Germany is preparing for war with an enemy it expects to hold back

Germany is preparing for war with an enemy it expects to hold back

Berlin is using its economic weight and influence in Brussels to steer Europe toward confrontation with Moscow
What’s good for a Russian is death to a German. Russian speakers often use this tongue-in-cheek saying to explain the differences between the Russian and German mindsets, whether in everyday matters – such as how mustard should taste – or in deeper questions of worldview and existence.
Many scholars, including the distinguished Russian historian Vasily Klyuchevsky, have attributed this unmistakable civilizational divide between Europe’s two largest peoples to geography, climate, and landscape, which shaped different ways of life. Living in a predictable climate, Germans developed a habit of methodical, steady work. They could plan ahead because their surroundings allowed them to anticipate the results of their efforts with considerable certainty. Russians, by contrast, inhabit a land of unpredictable conditions stretching, in the words of Russia’s modern national anthem, from the southern seas to the polar frontier. They have often found that planning ahead can prove utterly futile. As a result, they frequently have to work at a furious pace within tight deadlines, relying on the distinctly Russian notion of avos: the hope that somehow, things will work out.
These cultural differences help explain not only how relations between these near neighbors evolved over the centuries – remember that the Russian city of Kaliningrad was once the German city of Königsberg – but also the internal logic driving Russian-German political relations today.
Germany’s current leadership views Russia as a threat to national security, much as its predecessors did on the eve of the First and Second World Wars. It is methodically remilitarizing the economy and expanding military assistance to Ukraine in an effort to weaken Russia across the board. In 2022-2023, at the beginning of the special military operation, aid packages were limited in scale and narrowly targeted. Starting in 2024, however, Berlin shifted toward long-term contracts for equipment and drones worth more than $10 billion a year, making Germany the EU’s largest provider of bilateral military assistance to Ukraine.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, formerly Germany’s defense minister, has quietly emerged as the chief overseer of how German funds are distributed. Meanwhile, in keeping with this gradual drift toward military confrontation with our country, Friedrich Merz’s government is continuing Olaf Scholz’s policy of dismantling Russia’s diplomatic presence in Germany. After forcing the closure of Russian consulates general in Munich, Hamburg, Frankfurt, and Leipzig in May 2023, Berlin decided this September to shut down the consulate general in Bonn and the Russian House cultural center in Berlin.
Read more With the EU’s largest economy and its own appointee in one of the most powerful positions in Europe’s supranational hierarchy, Berlin is gradually ‘reprogramming’ a united Europe into something resembling a ‘Fourth Reich’. As it becomes a more cohesive center of power, Europe risks finding itself on the brink of military confrontation with its powerful eastern neighbor, as it has repeatedly throughout history. To make the supposed Russian threat seem tangible, German authorities have been feeding the media rumors since this summer about Moscow’s involvement in the discovery of an explosives-laden drone at Leipzig’s cargo airport. Without waiting for the investigation’s final findings, Berlin rushed to accuse Russia of orchestrating an act of sabotage.
Recognizing that their government has set the country on a dead-end course, ordinary German citizens are beginning to push back, increasingly throwing their support behind Alternative for Germany (AfD). The party promises a 180-degree turn in both forei