MERCURY
OR MARS?
WHAT SEPARATES GERMANY AND THE UNITED STATES
GERMANY
and the UNITED STATES are Mercury and Mars. GERMANY is Mercury, the ROMAN god
of commerce and the UNITED STATES, Mars, the god of war.
 |
| Mercury - God of Commerce |
GERMANY has emerged over
the past decade as the big winner in the West from globalization, the
Exportmeister of the world in its class. It is the paradigm of a geo-economic
power, one that relies on its economic rather than its military power for its
influence and which defines its national interest largely in economic terms.
GERMANY’S world-class
companies have a global reach and a global vision. Beyond the realm of pure
politics, they are cornerstones in giving GERMANY shaping powers on the global
stage.
POWERFUL
INFLUENCE
A “shaping power” — while
not a super power — is a state that has the power to shape outcomes and events.
It offers an important status at a time when we see the emergence of a
polycentric, highly interdependent, world with rising non-Western powers
playing a larger role in global and regional decision-making.
The official GERMAN
government paper on this concept puts the idea of “Gestaltungsmacht” (as
shaping powers are called in GERMAN) in the following terms:
These countries are
economic locomotives which substantially influence regional cooperation and
also have an impact in other global regions and play an increasingly important
role in international decision making. […] We see them as more than developing
countries but as new shaping powers.
Shaping Powers base their
influence on economics and, rather than acting within the confines of
traditional alliances (such as the EU, NATO and the G-7), they fashion networks
with new actors both at home and abroad.
Given GERMANY’S great
reliance on exports and its dependence on the import of natural resources, it
needs to have a reputation as a reliable economic partner. Generally speaking,
sanctions, drawing red lines and employing military force all run counter to GERMANY’S
geo-economic interests.
In this sense, risk
aversion, already a deeply embedded trait in GERMAN political culture, is
reinforced. In my view, that has produced the Nein Nation, a GERMANY that
increasingly says no to policies which might endanger these economic interests.
Its use of sanctions against RUSSIA is an important departure from this
posture.
THE
AMERICAN MODEL
America, in contrast, is
both a major economic and military power with global security interests. The UNITED
STATES has a tendency to look to its imposing military instruments in dealing
with foreign policy. Accordingly, it has developed a national security state
which is as imposing as the GERMAN commercial one.
 |
| Mars - God of War |
The resurgence of
nationalism and military force as seen in RUSSIA’S challenge in UKRAINE and the
growing CHINESE military challenge in east Asia have opened questions
concerning which type of power is best suited to operate in the 21st globalized
century.
The divergence in the
discussion over how to respond in UKRAINE, between Chancellor Merkel’s ruling
out of military options and the growing support in the UNITED STATES on arming UKRAINE,
illustrates the potential for real-life differences in these two approaches.
The GERMAN model may seem
too many AMERICANS as one-dimensional and lacking in the necessary military
tool in its diplomatic arsenal. Critics have a point when they argue that GERMANY
has let its defense capabilities atrophy. Even geo-economic powers need a
strong military to hedge against risks in an unknown future. That is certainly
something which the UKRAINE case has made clear.
ECONOMICS
WINS THE RACE
However, GERMANS are
correct to argue that a geo-economic approach will win out against the classic,
if not antique, geo-political approach of PUTIN. PUTIN seems to be at war with
globalization and the interdependence it brings. He has reversed the GORBACHEV
adaptation of PETER THE GREAT’S strategy for the modernization of RUSSIA.
As GORBACHEV understood, THE
SOVIET UNION (now RUSSIA) could not be a first-tier power if it relied too
heavily on the military dimension. In fact, it was this over-reliance on the
military dimension that led to military spending at a level of over 25% of the
GDP of the SOVIET UNION, helping to cripple its economy.
PUTIN has famously called
the collapse of the USSR the greatest geo-political catastrophe of the 20th
century. But he fails to understand that the collapse came from within from a
corroded technological and economic base.
The return of Geo-economics
That is why PUTIN’S turn
at RUSSIA’S helm will end up being another geo-political catastrophe for RUSSIA.
GERMANS are right to argue that economic power and the interdependence it has
brought will prevail over the exercise of military force and the disregard for
what ZBIGNIEW BRZEZINSKI has called the “global awakening.”
As he wrote in 2008, “For
the first time in history, almost all of humanity is politically activated,
politically conscious and politically interactive. Global activism is
generating a surge in the quest for cultural respect and economic opportunity
in a world scarred by memories of colonial or imperial domination.”
TIME
TO REFOCUS U.S. POWER
The issue for the UNITED
STATES is that it is of course a geo-political power as well as a geo-economic
power. But the country’s leadership has to realize that it is increasingly
neglecting its geo-economic power in favor of its military dimension, at the
cost of its influence.
The limits of military
power have been made very clear by the U.S. experience in IRAQ and AFGHANISTAN,
while the neglect of economic power has become increasingly salient.
At the recent IMF and
World Bank spring meetings, concerns about AMERICA’S declining economic power
dominated the week. It was WASHINGTON’S blunder in opposing the ASIAN
Infrastructure and Investment Bank, which led geo-economic GERMANY and other key
EUROPEAN partners to join the Bank.
This blunder followed the
failure of the U.S. Congress to enact IMF reform, which would have recognized
the shift in the global economic balance toward ASIA — something successive
U.S. administrations have long advocated, chiding “old EUROPE.”
On a broader level, the
continuing gridlock in WASHINGTON endangers economic reform at home, including
much-needed infrastructure investment.
The potential free trade
agreements which would enhance AMERICAN leadership both in ASIA and the PACIFIC
are very contentious as well on CAPITOL HILL, which will not please nations in ASIA
and EUROPE. TPP and TTIP are at the heart of the new geo-economics and will
have a longer term impact on AMERICAN influence than its response to UKRAINE.
If the UNITED STATES wants
to continue to be a shaping power in this century, it will have to reduce it’s
over concentration on military options — which remarkably has been a bipartisan
phenomenon. The UNITED STATES needs to rediscover its geo-economic potential.
Otherwise, it risks making the mistakes of PUTIN — and losing the insights of MERKEL.
Editor’s
note: This article has been adapted by Geopolitical Analysis and Monitoring from Stephen F. Szabo article published in The Globalist .
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