Great Power Responsibility and Self-Criticism

The withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan and the renewed seizure of power by the radical Islamist Taliban, who were driven out of Kabul in 2001, have left the West – in both North America and Europe – with a kind of crisis of purpose that could also be described as a vacuum of meaning. The long overdue debate on Europe’s political contribution to the world has still failed to materialise. In the 1990s, German political scientist Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann observed that reunified Germany lacked a culture of debate on foreign policy, an observation that still applies today. The geopolitical compass, if it has even existed over recent decades, seems to have gone awry, especially in German foreign policy.

After twenty years of German military presence in Afghanistan, it is not only this country of the Hindu Kush that finds itself back at square one. Along with the United States, Germany and Europe have suffered a defeat. However, the disgrace of this defeat lies less, as is often claimed, in the military sphere, in the vain attempt to keep the Taliban out of power, but rather in the West’s complete inability to assess its foreign and intervention policies in a morally self-critical way. There is no debate about our neo-colonialism – even though this is essential if we are to stop pushing away or misinterpreting our responsibility.

There is no debate about our neo-colonialism – even though this is essential if we are to stop pushing away or misinterpreting our responsibility.

In a recent speech to the United Nations, German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier appealed to the responsibility of the major powers. This was also done against the backdrop of the fact that Germany has been seeking a seat on the Security Council for decades. Steinmeier’s appeal was wellintentioned, but its execution remains as nebulous as Germany’s foreign policy as a whole.

How exactly should ‘responsibility’ be defined in future? The President urged Iran to return to the negotiating table and China to respect human rights. But what is meant by Steinmeier’s implied expansion of our military and diplomatic leeway? What is he thinking of when he says the hand pointing the finger at others has other fingers pointing back at ourselves, at our own responsibility to be more engaged in the world?

It is the job of experts to furnish the very vague ideas for policy reform with specific recommendations for action and to discuss them publicly. In times of globalisation, foreign policy must become more transparent – and yes: more democratic! – if we are to overcome the growing crisis of purpose with regard to our position in the world.

The number of dead and wounded soldiers from Europe and the US is in the thousands. A war legitimised as a humanitarian operation with subsequent occupation has thus taken itself to the point of absurdity. Any well-intentioned attempt to deal with the fate of the people in today’s Taliban-ruled Afghanistan remains morally inconsequential without an evaluation of one’s own military actions.

Any well-intentioned attempt to deal with the fate of the people in today’s Taliban-ruled Afghanistan remains morally inconsequential without an evaluation of one’s own military actions.

Nothing is more surprising than the current ‘surprise’ of large parts of the Western public in the face of this devastating outcome. Experts and civil society have been voluble in their criticism and warnings right from the outset. Shortly after the end of the first phase of the war, it was already clear that the Taliban could not ultimately be defeated, that the number of war dead would far exceed the number of victims of the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, and that the attempts at democratisation in Afghanistan were being abused as a mechanism of power by a manipulative elite financed by the West, which, for example, fixed elections at will.

Urgent debate and a change of course were desperately needed but this was sacrificed by successive German governments involving all the main German parties on the altar of the supposed need to stand up to terror, which in fact created or at least intensified the problem itself (for example, IS would not have emerged without the power vacuum in Iraq after 2003).

Without a doubt, 9/11 was an atrocity and disaster of epic proportions. But a police-like pursuit of Osama Bin Laden and Co. would have been a far more appropriate strategy than a war in Afghanistan – a ‘war on terror’ (Bush), ‘unlimited solidarity’ (Schröder) – and certainly than a second war in Iraq with hundreds of thousands of dead, the destabilisation of political systems and an endless succession of civil wars that have in reality been proxy wars of the great powers. Twenty years for nothing, at best giving a generation of Afghans breathing space: is this the responsibility of the great powers to which the German president refers?

Twenty years for nothing, at best giving a generation of Afghans breathing space: is this the responsibility of the great powers to which the German president refers?

Back in the 1960s, Afghanistan was considered the ‘Switzerland of the Middle East’ and a haven of stability. For many years, Afghan embassies in the West Germany took over consular duties for Egyptians living in Germany, whose government had broken off diplomatic relations with the Bonn Republic after German arms deliveries to Israel. In Kabul there was a parliamentary bicameral system – but then along came the great powers with the explosive charge of their irresponsibility.

Over the decades, the West’s goals in the Middle East have never changed. They revolve around securing resources, geostrategic containment or territorial gains, especially against Russia and latterly China. Such horizons are defined no differently in the United States and Europe than in Moscow and Beijing, even if the strategies for achieving them seem to change on average every twenty years.

The Second World War was initially followed by the era of colonial liberation wars (such as in Vietnam, Korea, Algeria, Egypt, Congo, and Israel/Palestine), in the course of which the Western great powers sacrificed many millions of human lives. From the 1970s onwards, there followed a phase of détente, which was, however, also a time of containment in which, for example, Iraq was armed against Iran. The Gulf War of 1991 was then the harbinger of a shift towards ‘humanitarian intervention’ after the 9/11 attacks, a phase that now seems to be coming to an end.

If this really is, as conflict research says, the most peaceful of all times, it becomes clear in retrospect how enormously warlike the so called ‘post-war period’ really was.

It would be naïve to believe that the withdrawal from Afghanistan and Iraq is a sign of Western countries’ isolation from the global political arena. It is much more likely to be a new strategic turn, part of their realpolitik, but one that follows the same patterns of a seemingly endless Cold War. Syria is far from pacified, Africa remains a military theatre of operations for Europe, and China and the United States are on course for a fresh confrontation in Southeast Asia. If this really is, as conflict research says, the most peaceful of all times, it becomes clear in retrospect how enormously warlike the so called ‘post-war period’ really was.

Despite all the changes in strategy, the world – and within it Europe – is still a long way from achieving a lasting and sustainable shift towards cooperative foreign policy and global governance. Diplomacy guarantees a minimum of global political communication, which harbours an inherent opportunity for a genuine international community. At the same time, however, it remains ambivalent. Any gains in global integration – such as in the area of climate policy – are counteracted elsewhere by nationalist unilateralism.

Ostpolitik meant an acceptance of real-life politics, recognition of the supposed ‘enemy’ as an interlocutor, and a simultaneous commitment to human rights as well as to one’s own political interests. Today, this guideline should once again be applied to the West’s relationship with great powers such as China, but also with authoritarian states such as Afghanistan under the Taliban.

Russia, under Putin, has disqualified itself from the policy of détente by attacking Ukraine, but the West will have to work even more closely with the other great powers to find new solutions for peace.

Recognising the weakness of being unable to build democracy from the outside in a country like Afghanistan, a phased foreign policy should be developed that breaks the vicious circle of war, occupation, and the double standards of cooperation with dictators and allows for transformation partnerships, dialogue about human rights, and close working relationships. Russia, under Putin, has disqualified itself from the policy of détente by attacking Ukraine, but the West will have to work even more closely with the other great powers to find new solutions for peace.

For too long, the war in Syria has been a proxy conflict between the great powers, who have never truly worked on a joint solution. The same applies to all other conflict hotspots, including the Israel-Palestine conflict, the Iran issue, the war in Yemen, Afghanistan and Pakistan. Is it so absurd to consider the proposal to address the whole scope of conflict in the Middle East along the lines of the former OSCE process with the participation of all actors at a large, permanent security conference for the Middle East?

After the aggressive promotion of democracy of recent decades in Afghanistan, which, for all its presumptuousness, was after all based on a positive vision of universal human rights, the withdrawal from Afghanistan is often accompanied by an undertone of cultural stereotypes.

Why does the German President make such vague reference to the ‘responsibility’ of the great powers without making these kinds of specific proposals? What has become of the foreign policy culture that allowed West Germany to pursue global policy with its Ostpolitik or that allowed Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher to become a mediator in the Iran/US hostage crisis in Bonn in 1980?

Angela Merkel’s government, which certainly had its merits in many areas (such as on climate change, Trump and refugees), remained extremely passive, especially in the Middle East. One must remember that Merkel was even hesitant to support Egyptians in their protests against the dictator Mubarak and that she was the first to welcome the new ruler al-Sisi in Berlin. Promoting democracy? Only to a very limited extent. Great power responsibility? It looks different. Even if Germany is not a great power in its own right, in the Western alliance it shares responsibility for the definition of great power politics.

Political transformation cannot simply be exported – Germany and Japan after the Second World War were the exception, not the rule. History shows that most transformations tend to be negotiated between formerly radical forces. The international community, if it wants to earn this name, must set out a framework in this respect. It must stop supplying arms, demand stability and seek change through rapprochement.

The potential argument that the experiences of the Ostpolitik of the 1970s cannot be transferred to the present time because the new soft power deprives China’s ‘development dictatorship’ of any room for negotiation fails to recognise the power of the global economic and security interdependencies that also affect China. Particularly in the post-colonial world, nation states have to transition in their own time and could be constructively accompanied by wise policies on the part of the great powers without falling into bipolar bursts of euphoria or depression about the state of the world every twenty years. Steinmeier rightly says that ‘less sense of mission and more openness in our endeavour to find potential solutions and common ground’ could be a guideline for a lasting partnership of transformation.

All this is not only about adopting a humanitarian attitude towards the world, but also about a realistic positioning for Europe. The continent’s share of the global population is steadily declining. High productivity still ensures prosperity, both in the production of goods and in the intellectual and scientific sector.

To take just one example: the majority of websites are still operated from Europe and North America, despite the global diversity of languages on the internet. But Europe will not be in a position to shape the future unless it opens the doors to increased immigration, which in turn means two things.

Firstly, European states will have to commit to the transformation of countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America if they want to pursue immigration as the standard form of a multicultural society rather than as chaotic refugee management resulting from selfinflicted wars.

Secondly, they will have to take serious steps to fight systemic racism in our society. In our latitudes, it is true there is also a strong anti-racist movement. In Germany, the Black Lives Matter movement has contributed to the Merkel government pushing through some major anti-racism measures.

Although associated attitudes have remained fairly stable in Germany over the years, conflicts and attacks – from hate speech to xenophobic violence – have increased and are now far more widespread than Islamist attacks, which also exacerbate conflicts.

Nevertheless, the success of the AfD and the strikingly high levels of approval for anti-Muslim attitudes amongst Germany’s middle classes show that cosmopolitanism is far from being a consensus in Germany. Instead, immigrants from Africa and the Middle East in particular find themselves hitting a glass wall of rejection everywhere in Germany. In the housing and labour market, in educational institutions, or in terms of socio-cultural participation (such as wearing a hijab to a nightclub), they experience discrimination on a daily basis. Although associated attitudes have remained fairly stable in Germany over the years, conflicts and attacks – from hate speech to xenophobic violence – have increased and are now far more widespread than Islamist attacks, which also exacerbate conflicts.

A bridge needs to be built between foreign and domestic policy in this respect. These two dimensions are closely related in a global world. A consumerist mindset in globalisation that shies away from confrontation with its own neo-colonial policies, but at the same time uses products from all over the world, only to condemn ‘the foreign’ in a populist manner because of its otherness and supposed inferiority, leads Europe into a cultural culde-sac.

To stay with the example of the internet: even twenty years after its introduction, the vast majority of people in this country have little connection with the non-European world. We travel the same ethnocentric paths virtually as we do in the real world. Our educational institutions urgently need to catch up when it comes to systemic racism (not to mention the police, administrative authorities and military).