TIME: Almanac 1990/1990 Time Magazine Compact Almanac, The (1991)(Time).iso/time/092589/09258900.000

Text File | 1990-09-17 | 6KB | 109 lines

ESSAY, Page 88

Return of the German Question

By Charles Krauthammer


    Say what you will about imperialism, it does have a way of
keeping the natives from killing one another. This truth is
entirely color-blind. What was true for, say, British India and
East Africa is true for Europe. For 40 years the brutal Soviet
dominion over Eastern Europe suppressed a myriad of nationalisms
and kept things quiet. Now that Soviet power is in retreat, things
are quiet no more.

    As the Soviets retreat, America is sure to follow (that is, if
the U.S. has not, in a mood of euphoric anticipation, left first).
As the smoke and fog of the cold war dissipate, so does the postwar
division of Europe. With the receding of the two empires, many long
dead questions return -- the Hapsburg, the Balkan, even the Danzig
question. But none are so formidable as the one the wartime Allies
thought they had buried in Berlin in 1945, the German question.

    Germany was conquered, then divided into two states designed
to remain forever in a state of permanent, if cold, antagonism.
Pax Americana and Pax Sovietica solved the German problem. To put
it another way, the first achievement of NATO is that it contained
the Soviet Union. The second achievement, underappreciated now but
not for long, is that with the collaboration of the Soviet Union,
it solved the German problem.

    No longer. It may not yet be polite to say so, but the German
question is back. The first widely noticed hint occurred this
spring when the West German Foreign Minister, in a rare
demonstration of German assertiveness, forced a change in the
American position (and entirely undercut Britain) on the issue of
short-range nuclear weapons. The issue is relatively minor, but the
demonstration was not. It not only showed alliance willingness to
accommodate German demands, it also showed German willingness to
make them, and to make them purely and unashamedly in terms of its
national interest.

    This mood of independence was further on display during Mikhail
Gorbachev's visit in April, when West Germans showed an enthusiasm
for the Soviet leader so wild that the Economist aptly dubbed it
a "Gorbasm." Now, with West Germany absorbing huge numbers of East
German refugees, talk of reunification grows louder.

    Germany's immediate aim is to rid itself of the burden of being
Europe's battlefield. (Hence the campaign against short-range
nuclear weapons and low-flying training aircraft.) Its medium-range
interest is to rid itself of foreign soldiers, which would turn it
from an instrument of alliance policy into an entirely independent
entity of its own. But its long-range goal is reunification or, to
paraphrase Secretary of State James Baker in another context,
dreams of a Greater Germany.

    That dream is -- there is no need to be diplomatic --
everybody's nightmare.

    The problem is that a united Germany, or even a confederated
Germany, would be the hegemonic power in an independent Europe.
Consider the evidence. The West Germans have built from rubble the
most powerful economy in all Europe. Yet an even greater feat may
have been performed by the East Germans. They have created a
relatively productive economy under the impossible, absurd
conditions of Marxist economics. Put these two together and you
have what all of Europe understands will be its dominant power.

    This does not, of course, mean German armies retracing the path
of the Wehrmacht. But it does mean Germany coming to dominate the
political economy of the Continent. Would such a Germany continue
to, in effect, sustain and subsidize much of the European
Community? Would it accept in perpetuity its shrunken postwar
borders? Would it continue to abjure nuclear weapons?

    Americans assume that West Germany is a Western power. But in
fact Germany has traditionally seen itself as a Central European
power. How it will define itself, with whom it will ally itself,
and how it will choose to assert its power are at the heart of the
anxiety that attends the German question.

    The answer lies in the race between two enormous historical
transformations occurring on either side of Germany. To the west
is the integration of the European Community, a project that Robert
Hormats, former Assistant Secretary of State, correctly calls the
greatest voluntary transfer of sovereignty in history. Europe '92,
which will establish a single West European market and might lead
to a common currency and ultimately some kind of political
confederation, is the major force pulling Germany west. With the
decline of NATO, the great hope of keeping Germany oriented to the
West is to lock it into a web of intimate economic, and ultimately
political, relations.

    The other great pull is to the east. It comes from the gradual
dissolution of the Soviet empire, which will draw Germany into the
geopolitical and economic vacuum left behind. Europeans already
talk of West Germany, with its proximity, historical ties and vast
economic power, developing a minicolonial sphere of influence among
its East European neighbors. There is even talk of the French
trying quietly to renew prewar ties to the East (in the interwar
period France had close ties with Poland and the countries of the
Little Entente) as a flanking maneuver to contain any eastern
expansion of German influence. Plus ca change.

    Europe's future will be determined by the contest between these
two sirens calling Germany to its destiny. Which is strong reason
for the U.S. to encourage a successful West European integration.
True, such a Europe might turn into a protectionist fortress
unfriendly to the American economy. But a unified Europe with ties
that bind Germany is the best hope for a tranquil post-cold war
world. And say what you will about unification, it is an even
better national tranquilizer than imperialism.