Realpolitik Returns to Berlin
The Bumpy Road from Soft to Hard Security
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Abstract
“Never again” has been a mantra of German foreign policy since the end of World War II. Together with Ostpolitik it informs its approach toward the conflict in Ukraine. The discourse moved from “never again war originating from German soil” via justifying military interventions to prevent ethnic cleansing in the Balkans in 1998 with Joshka Fischer's injunction of “never again Auschwitz” to Olaf Scholz’ programmatic 2023 speech invoking “never again war of aggression in Europe.” This development is interpreted in the light of Realpolitik, providing the hard security means to defend the rule of law and democratic governance. External shocks have led Germany to expand its soft security arsenal as a civilian power and to embrace military means for liberal ends.
Contributor Notes
Holger Moroff is an adjunct professor of political science at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill and a visiting professor at the National Defense University. In Germany he taught international and comparative politics at the universities of Hannover and Jena since 2002. Before that he was a senior research fellow at the Institute for European Politics (IEP) in Berlin. He studied political science and economics at Washington University in St. Louis and the universities of Bochum and Bonn. His research focuses on security theories and European integration, comparative political corruption and the internationalization of anti-corruption regimes. He is the editor of the book European Soft Security Policies (2002), co-editor of Fighting Corruption in Eastern Europe (2012), and the Oxford Handbook of German Politics (2022) and has published numerous articles in scholarly journals and edited volumes. Email: moroff@unc.edu