The Challenge of the Future

Abstract

The seismic shifts in the international system at the end of the 1980s and the unification of Germany have provoked a large spectrum of different views about the future role of the United Germany in the new Europe. Some scholars and politicians expressed the expectation that, with the restraints of the postwar settlements having been removed, Germany would now develop a foreign and security policy in keeping with its position in the international system. As the country with the largest economy in Europe, the central position between East and West and the largest population in Western Europe, playing a leading role in Europe, not least by virtue of being the largest net contributor to the budget of the European Union, it would assume a leadership role in Western Europe and Central Europe. It would overcome its Machtvergessenheit, in the words of Hans-Peter Schwarz, and assert its national interests. Christian Hacke thus declared the national interest as the guiding principle for Germany’s future foreign policy and sought to develop some principles for the global power against its will (Weltmacht wider Willen).¹