Frozen in Trump’s headlights – Germany’s astounding foreign policy of obstinacy

McLarren, Katharina; Stahl, Bernhard

doi:10.1007/978-3-030-97154-0_15

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Frozen in Trump’s headlights – Germany’s astounding foreign policy of obstinacy

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McLarren, Katharina
Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law, Max Planck Society;

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McLarren, K., & Stahl, B. (2022). Frozen in Trump’s headlights – Germany’s astounding foreign policy of obstinacy. In The Legacy and Impact of German Unification: The Elusive Dream of 'Flourishing Landscapes' (pp. 377-394). Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan. doi:10.1007/978-3-030-97154-0_15.

Cite as: https://hdl.handle.net/21.11116/0000-000F-0F57-0

Abstract

After Trump’s decisions on world affairs began taking shape, Chancellor Angela Merkel announced to fundamentally reconsider German foreign policy. Yet on a behavioral level, our thesis reads, little change in Germany’s behavior can be detected since Trump was inaugurated in 2017. Based on Wendt’s theoretical concept of the cultures of anarchy, this article presents a behavioral analysis to better grasp whether or not Germany’s positions on important foreign policy issues have changed looking at developments before and since German unification. More specifically, Germany’s foreign policy behavior is analyzed in two cases to establish whether the “culture” between the two countries remains one of a friendship between two liberal democracies. Germany’s behavior is analyzed in two cases (the US condemning human rights abuses in China and Trump’s plan to reduce US troops in Germany). While the overall conclusion is that the transatlantic friendship is still intact, the article discusses the findings in reference to Wendt’s concept of “friendship” to detect a tendency toward a weakening of the friendship.