Versus a reflexive security logic
Poverty, climate change, scarcity of resources, migration and terrorism – for most of these problems military action is an inappropriate response. One might hope to correct the impression that foreign policy today is inconceivable without a (military led) security logic. One might instead aim at civilian approaches of finding win-win solutions to conflicts. An article by Corinna Hauswedell.
The operationalisation of state peace policy since 9/11 as "networked security" or the so-called comprehensive approach in numerous military-civilian cooperations was a resource-intensive mistake of serious consequence.
Again and again, in keeping with the expectations of our international partners, but contrary to the view of the majority of the German population, the concept of "responsibility" is linked to the use of military means (⇒ Bell).
This is less of a paradox than it sounds. It is, after all, the result of a process through which international relations have over the past 15 years become more focused on security (and enmities), a process to which neither Germany nor the EU as a whole could or wanted to develop a strategic alternative.
This narrowing of international policy to focus on military intervention scenarios, a consequence primarily of the war on terror, has gone hand in hand with a questionable removal of boundaries in the understanding of security.
The European Security Strategy, which has not been revised since it was adopted back in 2003, lumped together very different contexts, risks, dangers and/or threats in the globalised world (such as poverty, climate change, scarcity of resources, migration and terrorism), blurring those lines between them by which we can – and must – differentiate clearly between civilian and military approaches.
A military response is appropriate for very, very few of these problems; that is the main reason for the scepticism and anxiety felt by many Germans, not their desire to stay out of things (⇒ Körber survey).
The operationalisation of state peace policy since 9/11 as "networked security" or the so-called comprehensive approach in numerous military-civilian cooperations was a resource-intensive mistake of serious consequence for which the fact that it was made in the framework of the Western Alliance is hardly an excuse. The Alliance became too much of a raison d'être rather than a forum for the resolution of conflicting interests.
Thus, before one can fine-tune peace-oriented foreign policy, also here in Germany, one needs to undertake a serious review of international policy’s military ambitions over the past 12 years, and particularly of the various mandates and missions in Afghanistan (⇒ Wieland-Karimi).
Key findings from peace and conflict research (⇒ Peace Report) and the increased experience of civilian conflict management (⇒ German Platform for Peaceful Conflict Management) can be of value in this context:
- Violent conflicts which are contained predominantly through military action often take on a negative dynamic if the underlying social and political causes of the conflict, i.e. economic, ethno-political or religion-based exclusion endangering social cohesion, are not adequately addressed. The most recent escalation in Iraq provides distressing proof of this.
- The disillusionment with regard to building democracy and justice which has followed the intervention euphoria of the past two decades relates in particular to the use and spread of weapons as – unsuitable – instruments of counter-violence. That is why German initiatives regarding the stalled international disarmament processes and the integration onto the global stage of the emerging "new actors" who are inclined to build up their arms stocks need to be high on the foreign-policy agenda. We must stop the further blurring of boundaries in security policies by high-tech weapons and warfare, for instance by launching a debate on an international ban on combat drones. Arms exports to questionable third states must be stopped!
- The delegitimisation of violence is a fundamental standard in civilian conflict management and diplomatic mediation. Only with this overarching goal will there be any acceptance of communication about varying interests, perceptions and needs of the parties to a conflict and of the necessary inclusion of all involved. Military intervention sui generis cannot (and does not aim to) do this. Yet this key difference is the reason why the "comprehensive approach" is so often counterproductive when it comes to peacebuilding.
- One lesson dating from the final years of the East-West confrontation which is particularly apposite in today's globalised conflicts should now be applied: ultimately, security in the sense of peacebuilding can only be developed as a common, collective good, not as protection against others. The attempts to establish a human-rights-based "Responsibility to Protect" at UN level, show how difficult this is not least as a result of political double standards at work in Western foreign policies.
- Given the huge global interdependences (financial markets, energy supplies, etc.) in today's world, zero sum games are less in keeping with the times than ever. Putin should have known that, but so should the Western players in Ukraine. That is why the voices calling for Russia's integration into pan-Europe to be suspended for the moment (⇒ Müller, ⇒ Krause, ⇒ Risse) are on the wrong track. A responsible foreign policy which is to be the product of deliberate reflection, in Germany particularly to be based on historical awareness, ought to effect exactly the opposite.
- In more general terms, it is a matter of identifying policy fields and regional contexts in the sense of preventive peacebuilding in which a balance of interests can be successfully implemented without a negative disposition to power – in other words, a matter of creating win-win situations. The priority for German foreign policy, notwithstanding all right-wing populism, should be a new EU immigration policy vis-à-vis the North African states. Fortress mentalities and intimidating border fences must be replaced by international law, respect and solidarity. Africa could thus become a signal for a new neighbourhood policy (⇒ Adebajo/Virk; ⇒ Sidiropoulos).
Obviously, this would be something of a paradigm shift: the foreign policy of Germany, that strong central power which tends to be led by economic temptations (⇒ Guéhenno; ⇒ Tocci), concentrating less on enforcing its own narrow national interests, and instead along with its EU partners reinforce the art of interacting as equals with other, particularly the weaker, states and societies, with the aim of ensuring a fair straightening of the huge asymmetries created by globalisation. Did I have a dream?
