovereignty. The frontline status determined the manner in which this objective had to be pursued. The iron curtain severing Germany in two was akin to a tripwire: had one side tried to lift it against the will of the other side, it would have risked triggering an East-West war. Preventing such a war from escalating into a nuclear conflagration would have been very difficult, given the political interests at stake and the inherent escalatory dynamics; indeed, the prospect of a military confrontation quickly getting out of control served as an inescapable (self-)deterrent. Yet even if the attempt to arrest the escalatory process would have been successful, Germany as the inevitable battleground would likely have already suffered an intolerable level of destruction.

This precarious geopolitical situation had two consequences for West German unification policy. First, the policy required a solid Western anchor, both to safeguard the country's security in view of the Communist threat and to secure Western support for its unification policy. Second, unification could only be pursued by peaceful means; this required the interim step of recognizing the status quo of two German states and accepting the need to cooperate with the Communist regimes.

Not that West German governments had a unification master plan, cleverly designed and consistently implemented. Indeed, the "interim step" of NATO's 1967 Harmel concept of deterrent and detente policy was based on Germany's and Europe's division, and the longer it lasted, the more that policy lost its interim character. The post-war status quo had come to be seen as the "natural" state of affairs, and while many in the West accepted it grudgingly, others could see substantial benefits deriving from it. In any case, both groups were taken by complete surprise when the Wall did fall in November 1989.

Nevertheless, unification remained a prime objective of West German policy throughout the post-war period. It could not have been otherwise given Germany's division and its frontline position. The former implied that as long as Germans continued to see themselves as a single nation, obtaining the right to self-determination for all Germans would be tantamount to opening the door to national re-unification. The same was true of West German security policy. It had to aim at removing the Soviet military threat to Germany's very existence. Ultimately, that amounted to lifting the Iron Curtain, because the military threat was tied to the Communist nature of the Soviet Union and its European satellites.
The Communist regimes have disappeared, the Cold War is over and Germany is a united country. Together, these events mark a turning point in global and, particularly, in European history. Undoubtedly, Germany has been one of the countries most affected by these fundamental changes.
Thus, this paper reviews the implications of these changes for Germany's international role. It consists of three main parts. Chapter one discusses the international setting, including key features of the post-bipolar world as well as enduring and novel aspects of Germany's position within the international system. Chapter two is concerned with the domestic setting, i.e., internal determinants of German foreign policy. The description of the international and the domestic settings form the framework for chapter three, which analyses German national interests.

II. The International Setting

1. From "Postwar Order" to "New World Disorder?"

In 1990, the end of the East-West conflict was widely seen as heralding a peaceful and prosperous future. In the "Charter of Paris for a New Europe," the member states of the "Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe" (CSCE) proclaimed "a new era of democracy, peace and unity". Encouraged by the opening of the inner-German Wall, an unprecedented cooperation with Soviet President Gorbachev and the victory in the Gulf War, U.S. President Bush delivered a series of speeches on a "new world order", "an order characterized by the rule of law rather than the resort to force; the cooperative settlement of disputes, rather than anarchy and bloodshed; and an unstinting belief in human rights."
This euphoric rhetoric signalled high hopes that were soon shattered. In Europe, the Cold War gave way to the outbreak of fierce fighting driven by ethnic and nationalistic hostilities and exposing the unwillingness or impotence of the West to halt it. In the post-Communist countries, the transition from dictatorship to democracy and from a central economy to a market economy has resulted in sharp reductions in living standards that are undermining political stability. And while the end of the American-Soviet rivalry removed a major source of regional tensions in the Third World, the resort to arms continues to be a common form of dispute settlement.
In view of this, one could say that the pendulum has swung back, with the term "new world disorder" replacing earlier optimistic descriptions of the post-Cold War world. The notion of a post-Cold War "disorder" is misleading, however, as it suggests an unjustified nostalgia for the seemingly orderly character of the Cold War era. Certainly, the dictate of the nuclear sword of Damocles forced the superpowers to avoid another world war, and the East-West cleavage provided both clear ideological demarcation lines and the cement for the Western alliance. In that sense the bipolar world was orderly and stable.
Yet its long duration, together with a dramatic rise in the standard of living, blinded many in the West to the pseudo-stability of the Eastern pole. The "order" in the Communist bloc was maintained by the threat or use of force (East Germany 1953, Hungary 1956, Czechoslovakia 1968), because the regimes were politically illegitimate and, compared with the West, economically inefficient. Thus, the speed with which they collapsed was, with hindsight, less astonishing than was their durability.
Moreover, post-Cold War tragedies and turmoil should not induce one to forget the costs and risks of the bipolar confrontation. The gravest risk was associated with one of its pillars, namely the nuclear East-West stand-off. Risk is the product of two elements: "the chance of something happening and the amount of damage caused by such an occurrence." Thus, even if the danger of a nuclear war may have been almost nil, the risk remained immense because of the potential damage had it occurred. The greatest costs were born by those suffering from oppressive Communist regimes and by the victims of Third World wars fuelled by the superpower rivalry. Even the violent outbreak of ethnic and national conflicts in Europe is partly attributable to the old "order" because the Communist systems were the opposite of a political culture that fosters tolerance and solidarity. Had there been no Communist systems, there would not now be the need for a painful transformation.
This is not to belittle the relative stability of the bipolar world. For all its costs and risks, the "long peace" of the post-World War II international system was a remarkable achievement, given the intensity of the East-West antagonism. Yet it is perhaps somewhat self-centered, even cynical to speak of a period characterized by numerous Third World wars, many fought with the direct or indirect participation of the superpowers, as the "long peace."
Thus, while hopes of a "new world order" were short-lived, it is equally misplaced now to deplore a "new world disorder." For today's "disorder" is not altogether new and, indeed, it is to a significant extent a consequence of the old "order".

2. Contours of the Post-Bipolar World

Keeping this perspective in mind is important when one attempts to delineate the future international system, because a major determinant of the system is how its actors think the system will and should develop. If they hold an overly pessimistic assessment of the present, partially generated by a unduly benign re-interpretation of the past, there is a danger that they will underestimate today's opportunities and cling to antiquated policies.
In this way, then, the future is shaped by retrospective analysis. This is, of course, a truism, but recalling it is particularly relevant in periods of fundamental change. By definition, in such periods a stable set of new co-ordinates has not yet been established. From the point of view of the individual actor, the resultant uncertainty makes it more difficult to devise a coherent strategy and increases the risk of miscalculation; at the same time, however, it can offer novel opportunities to influence the course of events in a preferred direction.
This is the central characteristic of the present situation. International relations are in a state of flux. For more than forty years, they were decisively shaped by the East-West confrontation. Indeed, the dominance of this factor was such that bipolarity came to be seen as the defining element of the international system. So far, nothing has emerged to take its place, as is shown by the lack of a consensual positive characterization of today's international system. Instead, the most frequently used terms are post-Cold War, post-bipolar or post-Wall world, indicating that while we know what has passed, we do not know yet what will replace it.
This is unlikely to change soon, as the following discussion will demonstrate. It briefly analyzes three views that attempt to predict the nature of the post-Cold War world.
The first such view is the "polar" model. It comes in three variants, depending on one's judgment of the sources of power and their relative significance. The most popular is the multipolar variant. Its proponents assert that, in contrast to the bipolar world of two military superpowers, additional actors will rise to a status of preeminence. Usually, though not always, the underlying assumption is that the future stratification of the international system will chiefly be determined by economic, rather than military capabilities. They thus expect the rise of economically powerful entities such as Japan, the European Community (EC) and/or Germany, possibly China and Russia and, on a regional level, India and Brazil, which together will form a new multipolar world order.
With the 1991 Gulf war interpreted as a bad omen, "unipolarists" are concerned that the end of the Cold War's "long peace" could be followed by a heightened, rather than diminished threat of war for the civilized world in the wake of the proliferation of modern weapons technology. In the turbulent times ahead, it falls primarily to the United States to deter and defend against the dangers ahead. "American preeminence is based on the fact that it is the only country with the military, diplomatic, political and economic assets to be a decisive player in any conflict in whatever part of the world it chooses to involve itself."
In contrast, "transpolarists" argue that "military power seems to have become a residual, rather than central element in international politics." Referring to the growing interdependence of states and the increasing power of transnational actors such as firms and banks, they predict a decreasing capability and motivation of states to exert power in the form of a zero-sum game. Germany and Japan are said to be prototypes of such "civilian powers" whose policies are founded on the necessity of cooperation and the rejection of polarizing thinking.
All three variants of the polar model suffer from serious deficiencies, greatest in the case of the unipolar thesis, whose advocates have an inflated perception of the military threat the West is likely to face in the mid-term future. The main reason is the Gulf War fallacy, i.e., the erroneous assumption that Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait was the harbinger of similar confrontations between Third World "weapons states" and the "civilized rest" under U.S. leadership. The unique circumstances of the Gulf War (such as the exceptional importance of oil for the world economy, Hussein's blatant aggression and bid for regional hegemony as well as the U.S. strategic commitment to Israel) are highly unlikely to be repeated elsewhere in a comparable fashion. More importantly, the U.S. has neither the will nor the capability to sustain a worldwide Pax Americana. President Clinton was elected on an "inward-oriented" mandate. i.e., to focus political energy and material resources on America's domestic problems. As it turned out, foreign crises and conflicts, particularly those in the former Soviet Union, ex-Yugoslavia and Somalia, absorbed most of his attention in his early presidency; yet the Clinton administration has shown no inclination to become a world policeman. This reflects not only popular sentiment and a voluntary political decision--"the day of American hegemony has gone" because the U.S. has become more dependent on others while they have become less dependent on Washington.
The multipolar thesis has three main weaknesses. First, some of its proponents tend to overrate the devaluation of military might as a determinant of international stratification and influence. While the end of the East-West arms competition undoubtedly has had such an effect, the almost universally accepted view that the United States is the only remaining superpower is still based to a large extent on American military prowess. Moreover, as the many ongoing wars demonstrate, perpetual world peace still remains a lofty ideal.
Second, multipolarists disagree on which states or groups of states will form the poles of the future international system. The only state always mentioned is the United States. Normally, Japan is also said to qualify, but some see it hampered by its continued security dependence on the United States, by an insular mentality and by the lack of trust by regional neighbors. The European Community is seen as another contender, but it is unclear whether it will acquire the requisite political unity to become a pole of its own. If not the EC, then perhaps united Germany? Germany alone has neither the capability nor the will; yet while it does hold a veto power in the European Community, the EC will never be a Germany writ large because any attempt in this direction would be a recipe for anti-German alliance building. Russia remains in a military class of its own in Europe, but while it has the potential to become a multidimensional global power, it has hardly begun to do so. China has been showing an unprecedented dynamism in recent years, but it started from a very low base and has yet to enter a stable pattern of development. Other poles sometimes mentioned are states such as India and Brazil, but they will not play a global role in the foreseeable future.
Third, by focusing on the formal structure of the international system, the multipolar model tends to underrate the disparate nature of relations between the various poles. Thus, form the point of view of the United States, for example, its relationship with China is qualitatively different from that with its European allies. And US-Japanese relations have been broader and deeper than (West) European-Japanese relations.
Transpolarists rightly stress the de-nationalization of economic power as well as its increasing importance for determining international status in the post-Cold War world. Even transnational firms, however, operate in a global environment still dominated by nation-states whose fiscal, monetary, trade and social policies decisively affect the shaping of corporate strategies. Furthermore, the world is likely to remain a place tainted by wars and war-prone conflicts. Thus, military might will hardly be degraded to a negligible asset, as the pure "civilian power" model suggests.
In sharp contrast to the transpolar school of thought, the second cluster of views on the nature of the post-bipolar world predicts an increased likelihood of major crises and war. Its neo-realist adherents frequently also see the international system or segments of it as composed of multiple poles. They differ from other multipolarists in their analysis of the forces shaping the international system and in their policy recommendations.
Neo-realists assert that "structure affects outcome", i.e., that the structure of the international system is more important than the nature of the individual states in determining inter-state relations. In a world of sovereign states, it is argued, this structure is characterized by anarchy in the sense that states are forced to provide for their own security as there is no higher body or sovereign to perform this for them. This anarchy breeds insecurity and rivalry: insecurity because states can never be sure about the peaceful intentions of others, while the risk of miscalculation could have devastating consequences; rivalry because in their attempt to minimize this risk, states seek to maximize their power relative to other states.
Thus, in neo-realist analysis, even if states are defensively motivated, the anarchic and self-help nature of the international system places them into a competitive situation that militates against establishing and preserving a lasting international peace. Bipolarity in conjunction with nuclear deterrence largely suspended this problem because a stable balance of power is easier to reach when there are only two opponents instead of a multitude of real or potential rivals, and because their destructive capabilities make nuclear weapons a potent deterrent. Moreover, bipolarity and its epiphenomena of a common Soviet threat and American hegemony smothered the emergence of an intra-Western competition for security. Consequently, neo-realists expect that the multipolar system that has replaced the U.S.-Soviet bipolarity will be more prone to instability and violence, and that this tendency could even endanger the peace among nations of the former Western camp.
Neo-realists correctly point to anarchy as a structural impediment to inter-state confidence building. Yet while structure undoubtedly affects outcome, they underrate the influence of the nature of states and the nature of the relationship between states. It makes a great difference whether states are democracies or dictatorships. As to their interdependence, the degree to which it is asymmetrical or symmetrical regarding the bilateral distribution of benefits and burdens is also decisive. Thus, after World War II a Western "peace community" was created within which the threat of war has for all intents and purposes disappeared. Members still have conflicting interests, but the threat or use of force is perceived as an illegitimate and counterproductive means of dispute settlement. Consequently, the only justification for their armed forces is to protect them (or others) from external threats.
Even neo-realists normally do not question the existence of such a "zone of peace" (consisting of the highly developed democracies of Europe, North America and Japan). For reasons presented above, however, they are deeply skeptical that it can survive and recommend a policy that aims at establishing a stable balance of power, fortified by military capabilities, among the states or groups of states constituting a multipolar international system.
Maintaining the Western peace community will be more difficult in the absence of a unifying Soviet opponent and declining American dominance; yet neither history nor neo-realist reasoning suggest its inescapable demise. The combination of modern and prosperous democracies, tied together by common values and mutually beneficial interdependencies, is a relatively recent historical phenomenon. As long as it lasts, the stability of peace communities may well be assured.
In any case, assuming otherwise can trigger a self-fulfilling prophecy: when renewed confrontation rather than continued cooperation is to be expected, states will be inclined to pursue an uncooperative policy that reinforces their expectations because it offers insufficient incentives for other states to act as partners rather than rivals. In this way, then, a vicious circle is initiated: it is precisely the application of dubious assumptions that leads to consequences that were considered inevitable in the first place. Yet the same mechanism may also support a virtuous circle: if it is assumed that confidence in the peaceful intentions of other actors will continue to be rewarded and that a cooperative attitude is in one's own best interest, states will tend to resolve conflicts in a peaceful and mutually beneficial manner.
This is, of course, no recipe for perpetual peace. As the Cold War has demonstrated, in an antagonistic relationship detente is both necessary and limited, and a peace community is not immune to Murphy's law. Yet the assertion that the post-bipolar world will inescapably be more turbulent and war-prone is at least equally unjustified. States are, as neo-realists correctly point out, constrained by the anarchic nature of the international system, but this condition does not preclude the establishment of a lasting peace order based on symmetrical interdependence and mutual trust instead of mutually assured deterrence.
A similar critique can be levelled against the third perspective on the post-Cold War world. According to Samuel Huntington, "the fault lines between civilizations are replacing the political and ideological boundaries of the Cold War as the flash points for crisis and bloodshed." In particular, he sees the West pitted against the rest, of which the "Confucian-Islamic connection" is said to pose the most dangerous near-term challenge to Western interests, value and power.
Even if one accepted Huntington's analysis, his policy prescriptions would generally have counterproductive effects. For while he exhorts the West "to develop a more profound understanding of the basic religious and philosophical assumptions underlying other civilizations," he favors a "Fortress West" approach based on military and economic strength that would deepen rather than bridge civilizational fault lines.
More importantly, however, his hypotheses suffer from grave deficiencies. In addition to civilizational differences rooted in cultural characteristics such as language, religion and Weltanschauung, there are more mundane political and economic sources of conflicts that are arguably more virulent and cut across civilizations or generate intra-civilizational struggles. Neglecting them leads Huntington to overestimate the coherence of civilizational groupings (e.g., the Islamic world) and misinterpret recent events such as the 1991 Gulf War as a civilizational battle. Particularly disturbing is his construction of a sinister "Confucian-Islamic connection", based as it is on the shaky evidence of arms and relevant technology trade between China and North Korea on the one hand and some Islamic states on the other. Even if they all shared, as Huntington assumes, an anti-Western bias, it is hard to see that this alone could induce them to form a coalition aimed at militarily challenging the West.

Thus, neither the "polar" model nor the neo-realist approach, and even less so the "clash-of-civilization" thesis, can convincingly claim to identify the future fulcrum of global politics. Indeed, it may well be that there will not emerge a single principle or structural condition, which like bipolarity will dominate the international system. As noted earlier, from the point of view of the individual actor, this situation poses a dual challenge: while policy planning and implementation can be more error-prone in the absence of a familiar set of co-ordinates, at least some actors may also find increased opportunities to influence the course of history.
Nevertheless, the post-bipolar international system does not resemble a black box. Some of its salient features will probably be the following:

(a) A revival of the bipolar confrontation under American and Russian co-leadership can be ruled out. In the optimistic scenario, post-Communist Russia will continue to be a generally cooperative global actor. But even if its relations with the West should turn sour again or, in the most extreme case, relapse into hostility, the loss of its Eastern European glacis conquered after World war II, debilitating economic and technological weaknesses and the ensuing unattractiveness as an alternative model to the Western economic and political system all render it highly unlikely that Russia could once again form the Eastern part of a bipolar world.
As mentioned earlier, in the West, too, the hegemony of a single state has passed. Even in the Cold War era, the rise of Western Europe and Japan as economic rivals increasingly undermined American hegemony. Russia cannot be expected to again pose a threat of a magnitude that would reinstall American tutelage over its Western allies, and having relished their new freedom of maneuver, Japan and West European nations are unlikely to relinquish it.

(b) In the post-bipolar world, the importance of armed forces as a currency of power and measure of international status will diminish. This trend, already observable during the Cold War, will intensify in the wake of its demise. It is far from being a universal phenomenon, as the many ongoing wars and war-prone conflicts demonstrate; yet the status of great powers and their bilateral relations will be much less dependent on their military might.

(c) At the same time, the end of the superpower rivalry has been accompanied by two contradictory tendencies: on the one hand, American-Soviet cooperation has made possible the moderation and settlement of regional conflicts; on the other hand, wars have erupted in Europe and elsewhere that Moscow and Washington would not have tolerated during the Cold War, because either they would have endangered intra-bloc Soviet dominance or carried an unacceptable risk of a superpower clash of arms.
Whether one of these tendencies will prevail, and if so, which of them, remains unclear. What can be expected is that the resort to force as a means of fostering interests and ambitions will not disappear, and that the proliferation of modern weapons and technology could render obsolete the notion of "regional" conflicts. Still, another armed competition of the intensity and global reach of the East-West antagonism appears unlikely. Thus, the military security of the Western nations has improved considerably.

(d) The diminished importance of its military might notwithstanding, the United States will continue to be the single most influential actor in the international arena. It alone has the requisite power, the political will to bring it to bear and the attractiveness of a political, economic and cultural role model.
Yet America's future role in global affairs will be similar to Germany's role in the European Community today: strong enough to occupy a veto position, but not strong enough to be in command. The European Community or parts of it such as the Franco-German axis, Japan and, to a lesser extent, Russia and China can and will demand to be treated as equals in their dealings with Washington.

(e) This realignment of power could intensify intra-Western conflicts, as Washington must grow accustomed to a greater self-assertiveness on the part of its former European and Japanese junior partners, while the latter must learn to make prudent use of their newly gained room for maneuver.
This danger is further enhanced by a second dimension of the diffusion of power in the post-bipolar world. While great power status will be distributed more equally among nation-states, their absolute power has decreased due to the increasing importance of transnational actors. These command economic and financial resources that governments are unable or unwilling to control, although the workers and consumers they represent are crucially affected by the way they are being used. Trade liberalization, the deregulation of financial markets and the communications revolution have greatly facilitated the ability to relocate these resources. As a consequence, attracting transnational investments has become harder, which in turn increases the potential for conflict among states or groups of states.

(f) Simultaneously, and partly as a result of this diffusion of power, the necessity of international cooperation has grown in parallel with increased interdependence. If a ruinous economic competition is to be avoided, states must agree on a minimum set of regulations that govern international trade and financial transactions. Weapons proliferation, environmental degradation, migration and organized crime are transnational problems and risks that cannot be dealt with alone. And in an age of television and instant communication, the plight of the poor and the innocent victims of violence cannot be ignored anymore.

(g) Greater objective and subjective interdependence, together with the end of the Cold-War paralysis of the United Nations, have produced a situation in which the sacrosanctity of basic principles of international law such as the territorial integrity of states and non-intervention in their internal affairs have come into question. This raises such serious problems as the development of internationally agreed criteria for legitimate intervention and their consistent application. Yet in an interdependent world, states have to accept constraints on their sovereignty as the price for their common survival and well-being.

(h) Indeed, the argument can even be carried a step further. By concentrating minds and efforts on the military dimension of security policy, which continues to be a domain of state policy, the Cold War tended to divert attention from the erosion of state sovereignty resulting from transnational challenges and the emergence of powerful transnational actors. In the future, regaining and preserving state sovereignty so as to maintain legitimate political control will require ever closer cooperation between states. Thus, while pooling sovereignty may require states to accept constraints on their freedom of action, it may also be the only means to regain sovereignty that individually they have lost.

3. Novel Features of Germany's International Position

Germany has been a main beneficiary of the end of the Cold War. Most obviously, the lifting of the Iron Curtain terminated a four-decade long division, symbolized and brutally reinforced for nearly thirty years by the Berlin Wall and the "death strip" running along the inner-German border.
In addition, unification was achieved in a peaceful manner. The "2+4 Accord" of September 12, 1990, has not been called such, but it amounts to a peace treaty among Germany and the four major powers of the anti-Hitler coalition. It ended the occupation regime and restored full sovereignty to the two German signatory states that were soon to be unified. Germany was allowed to stay within NATO and remain host to troops from NATO countries, while Soviet troops would be withdrawn completely. United Germany concluded treaties of cooperation and partnership with all of the East European member states of the former Warsaw Pact, the treaty with Poland being especially important because it was preceded by the German-Polish treaty of November 1990 that reconfirmed the Oder-Neisse-line as their inviolable common border.
As a consequence, Germany's security has greatly improved. Germany no longer has to fear that it will become the central battleground in an East-West war and it is no longer host to the highest concentration of opposing military forces in the world; instead, the Federal Republic remains a member of NATO and is now surrounded solely by friends and partners.
Even though Germany is no longer a frontline state, for historical and geographic reasons, it continues to be a particularly vulnerable country. As a wealthy state located in the center of Europe, it would inevitably be affected by the failure of reformist forces in neighboring post-Communist countries, which could bring mass migration, ecological degradation and political turmoil. And as the country responsible for the eastward expansion of Soviet communism in World War II, Germany has a special obligation to support post-Communist reform processes.
In spite of this new vulnerability and responsibility, the end of the East-West antagonism has enlarged Germany's maneuvering room in the international arena. Its sovereignty is not limited anymore by the residual occupation rights of the four victorious allied powers of World War II; its dependence on military protection provided by others has been drastically reduced. Germany's status as a leading "civilian power," whose strength rests on economic prowess and cooperative diplomacy, is enhanced by the devaluation of military power in the post-bipolar world. This status could increase even more if Germany succeeds in transforming its former Communist part into a vibrant economy.
These factors explain why Germany's international influence has grown in an objective sense, a fact that is reflected in the subjective dimension of international politics, i.e., how others perceive their German neighbor and partner. When the Berlin Wall fell and German unification became a realistic option, foreign commentators saw a "new superpower" on the rise or a "colossus" being formed in Europe. Such exaggerations soon gave way to less nervous and more realistic assessments, particularly when it became clear that the united Germany would continue on its pro-EC integration course, remain a member of NATO and be subject to the constraints of reconstructing its eastern part. Still, from the outside it looks bigger and more powerful, a politico-psychological fact that does make it bigger and more powerful.

4. International Expectations

Thus, the two principal novel features of Germany's international position are that its security and influence have grown. This has led to definitions of united Germany's status as a "great power with transregional influence", a "restored European great power," a "maturing upper-middle power" or as "the preponderant European power."
With such characterizations have come increased expectations that the unfettered German Gulliver assume a major role in coping with post-Cold War challenges in Europe and beyond. Yet some of these foreign expectations are excessive and inconsistent:

- Given its pivotal role in Europe, others have a marked interest in a stable and prosperous Germany. Such a Germany, however, is a strong Germany, nurturing fears that it might become too strong and self-assertive.

- The wealthy Germans, burdened by historical guilt, are expected to bear the brunt of support for their needy East European neighbors. Indeed, traditional ties predating World War II, former Communist East Germany's close commercial relations with the regions, geography and economic potential - all make Germany the "natural" partner for, and inner-Western advocate of post-Communist reform countries. Thus, until mid-1992, of all the official aid (G-24 countries, excluding multilateral organizations such as the World Bank and the IMF) to the former Soviet Union and post-Communist Central and East European countries, Germany had provided about 55 percent and 22 percent, respectively. At the end of 1992, the German share of foreign direct investments in East-Central Europe was 28 percent, compared to 22 percent for the U.S., 9 per cent for France and 4 percent for Great Britain and Italy. And with a share of 25 percent of their total foreign trade, Germany in 1991 was by far their most important trading partner.
In some East European quarters, however, German assistance and engagement may raise ambivalent feelings. On the one hand, support is being solicited given the desperate need for infusion of Western cash and technology; on the other, such support touches upon sensitive historical nerves resulting from lingering memories of war, and it provokes fears of German dominance. And while some in the West may be concerned that, in the long run, heavy German engagement in the East could loosen its Western moorings and establish an East European "D-Mark zone", they still call upon Germany to play a leading role in stabilizing the region, while demonstrating an insufficient interest in this task themselves.

- The French debate preceding the referendum in September 1992 about the Maastricht treaty highlighted an ambivalence that is not limited to France, but also partly explains the Danish rejection of the treaty in June 1992. While some Maastricht proponents argued that deepening the EC integration would constrain German power and keep it firmly anchored to the West, some treaty opponents argued the opposite, i.e., that EC integration … la Maastricht would create a German Europe rather than a European Germany.

These attitudes and expectations suggest two conclusions. First, against the background of history, and because German power and maneuvering room is seen to have increased markedly in the wake of the end of the Cold War and German unification, inner-German developments and Germany's foreign policy are watched closely, and sometimes suspiciously. Second, foreign expectations can be contradictory and excessive. Consequently, it will be difficult and sometimes impossible for Germany to reconcile or fulfill them. While this is not a uniquely German problem, it nevertheless poses a special challenge to a united Germany that from the outside may appear bigger and more powerful than Germans perceive it to be.
III. The Domestic Setting

A country's domestic situation has a dual relevance to its foreign policy. First, just as any other area of government policy, it depends on two kinds of inputs: material resources and policymakers' attention. In general, the two are interrelated: policymakers spend time and energy on foreign policy issues to the extent that they think they affect their countries' interests, and the more this is so, the more resources they are normally willing and able to devote to dealing with them. Yet the link can be quite weak. Even when policymakers correctly perceive the importance of foreign developments for their country, overriding domestic needs or lack of a popular mandate can severely constrain their international room for maneuver.
A second way in which domestic politics influence foreign policy has to do with foreign perceptions. The image others hold of a particular country is significantly shaped by developments within its borders. These perceptions are, in turn, part of the international environment in which that country establishes and pursues its foreign policy objectives.
In this dual sense, the following domestic factors constitute important determinants of Germany's international role and its foreign policy.
First and foremost is the challenge posed by unification. Germany has been unified politically, but the material and mental division between its western and eastern parts still needs to be overcome. This will take much longer, and demand considerably more resources than foreseen by optimists such as Chancellor Kohl, who in his 1990 election campaign predicted "blooming landscapes" in east Germany within 3-5 years.
A few figures illustrate the magnitude of the task. In 1991, total demand in east Germany was almost double the gross domestic product (GDP), and the relationship has not changed much since then. The differences have been made up by transfers from west Germany which amounted to between 5 and 6 percent of west German GDP. The real unemployment level in east Germany (taking into account retraining and job creation schemes as well as involuntarily part-time positions) is at least 35 percent, even though growth was 7 percent in 1992 and is expected to be about the same in 1993. This growth has mainly been a result of a construction boom, large-scale infrastructure improvements as well as the expansion of services and small businesses. The critical challenge is to remove the east German economy's dependence on government funding and to create self-sustained recovery. This will only be achievable if the massive de-industrialization of east Germany can be halted and a competitive industrial sector established.
The task is made more difficult by its politico-psychological dimension. West and East Germans certainly feel themselves to be one people, and most east Germans have seen their living standards rise since 1990. Yet they are well aware that this is to a large extent a "borrowed" prosperity based on massive West-East transfers they neither can rely on nor want to rely on forever. There thus exists the danger of growing mutual recriminations fuelled by East Germans feeling dependent on their "arrogant and rich big brother" and by West Germans accusing their eastern compatriots of being ungrateful.
Conflicts over the inner-German redistribution of wealth were to be expected given the disparity in East-West productivity and living standards, the shattered hopes of a rapid recovery in East Germany and the lingering recession in the West. Indeed, when asked about their dominant attitude, most Germans in the West and in the East now respond that their concern about the problems associated with unification outweighs their happiness about it. Again, the problem is compounded by German history. Hyper-nationalism was the driving force of German aggression in World War I and World War II. The backlash came after 1945 when, reinforced by the Western allies and the division of their country, West Germans gradually developed a kind of post-national identity in the form of a "European" Germany. While this is an additional barrier to the recurrence of nationalistic excesses, it also makes it harder to accept the reconstruction of east Germany as a challenge requiring and deserving a demonstration of patriotism and national solidarity.
Part of the post-national "syndrome" is an inclination to downplay Germany's international importance. In 1990, 75 percent of Germans polled preferred that their country keep out of international conflicts and 69 percent referred to Switzerland or Sweden as a role model. Two years later, results of a survey conducted in late 1992 showed a growing willingness to assume a more active international role (62 percent in favor). Yet the "culture of reticence" still exists when it comes to German military involvement in out-of-(NATO)-treaty operations. A strong majority favors participation in U.N. peacekeeping missions; support for participation in U.N. combat operations ("peace enforcement") stagnates around the 50-percent mark, while more than 40 percent are against it.
Initially, unification was a boon to the (West) German economy. After monetary union had been introduced on July 1, 1990, East Germans went on a shopping spree, fuelled by the overnight conversion of their former money into D-Marks at favorable exchange rates. Thus, monetary union in effect amounted to a giant government spending program propelling German economic growth.
The global economic recession, however, soon caught up with the German "export machine". Just behind the U.S., Germany is the world's second biggest exporter. Every third job is export-related. As measured by the per-capita value of exports and their percentage of gross domestic product, Germany has by far the most export-dependent economy of the major industrialized nations (G-7). Furthermore, about 85 percent of German exports go to OECD countries.
Therefore, sluggish global growth was bound to negatively affect the German export economy. Yet the current recession and economic forecasts predicting only moderate growth in 1994 are probably generated by more than a cyclical downswing. Diagnoses of the causes differ, but there exists widespread agreement in political and expert circles that Germany accumulated structural deficiencies in the 1980s that are now taking their toll. German export performance still attests to the strength of its economy and its high level of productivity; yet Germany appears to have lost its competitive edge in some areas and has failed to catch up in others, particularly in high-technology and its innovative transformation into new products and methods of production.
To this triple economic challenge (reconstructing East Germany, regaining sufficient growth and retaining competitiveness) must be added two challenges that are not uniquely German. The first is ecologically sustainable development. The Western mode of production and consumption rests on the shaky foundation of a "prosperity lie," because its present and long-term costs of excessive levels of energy and resource consumption are not adequately accounted for. According to a report issued by an all-party commission of the German parliament, a worldwide application of the Western model would entail potentially disastrous climate changes. Yet a small minority cannot expect the majority to tolerate this imbalance forever; for this reason and because ecological degradation affects the wealthy West directly at home through, for example, water, soil and air pollution, the rich industrialized nations must develop an ecologically sustainable economy.
The other challenge is coping with "jobless growth": "even when output increases, increase in employment lags way behind." It is a particularly disturbing phenomenon in developing countries where high population growth combines with mass poverty. Yet in the rich industrialized world with slow or no population growth, unemployment also has become chronic. The number of unemployed in OECD countries went down from 31.1 million in 1983 to 24.4 million in 1990; thereafter it rapidly increased and is estimated to reach 35.7 million in 1994. Thus, the decrease during the economic upturn in the second half of the 1980s was insufficient to prevent levels of unemployment to exceed those registered in the previous recession of the early eighties.
Opinion polls reflect the political saliency of the issue. Most Germans rate unemployment highest on their list of concerns. Next are immigrants and asylum seekers, inflation and economic growth, right-wing extremism and unification problems among West Germans. Their eastern countrymen express similar priorities except that crime is of much greater concern to them and accordingly receives the second-highest rating.
This array of domestic challenges is made even formidable by popular frustration with the political system. There exists a widespread feeling that while the problems are accumulating, the political parties' ability to cope with them is diminishing. Indications are low approval ratings for the Bonn government, the inability of the major opposition party to convert this disenchantment into growing support for the Social Democratic party, the rise of right-wing and center protest parties and the high number of people expressing an intention to refrain from voting for any party.
Germany's domestic ailments are serious and unlikely to be remedied soon. Yet they must be put into proper perspective. Germany is still a wealthy and productive country, and while structural deficiencies may hamper its competitiveness, a national consensus is forming to correct them. Reconstructing east Germany is an immensely complicated and very costly task, but it also offers an opportunity to revitalize the German economy as a whole. There are silver linings on the economic horizon, and the German "trading state" can expect to greatly benefit once the world economy starts to expand again. Diminished popular confidence in the political establishment must be taken as seriously as its manifestations of xenophobia and right-wing extremism; German society is not in disarray, however, and its democratic system has shown remarkable resilience in a domestic and international environment of fast and fundamental change.
Thus, this section's focus on economic, political and socio-psychological problems should not be misconstrued as a representative picture of Germany's domestic situation. The purpose of this focus is twofold: First, to stress that at the end of the bipolar era, perhaps even more so than in other Western countries, German policymakers are faced with formidable domestic challenges, with the material and mental completion of unification standing out as the most important one. Second, coping with these challenges will absorb resources and energies that will both severely constrain Germany's international room for maneuver and shape its foreign policy agenda.

IV. Germany's Interests and Responsibility

The West has won the Cold War, but victory came at a price. First, there were the economic opportunity costs of the East-West arms competition, particularly so in the case of the United States which may have lost some of its competitive edge as a result. Second, the triumph of the Western economic, social and political system highlights its deficiencies because communism as the inefficient and oppressive rival has disappeared. Third, the loss of the common opponent strains Western unity and thus increases the potential for inner-Western conflicts.
Moreover, initial hopes for a much more benign world soon had to be abandoned. As it turned out, in many places and in many ways, the post-Cold War world is bloody, disorderly and laden with new or newly perceived conflicts and threats. As argued above, this offers no reason for Cold-War nostalgia. Yet it cannot be denied that bipolarity, once a formal and informal modus vivendi between East and West had been established, showed a remarkable stability. A similarly dominant and enduring parameter has not appeared and is, as also noted earlier, unlikely to do so.
In such unchartered waters as the post-Cold War world, state actors find it difficult to steer a safe and steady course. In the case of united Germany, the problem is aggravated by two interdependent processes. During the Cold-War period, Germany's past, its limited sovereignty, its frontline military position and its division made the country vulnerable and prevented it--or, as some saw it, relieved it--from fully bringing to bear its weight in the international arena. For better or worse, those days are over. Germany cannot and should not attempt to escape its past; the restrictions connected to the Cold War, however, have ceased to exist. Germans have to learn to accept this and the ensuing responsibility to make prudent use of their enlarged scope of action, while their foreign partners have to learn to adjust to a more assertive Germany that will be unable to meet excessive and discordant international expectations.

If one looks for a compass that will guide German foreign policy, it is, of course, national interests. At the most abstract level, they can be summarized as peace, prosperity and freedom in a congenial international environment.
For a meaningful discussion of German interests, these general and timeless values must be translated into specific objectives that have to be pursued in a concrete international context. In principle, such an analysis can be conducted in two different ways. In a predictive analysis, an attempt is made to determine how present and future governments are likely to define their nation's best interests. In a prescriptive analysis, it is the analyst who defines what policy he or she considers to be in the nation's best interest.
Both types of analyses frequently overlap, not the least because of an inclination to give added weight to an analysis by portraying one's desired course as the most likely one. In what follows both the predictive and the prescriptive approach will be used, while an effort will be made explicitly to differentiate between the two.

What, then, are Germany's interests? In discussing them, it is useful to distinguish between two layers. One is the Western and European layer, the other the global layer. For the geographic, economic and political reasons elaborated earlier, the first layer should and will absorb most resources and political attention. Germany's importance in the international arena has grown and global as well as transnational issues are of increasing importance to Germany. The implications of these developments have not been fully understood and accepted in parts of the German populace and political elite. This is regrettable, but it is unlikely to change substantially in the foreseeable future.

1. The Western and European layer

Geographically, this layer encompasses the highly industrialized countries (the "Western" or OECD nations, including primarily North America, Japan and the EC) and the post-Communist European countries. With regard to these two groups, Germany has four overriding interests, in a predictive as well as prescriptive sense:

A. Allaying concerns about unification
Germany's unity was restored in agreement with its four major wartime opponents. Yet only the Bush administration wholeheartedly supported it from the outset. In Paris and London, as in other West and East European quarters, the sudden prospect of imminent German unification initially caused considerable irritations and even reservations. Occasionally, fears of German arrogance and potential dominance flare up again. Dispelling such concerns by demonstrating the compatibility of German unity with the interests of other nations thus continues to be a foremost objective of German foreign policy.

B. Maintaining the Western "zone of peace"
This objective directly leads to a second overriding national interest. As argued earlier, Germany is a member of a Western peace community within which conflicts are settled without the use or threat of force, a constellation that greatly facilitated German unification. Its collapse could entail anti-German alliances and thus threaten German security. Yet German interest in the preservation of the Western "zone of peace" is not merely motivated by this worst and unlikely case. As the postwar development has shown, a congenial environment is the best means of safeguarding and fostering external security, internal stability and prosperity. In this regard, the single market strengthens the European basis of German competitiveness by enabling companies to make greater use of economies of scale in production.

C. Expanding the "zone of peace"
This postwar experience as well as specific factors noted earlier (i.e., Germany's exposed location, the legacy of history and economic opportunities) induce it to be strongly interested in an eastward enlargement of the Western peace community. For these reasons, Germany has been a firm advocate of Western assistance to post-Communist countries.

D. Maintaining economic competitiveness
To a greater extent than in many other countries of comparable size, German international status rests on its economic performance. Germany has an export-oriented economy, and it is internationally respected largely for its D-Mark and its economic efficiency. For internal reasons as well (in particular, coping with the challenges of unemployment and rebuilding east Germany), securing prosperity is a prime national interest that requires maintaining and improving German competitiveness and attractiveness as a location for transnational investments.

These four overriding interests translate into three specific objectives in the Western-European realm. The ruling conservative-liberal coalition and the opposition Social Democratic party, as well as political forces within each camp, may put different emphasis on each one of these objectives or aspects of them; however, their overall importance is not in dispute. Nor should it be, as these objectives are derived from Germany's vital national interests.

a. Promoting EC integration
From a German point of view, the EC constitutes the core of the Western peace community. And within the EC, the Franco-German tandem has been the central axis. Hence Germany's interest in maintaining the Western "zone of peace" applies a fortiori in the case of the EC in general, and the Franco-German partnership in particular.
Germany can thus be counted upon to continue to support EC integration. It has become increasingly unclear, however, where this process can and should lead. This is so despite, or even because of the Maastricht treaty of December 1991 and its plan for both an Economic and Monetary Union, as well as a Political Union. The debate prior to Maastricht and, even more so, the post-Maastricht developments have revealed a gap between popular attitudes and elite ambitions, as evidenced by the French and Danish referenda and, for example, the German public's unwillingness to exchange the D-Mark for a European currency.
Unless this gap can be closed, EC integration will stagnate and the Maastricht objectives will turn into a chimera. It is already unlikely that the Maastricht timetable (Monetary Union no later than 1999) can be kept. Indeed, what is instead essential is that the EC peace community be kept intact. In democracies, this cannot be achieved without broad and consistent popular support. If governments cannot present persuasive rationales for ambitious integration schemes, they must be scaled down so as not to sacrifice the possible on the altar of the impossible.

b. Stabilizing post-Communist Europe
This objective has a dual quality. First, it is a means to the end of enlarging the Western peace community. Second, it is an end in itself, since any such enlargement can only be conceived of as a gradual and long-lasting process. Therefore, the near-term goal is to help stabilize the reform countries as the prerequisite for initiating and sustaining this process.
As mentioned earlier, Germany has been the main provider of Western assistance to ex-Communist countries, including financial aid and the transfer of managerial and technical know-how. Such assistance can only be in terms of providing help so that these countries can help themselves. Moreover, in this regard the most effective support is a liberal EC trade policy. Some post-Communist countries could substantially increase their exports to EC member states, but the EC continues to maintain significant trade restrictions in key areas such as coal, steel, textiles and farm products.
Yet economic assistance alone is insufficient. The post-Communist reform countries are going through a painful dual transition from planned to market economies and from dictatorship to democracy. These processes are interdependent as prosperity cannot be secured without political stability and vice versa. Thus, support for establishing the building blocks of democracy (e.g., party organizations, efficient bureaucracies, independent judiciary, free media) is also important.
There is no stability without security. The outbreak of violence as well as severe intra- and inter-state tensions thus pose a direct threat to post-Communist reform processes. To alleviate the problem, in principle, Western countries have two options: they can encourage regional security regimes without their participation or promote regimes with direct Western involvement, albeit to varying degrees.
While the pursuit of the first option should not be rejected rashly as escapism, autonomous regimes in Eastern Europe do not currently correspond with the interests of most states in the region. Germany has been a champion of the second option inasmuch as it means strengthening the capability of the CSCE to prevent and manage intra- and inter-state crises.
Despite some progress in this direction, the CSCE has not been upgraded into an effective security organization. In terms of military security, NATO remains the only organization trusted by its members to provide them mutual protection. This explains why many post-Communist reform countries are eager to join it.
Their representatives and Western voices, such as that of German Defense Minister Rühe, are convinced that an eastward expansion of NATO would enhance political and military stability in all of Europe. Indeed, in a manner similar to the EC, NATO would not fulfill its post-Cold War function as an instrument of pan-European security if the accession of new members were ruled out categorically. From a European perspective, however, an opening of NATO poses more problems than a widening of the EC. The gravest problem is Russia. It does not aspire to EC membership and is unlikely to interpret an eastward enlargement of the EC as directed against it. Moscow may not want to join NATO either; there exists, however, a real possibility that it would interpret an eastward expansion of NATO as an unfriendly or even hostile move if it occurred without Russian consent.
The desire of eastern reformers to join NATO would be much weaker if such a Russian endorsement could be obtained. Yet German Foreign Minister Kinkel is right that "it would be tragic if, in reassuring some countries, we alarmed others." This does not mean giving Moscow a droit de regard concerning NATO membership. If, however, an eastward extension of NATO is designed to enhance stability in all of Europe, care must be taken that it does not antagonize Moscow.

c. Preserving transatlantic cohesion
The disappearance of the common Soviet threat, a more integrated EC Europe and the interrelated demise of American hegemony are straining transatlantic unity. Yet European-American ties based on common values and shared interests remain strong, and post-Cold War challenges continue to demand transatlantic cooperation.
Both sides stand to lose from a "war" between trading blocs, both benefit from fair economic competition. As rich industrialized countries, they bear a common responsibility for global and ecologically sustainable development and a special responsibility for assisting their former Cold-War opponents. The proliferation of modern weapons and technology affects them both, and if the United Nations is to assume a more effective role in promoting peace and development, it will not be possible without their coordinated contributions.
Thus, priorities of transatlantic cooperation will shift and they will have to be extended to include new areas. Furthermore, transatlantic relations will have to be re-shaped as a partnership of equals. Germany has an added interest in a continued, albeit modernized partnership. To the extent that there are lingering concerns about Germany's increased international status, American engagement in European affairs can help to dispel them.

2. The Global Layer

German policymakers are aware that their country's interests and responsibilities go beyond Europe and the "Western" part of the world. Nevertheless global and transnational issues are unlikely to receive the resources and political attention they deserve. German history, the country's postwar vulnerability and American tutelage left the country with a political horizon that hardly transcended Europe and transatlanticism--except for economic issues. It is thus no surprise that Germany's political class does not have an internationalist outlook commensurate with Germany's international weight.
Popular attitudes and public opinion are another constraint. This is by no means confined to Germany's international military role. Moreover, it is not a uniquely German phenomenon since, for example, the wealthy North as a whole restricts access to its markets for "Southern" products.
Finally, there is the special burden of rebuilding eastern Germany. As noted repeatedly, it severely taxes government resources and absorbs policymakers' energy and attention.
This is not to suggest that German international engagement will be curtailed. As explained below, German interests point in the opposite direction. In this case, however, the prescriptive dimension of what follows is stronger than the predictive one.

a. Narrowing the North-South gap
From a purely economic perspective, German interests in the "Third World" are limited. As shown above, German exports as well as foreign direct investment are heavily concentrated on industrialized countries. As a resource-poor country, Germany depends on raw material imports from the "Third World." Its vulnerability is significant in the case of oil; with regard to non-fuel minerals, vulnerabilities exist, but they concern only a handful of minerals, in which South Africa plays a key role, and the value of this trade is infinitely smaller than that of oil.
If economic interests are limited, other considerations play a more important role. They can be grouped into two categories.
First there are concerns regarding security in both its narrow and broader sense. Militarily, weapons proliferation is a disturbing phenomenon. It can intensify intra-"Third World" conflicts, and it appears to be only a matter of time before it will pose a direct threat to Germany and its allies. The two implications of this are interrelated: wars, catastrophes and weapons proliferation in the "Third World" can lead to outside intervention which is made more dangerous by the spread of weapons of mass destruction and of modern conventional arms.
In a broader sense, "Third World" developments affect German ecological, social and political security. Environmental degradation can exacerbate or even induce conflicts within and between developing countries with potentially serious repercussions for the security interests of the developed world. It can also threaten the North's ecological security directly by, for example, adverse effects on the global climate or the reduction of biodiversity as a result of deforestation.
Environmental stress is one of the major "push factors" of migration in addition to economic deprivation, wars, population growth and oppression. Most migrant flows originate and remain in the "Third World." Yet the "pull" of Northern prosperity and stability is heightened by the spread of global communications media. Thus, migration pressures grow, and although migration can be economically and socially beneficial, uncontrolled South-North migration movements could endanger social and political stability in the North. Germany may not be affected immediately because, in contrast to the East-West dimension, its location in the center of Europe does not make it a frontline state; yet southern European states are, and their EC membership implies that, one way or another, Germany also will be affected.
Finally, there are state-sponsored terrorism and the traffic in illegal drugs. Drug trafficking is a symptom rather than a cause of social problems in the North since without demand it would quickly disappear; yet Southern drug barons have their own motives to ensure that the demand be satisfied, and huge sums of drug money fuel worldwide criminal operations.
Moral considerations make up the second category. It is easy to dismiss them as insignificant or even hypocritical. Indeed, for a long time, the rich part of the world has lived comfortably in the face of glaring North-South inequalities. And it has done so because one of the purposes of official development aid is to ease the donor's bad conscience. Yet without moral qualms, there would be no bad conscience in the first place. And in an age of television, nobody can claim ignorance of other peoples' plight, in particular if - as the citizens of Western democracies do - they pride themselves on being a champion of universal human rights.
The North-South gap can be narrowed in many ways. First and foremost, developing countries must create the internal prerequisites for sustainable development, such as a more equitable distribution of productive assets (in particular land), reduced military expenditures, and broad investments in mass education and public health. In terms of external incentives, the North can give financial and technical assistance, it can relieve the South's debt burden and provide direct investments. Most importantly, it can lower protective barriers and stop subsidizing agricultural exports.
For reasons discussed earlier, Germany is unlikely to provide the kind and extent of support called for by its "objective" interest in the "Third World." Political leadership may reduce this type of gap, but a popular mandate to close it will not be forthcoming.

b. Preserving the natural environment
Measured as a percentage of GDP, German expenditures for environmental protection are the second-highest of the major industrialized countries (including the U.S., Japan, France and Great Britain). An OECD report evaluating German environmental policy noted the "outstanding results" of Germany's efforts to reconcile economic growth with ecological objectives. In the field of technologies for environmental protection patent as well as export statistics show that Germany occupies a leading role.
First of all, these efforts reflect the urgency of the problem. As a rich, heavily industrialized and densely populated country, Germany has been a major polluter, and the costs of environmental degradation could no longer be ignored. Second, they are a manifestation of the German public's ecological consciousness, which has grown and may well be higher than in many other Western countries.
Both factors translate into a strong German interest in global environmental protection and internationally coordinated measures to that effect. Thus, in this case the gap between German interests and policy is smaller than on North-South issues. Yet it still exists, because for the foreseeable future no government is likely to receive a popular mandate for drastic, ecologically-oriented changes in production and consumption patterns.

c. Strengthening international security
The U.N. Secretary-General has correctly argued that democracy, peace and development are interlocked: democratization supports the cause of peace, peace is prerequisite to development, and without development there can be no democracy. Building peace is thus a primarily civilian task directed at creating and sustaining the political, social and economic foundations of democracy and development.
Yet it also has a security component in the narrow, military sense. Democratization and development require political stability which cannot be achieved if conflicts are carried out in a violent manner. As the Cold War and World War II demonstrated, preventing or ending wars can require the threat or use of force.
Since the end of the Cold War, the United Nations has assumed a new role in this regard. Quantitatively, peace-keeping has attained a new magnitude. Qualitatively, peace-keeping has been given new civilian and military tasks such as the protection of the delivery of humanitarian supplies. "In Somalia new ground has been broken by giving a U.N. operation the authority to enforce, under Chapter VII of the Charter, the decisions of the Security Council." And the 1991 Gulf War was the first multilateral military operation authorized by the Security Council since the Korean War.
The quantitative and, even more so, the qualitative evolution of U.N. peacekeeping reflect both an unprecedented degree of cooperation within the Security Council and an increased readiness of the international community to assume greater responsibility for peace and development. By the end of 1992, however, the mood had changed, and the evolution of the Somalia mission strongly reinforced "a growing sense of frustration and uncertainty."
President Clinton's U.N. speech, in which he laid out stringent criteria for new U.N. peace missions, confirms an earlier judgement that "it will be little short of magic if U.N. members turn their club into a potent interventionist organization." Sobering experiences call for rethinking, but not for retracting U.N. peacekeeping and peace-enforcement efforts because they remain an essential instrument of maintaining and restoring international security.
This as well as international expectations and an enlarged scope for action confront the united Germany with the need to formulate its own policy on German participation in international military operations. As noted above, public support for such engagements is rather weak. Moreover, prospects for a compromise between the conservative-liberal government and the Social Democratic opposition remain slim. While a "Germans-to-the-front" attitude would mean courting disaster in view of lingering concerns abroad about united Germany's power and policy, Germany, as an important member of the United Nations, the EC and NATO, cannot stay on the sidelines forever.

V. Conclusion

Just as many other states, the united Germany is still seeking its proper place in the fluid environment of the post-bipolar world. Hampered by its division, frontline status and limits on its sovereignty, (West) Germany used to be called an economic giant and a political dwarf. Those sometimes irksome, but also comfortable days are over. Germany cannot but play a greater role in the international arena.
Thus, the question is not whether the united Germany has become more powerful; instead, the question is for what purposes it will use that power. In this regard, the most reliable compass is national interests. While they are subject to political change, this paper has tried to identify those interests that are most important, and which any German government will find difficult to ignore.
Inevitably, there are tensions between some of these interests as well as between domestic and international priorities. Assistance to post-Communist reform countries limits the resources available for narrowing the North-South gap. Opening Western markets for products from eastern Europe and developing countries conflicts with demands of domestic groups for protection against foreign competitors. Preserving Franco-German partnership prevents Germany from putting ist full weight behind efforts to reach a GATT agreement that would improve transatlantic relations and stimulate the world economy. There are inherent tensions as well. On the one hand, the objective of stabilizing post-Communist democracies calls for their integration into NATO; on the other, more could be lost than gained if Moscow saw an eastward expansion of NATO as a hostile move.
Such conflicts are normal and not confined to German foreign policy making. Two additional factors complicating the problem are, however, unique to the united Germany. One is the challenge of unification, which will dominate the German political agenda for years to come. Similar to the Japanese case, the other is the combination of Germany's past with the reality of its newly-gained power. As a consequence, "Germany, rightly or wrongly, is still often seen through a different optic and measured by a different standard than other countries." German policymakers have to take into account this political fact, and to the extent that they do so, they can expect their foreign partners to accept the united and democratic Germany as a "normal" state.

Bush address to the U.N. General Assembly on September 23, 1991, U.S. Policy Information & Texts (USPIT), No. 128, September 25, 1991, p. 12.
The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute has registered 30 major wars in 1992 (Süddeutsche Zeitung, June 16, 1993, p. 2).
The term has become fashionable in conservative as well as liberal circles. See, e.g., Michael Stürmer, Globale Aufgaben und Herausforderungen einer "neuen Weltordnung", in Forum für Deutschland, Eine neue Weltordnung - Vor welchen Herausforderungen stehen Deutschland und die Atlantische Allianz? Eine Dokumentation der Tageszeitung Die Welt, Bonn 1993, p. 132, and Gert Krell et al. (eds), Friedensgutachten 1993 (Münster: Lit 1993), p. iii.
German Defense Minister Rühe has rightly spoken of the "apparent stability of the old bipolar order". (Bulletin of the Press and Information Office of the German Government, March 3, 1993, p. 145).
Daniel Frei, Risks of Unintentional Nuclear War (Geneva: United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research, 1992), p. 222.
For the term "long peace" and an analysis of the elements of its stability, see John Lewis Gaddis, The Long Peace, in International Security, Vol. 10, No. 4 (Spring 1986), pp. 99-142.
"Multipolarists" are, for example, Butros Butros-Ghali, Vereinte Nationen: Werkzeug für den Frieden, in Der Spiegel, August 16, 1993, p. 122; Paul Kennedy, interview in International Herald Tribune, July 10, 1990, p. 5; Henry Kissinger, Clinton and the World, in Newsweek, February 1, 1993, p. 12, and Theodore C. Sorensen, Rethinking National Security, in Foreign Affairs, Vol. 69, No. 3 (Summer 1990), p. 7.
Charles Krauthammer, The Unipolar Moment, in Foreign Affairs, Vol. 70, No. 1 (America and the World 1990/91), p. 24.
Hanns W. Maull, Germany and Japan: The New Civilian Powers, in Foreign Affairs, Vol. 69, No. 5 (Winter 1990/91), pp. 91-106 (the quote is on p. 103).
The quote is from The Economist, June 22, 1991, p. 16; the same argument is made by Zbigniew Brzezinski, The Consequences of the End of the Cold War for International Stability, in The International Institute for Strategic Studies, New Dimensions in International Security, Adelphi Papers 265, Winter 1991/92, p. 16; Joseph S. Nye, Jr., What New World Order?, in Foreign Affairs, Vol. 71, No. 2 (Spring 1992), p. 88, and Gebhard Schweigler, The United States and the New World Order, Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik, Ebenhausen, June 1991, p. 56. Increased U.S. dependence, for example, is shown by the fact that as a proportion of gross domestic product, America's exports were 12 1/2% in 1991, double what they were 20 years ago (The Economist, September 28, 1991, p. 15). In addition, U.S. administrations increasingly feel the constraints imposed by the power of non-state actors. They recognize that transnational problems such as ozone depletion and potential changes in the global climate can only be solved through multilateral cooperation. Japan and the member states of the European Community are no longer junior partners of the U.S. They are now able to bring to bear their full economic potential since in the post-Soviet world they are less dependent on U.S. military protection.
For two such views see John J. Mearsheimer, Back to the Future: Instability in Europe After the Cold War, in International Security, Vol. 15, No. 1 (Summer 1990), pp. 5-56, and Christopher Layne, The Unipolar Illusion: Why Great Powers Will Rise, in International Security, Vol. 17, No. 4 (Spring 1993), pp. 5-51.
For a brief exposition of the term "peace community" see Eckhard Lübkemeier, Security and Peace in Post-Cold War Europe, in Armand Clesse and Lothar Rühl, eds., Beyond East-West Confrontation: Searching for a New Security Structure in Europe (Baden-Baden: Nomos, 1990), pp. 187-190, and Lübkemeier, Konzeptionelle überlegungen zur militärischen und politischen Stabilität in Europa, in Erhard Forndran and Hartmut Pohlman, eds., Europäische Sicherheit nach dem Ende des Warschauer Paktes (Baden-Baden: Nomos, 1993), pp. 130-138.
Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations?," in Foreign Affairs, Vol. 72, No. 3 (Summer 1993), pp. 22-49 (the quote is on p. 29).
Ibid., pp. 48-49 (the quote is on p. 49).

For a critique of Huntington's essay see the contributions in Foreign Affairs, Vol. 72, No. 4 (September/October 1993), pp. 2-26.
For this characterization of Germany's role within the EC, see Egon Bahr, Deutsche Aussenpolitik zwischen Souveränität und Anpassung, in Gert Krell, Friedensgutachten 1993, p. 25.
For an opposing view, see Hanns W. Maull, Grossmacht Deutschland? Anmerkungen und Thesen, in Karl Kaiser and Hanns W. Maull, eds., Die Zukunft der deutschen Aussenpolitik, Forschungsinstitut der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Auswärtige Politik (Bonn: Europa Union, 1992), pp. 59-60.
The New Superpower, Newsweek, February 26, 1990, pp. 8-13.

Steven Greenhouse, A Colossus Is Formed In Europe, The New York Times, reprinted in International Herald Tribune, July 2, 1990, pp. 1 and 5.
Karl Kaiser, Verantwortung übernehmen, die Welt mitgestalten, in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, October 1, 1993, p. 12.
Hans-Peter Schwarz, Aussenpolitik ohne Konzept, in Rheinischer Merkur, October 1, 1993, p. 3.
Harald Müller, German Foreign Policy after Unification, in Paul B. Stares, ed., The New Germany and the New Europe (Washington, D.C.: Brookings, 1992), p. 162.
Gebhard Schweigler, Conclusion: Problems and Prospects for Partners in Leadership, in Steven Muller and Gebhard Schweigler, eds., From Occupation to Cooperation: The United States and United Germany in a Changing World Order (New York: Norton, 1992), p. 249.
Analysing the American security elite's attitudes toward the united Germany, Asmus reports a "split between those who fear that Germany will be too strong and those who fear it will be too weak." (Ronald D. Asmus, Germany in the Eyes of the American Security Elite (Santa Monica: The Rand Corporation, 1993), p. 19). One could add that, at different times, the same person can hold either one of these ambivalent views.
As one Hungarian economist put it: "No alternative economic partner is available for the region." (Andr s Inotai, Economic Implications of German Unification for Central and Eastern Europe, in Stares, ed., The New Germany, p. 294).
See Die Zeit, March 26, 1993, p. 36, and Berthold Busch and Hans-Peter Fröhlich, Westliche Unterstützung der Reformprozesse, in IW-Trends, Vol. 20., No. 1 (1993), pp. 53-54. This is, of course, partly explained by special German interests such as financing the speedy withdrawal of Soviet troops from eastern Germany and must also be seen as a sign of German gratitude for allowing and supporting German unification.
Neue Zürcher Zeitung, October 3-4, 1993, p. 1. (East-Central Europe usually encompasses Poland, Hungary as well as the Czech Republic and Slovakia).
Tom Redburn, Germany Fuels East's Industrial Rebirth, in International Herald Tribune, March 5, 1993, p. 1.
On East European ambivalence toward Germany, see Helmut Hubel, Das vereinte Deutschland aus internationaler Sicht, Forschungsinstitut der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Auswärtige Politik (Bonn: Europa Union, 1993), pp. 71-78, 94.
"However, the behavior of other West European countries toward Eastern Europe has been inconsistent. A pronounced fear that Germany may dominate Central and Eastern Europe has not been accompanied by increased West European interest in Central and Eastern Europe." (Inotai, Economic Implications, in Stares, ed., The New Germany, p. 295).
See Helmut Hubel, Das vereinte Deutschland, pp. 57-64, and Anne-Maire Le Gloannec, The Implications of German Unification for Western Europe, in Stares, ed., The New Germany, p. 266.
A blatant case in point is the French GATT policy. Although France stands to gain more from a GATT agreement than it might lose through the so-called "Blair House agreement" (which would reduce the volume of subsidized farm exports from the EC by 21 percent), it continues to hold a GATT agreement hostage to domestic policy considerations (see The Economist, September 11, 1993, pp. 19-20).
See Deutsche Bundesbank, Monatsberichte, Vol. 44, No. 3 (March 1992), p. 15; Achim Dübel and Ulrich Pfeiffer, Eine gesamtwirtschaftliche Entwicklungsstrategie für die Neuen Bundesländer (Bonn: Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, 1993), p. 10, and Judy Dempsey, A painstaking restoration, in Financial Times, October 1993, p. 13.
Dempsey, Financial Times. The immense social and psychological strains East Germans are exposed to as they attempt to adopt and adapt to a fundamentally different economic, social and political system, are exemplified by the extraordinary fall in birth rates: compared with the previous year, the number of births declined by almost 40 percent in 1992 (Süddeutsche Zeitung, October 5, 1993, p. 6).
See Deutsches Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Gesamtwirtschaftlichle und unternehmerische Anpassungsfortschritte in Ostdeutschland, Wochenbericht 41/93 (October 14, 1993), pp. 566, 568. From 1989 to 1992, the number of industrial workers per 1.000 inhabitants declinded from 195 to 63, about half the West German level (Dübel and Pfeiffer, Eine gesamtwirtschaftliche Entwicklungsstrategie, p. 7).
In real terms, the average household income increased by 50 percent between July 1990 and September 1993 (Richard Hilmer and Rita Müller-Hilmer, Es wächst zusammen, in Die Zeit, October 1, 1993, p. 17).
For opinion polls demonstrating an increasing East-West estrangement, see Der Spiegel, January 18, 1993, pp. 52-62, and Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann, Wird sich jetzt fremd, was zusammengehört?, in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, May 19, 1993, p. 5.
See Der Spiegel, January 18, 1993, p. 52, and Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, September 16, 1993, p. 5.
See Heinrich August Winkler, Abschied von einem deutschen Sonderweg - Wider die postnationale Nostalgie, in Die Neue Gesellschaft/Frankfurter Hefte, Vol. 40, No. 7 (1993), pp. 633-636.
Süddeutsche Zeitung, Magazin, January 4, 1991, pp. 8-9.
Ronald D. Asmus, Germany's Geopolitical Maturation, Rand Issue Paper, Santa Monica, February 1993, p. 3.
Ibid., pp. 3-4.

See Süddeutsche Zeitung, April 24-25, 1993, p. 12, and July 10-11, 1993, p. 8. Opinion polls regularly reveal that East Germans are even more reticent in this regard than West Germans.
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, March 29, 1993, p. 15.
Foreign Minister Klaus Kinkel, Chancen der Erneuerung in Politik, Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft, in Bulletin, February 24, 1993, p. 127.
For pertinent figures, see Dieter Senghaas, Verflechtung und Integration, in Kaiser and Maull, Die Zukunft der deutschen Aussenpolitik, pp. 38-39, and Klaus Kinkel, Verantwortung, Realismus, Zukunftssicherung, in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, March 19, 1993, p. 8.
Germany's GDP is projected to shrink in 1993 by 1.5 percent. Five of Germany's six major economic research institutes predict a real growth of 1.5 percent in 1994, one is pessimistic and expects a further GDP reduction of 0.5 percent. (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, October 25, 1993, p. 17, and Süddeutsche Zeitung, October 25, 1993, p. 1).
According to a McKinsey Global Institute's study on manufacturing productivity, German average productivity in certain key sectors is 79 percent and Japan's 83 percent of the American average level. (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, October 22, 1993, p. 13; see also ibid., June 8, 1993, p. 17; Jürgen Nötzold, USA, Japan, Deutschland: Wirtschaftliches Leistungsvermögen als Grundlage internationaler Stabilisierungsbeiträge, in Wolfgang Heydrich et al., eds., Sicherheitspolitik Deutschlands: Neue Konstellationen, Risiken, Instrumente (Baden-Baden: Nomos, 1992), pp. 762-763; Der Spiegel, September 6, 1993, pp. 30-38).
For the term "prosperity lie" and its explanation, see German Environmental Minister Klaus Töpfer in Die Zeit, June 19, 1992, p. 25.
See Enquete-Kommission "Schutz der Erdatmosphäre," Erster Bericht, Klimaänderung gefährdet globale Entwicklung: Zukunft sichern - Jetzt handeln, Deutscher Bundestag, Drucksache 12/2400, March 31, 1992, pp. 17 and 98.
For two attempts in this direction, see Lester R. Brown, Launching the Environmental Revolution, in Brown et al., State of the World 1992 (New York and London: Norton, 1992), pp. 174-190, and Christopher Flavin and John E. Young, Shaping the Next Industrial Revolution, in Lester R. Brown et al., State of the World 1993 (New York and London: Norton, 1993), pp. 180-199.
United Nations Development Programme, Human Development Report 1993 (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993), p. 36; for worldwide examples, see ibid., pp. 35-36.
See Süddeutsche Zeitung, October 21, 1993, p. 25, and Newsweek, June 14, 1993, pp. 10-12. For an account that this problem particularly affects EC economies, see Der Spiegel, October 18, 1993, pp. 142-146.
A particularly unsettling aspect has been the increase in chronic joblessness, i.e., the number of those unemployed over 12 months. Long-term unemployment as a proportion of total unemployment rose in ten out of 12 OECD countries between 1979 and 1992 (The Economist, July 24, 1993, p. 95).
See Süddeutsche Zeitung, October 16-17, 1993, p. 9.

For pertinent survey results, see Der Spiegel, March 1, 1993, pp. 24-29. In addition, see ibid., October 18, 1993, pp. 40-45.
As The Economist put it: "The Germans have a habit of spurring themselves into action just when it seems they might be falling into a self-satisfied doze." (February 25, 1992, p. 26).
For two long-term and astute observers of Germany who consider German democracy to be stable, see Ralf Dahrendorf, interview in Die Zeit, August 27, 1993, p. 3, and Alfred Grosser, Denk ich an Deutschland, in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Magazin, No. 707 (September 17, 1993), p. 38.
As she confirmed in her memoirs, then Prime Minister Margret Thatcher went even further and opposed German unification, though she soon had to resign herself to its inevitability. (See excerpts published in Der Spiegel, October 11, 1993,pp. 162-169). Mitterand was less concerned than Thatcher, but his meetings with Gorbachev in Kiev and with East German Prime Minister Modrow in East Berlin in December 1989 (i.e., shortly after the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989) were widely interpreted as attempts to slow down the pace of German unification.
For examples see the section on "International Expectations".
For this argument, see Norbert Walter, Patterns of Competition. Economic relationships: Germany, in Muller and Schweigler, From Occupation, p. 217.
More than two-thirds of Germans consistently oppose a common EC currency. (See Süddeutsche Zeitung, October 17-18, 1992, p. 10, and ibid., September 25-26, 1993, p. 13). According to the latter source, only 17 percent of Germans believe that the EC offers them more advantages than disadvantages, whereas 32 percent believe the oppossite to be true.
Between 1989 and mid-1992 EC imports from Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Poland rose by 72.4, 62.0, 87.0 and 86.1 percent, respectively. (See Jörg Beyfuß, Position der Reformländer in der internationalen Arbeitsteilung - Stand und Perspektiven, in IW-Trends, Vol. 20, No. 1 (1993), p. 35).
See Vaclav Havel (president of the Czech Republic), We Really Are Part of the NATO Family, in International Herald Tribune, October 20, 1993, p. 4; for Volker Rühe, see his speech "Gestaltung euro-atlantischer Politik - eine 'Grand Strategy' für eine neue Zeit," delivered in London at the International Institute for Strategic Studies (Alastair Buchan Memorial 1993) on March 26, 1993, in Bulletin, April 1, 1993, p. 232, and Süddeutsche Zeitung, May 22, 1993, p. 5.
See President Yeltsin's letter to Western leaders in which he apparently warned them against an early eastward expansion of NATO. (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, October 2, 1993, p. 1).
Klaus Kinkel, NATO Requires a Bold but Balanced Response to the East, in International Herald Tribune, October 21, 1993, p. 9.
For investments, see Die Zeit, October 1, 1993, p. 40. Germany is no exception in this regard. In 1989 Western intra-trade (i.e., trade among Western Europe, North America and Japan) amounted to nearly 78 percent of their total trade. (See Stiftung Entwicklung und Frieden, ed., Globale Trends: Daten zur Weltentwicklung 1991, Bonn/Düsseldorf 1991, p. 116). "And of global flows of foreign investment, the developing countries have been getting a steadily smaller share: from 31% in 1968 down to 17% in 1988-89." (United Nations Development Programme, Human Development Report 1992 (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), p. 52). However, the share has begun to rise again, reaching 25 percent in 1991. (See The Economist, A Survey of Multinationals, March 27, 1993, p. 25).
See Hanns W. Maull, Energy and resources: the strategic dimensions, in Survival, Vol. 31, No. 6 (November/December 1989), pp. 505-509; for the distinction between dependence and vulnerability, see ibid., p. 502.
For an overview, see The International Institute for Strategic Studies, Strategic Survey 1991-1992 (London: Brassey's, 1992),pp. 201-211.
Indeed, the time has already arrived, as Iraqi Scud attacks in the Gulf War have shown.
See Thomas F. Homer-Dixon, On the Threshold: Environmental Change as Causes of Acute Conflict, in International Security, Vol. 16, No. 2 (Fall 1991), pp. 76-116.
See John C. Ryan, Conserving Biological Diversity, in Brown, State of the World 1992, pp. 9-26.
On the migration issue, see Peter J. Opitz, Migrations- und Flüchtlingsbewegungen, in Dieter Nohlen and Franz Nuscheler, eds., Handbuch der Dritten Welt, Band 1: Grundprobleme, Theorien, Strategien (Bonn: Dietz, 1992), pp. 374-395, and United Nations Population Fund, The State of World Population 1993, New York 1993.
See UNDP, Human Development Report 1992, pp. 68-70.

According to World Bank estimates, protectionism of the industrialized countries cost the developing countries twice as much as the official development assistance they received from them. (See German Minister Carl-Dieter Spranger, Ordnungspolitische Weichenstellungen für eine freiheitliche Weltwirtschaftsordnung, in Bulletin, December 13, 1991, p. 1146).
Only Austria's level of expenditure was higher. (See Deutsches Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Umweltschutz und Standortqualität in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, Wochenbericht 16/93, April 22, 1993, p. 200).
Bundesministerium für Umwelt, Naturschutz und Reaktorsicherheit, Umweltprüfbericht Deutschland: Bericht der OECD über Umweltsituation und Umweltpolitik in Deutschland, Bonn, July 2, 1993, p. 6.
See Deutsches Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Wochenbericht 16/93, pp. 204-205.
Boutros Boutros-Ghali, An Agenda for Peace: One Year Later, in Orbis, Vol. 37, No. 3 (Summer 1993), p. 329.
Between its founding year 1945 and the beginning of 1988, the U.N. carried out 13 peacekeeping missions. In the following four years alone, 14 new missions were established. The personnel involved in all peacekeeping missions increased from 11,500 in January 1992 to more than 80,000 participants in the Cambodia, ex-Yugoslavia and Somalia missions alone. (See Winrich Kühne, VN-Friedenssicehrung in einer turbulenten Welt, Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik, Ebenhausen 1993, p. 9).
Boutros-Ghali, An Agenda for Peace, p. 327.

For a discussion of the implications of this development for key principles of international law such as state sovereignty and non-intervention in internal affairs, see The International Institute for Strategic Studies, Strategic Survey 1992-1993 (London: Brassey's, 1993), pp. 24-31, and Kühne, VN-Friedenssicherung, pp. 16-33.
Strategic Survey 1992-1993, p. 32; for additional skeptical accounts, see The Economist, December 26, 1992-January 8, 1993, pp. 60-62, and Time, June 28, 1993, pp. 26-28.
The Economist, December 19, 1992, p. 11; for Clinton, see USPIT, No. 99, Sptember 29, 1993, p. 6.
For a discussion of the inner-German debate, see Oliver Thränert, Aspekte deutscher Sicherheitspolitik in den neunziger Jahren, Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, Bonn 1993, pp. 16-25.
Asmus, Germany in the Eyes, p. 20; see also Maull, Grossmacht Deutschland?, in Kaiser and Maull, Die Zukunft der deutschen Aussenpolitik, pp. 57-58.

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