The Security and Stability of Europe, its Neighbourhood, and other Regions of the World

The security and stability of Europe are highly relevant to the Federal Republic of Germany. They therefore need to be given priority in German foreign and security policy. As a result of the European integration process of the past 30 years, Germany’s security interests have become largely congruent with Europe’s security interests. Due to the close political and economic relationships and interdependencies of the European states, German security policy can only be thought of and shaped at the European level. This has become particularly clear in light of the assumption made in the 1990s that Germany was surrounded only by friends and was thus able to capitalize on a kind of “peace dividend”. Europe, on the other hand, has for some time not been surrounded only by friends. Over the past ten years, it is not only the regions in the immediate vicinity of Europe that have clearly moved away from peace and stability, freedom and democracy. With Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, a clear violation of international law, war as an instrument of interstate conflict has made a comeback right in the middle of Europe. This is now a fundamental threat for Germany and its allies.

It is thus of vital interest to Germany to preserve peace and stability within Europe and make sure that this radiates out to the countries in Europe’s vicinity as well. Peace and stability are the foundation of freedom, prosperity and the basic democratic order of the European countries This order has not just been under massive attack since 24 February 2022, but was already threatened by the annexation of Crimea and the covert Russian invasion of the Donbass region in 2014 and by the Russian-Georgian war in 2008. The realization that borders can again be violently changed in the Europe of the 21st century, represents a profound turning point in European policy. Russia’s attack on democracy as a form of government and social model are forcing the community of democratic nations in EU, NATO and beyond to make a strategic U-turn. The increasing rivalry between China and the US is adding more urgency to this trend and will replace the conflict with Russia as the major challenge in the coming decades. At the same time, there are persistent threats caused by terrorism, migration and crumbling state authority on Europe’s southern and eastern periphery. These developments lead to a balancing act between addressing new challenges, such as cyber warfare, and returning to traditional alliance defence concepts while continuing international crisis management operations – such as the UN peacekeeping mission MINUSMA for stabilising and securing peace in Mali.. Great Britain’s exit from the EU, which represents the loss of the EU‘s most important member state in terms of defence policy, also contributes to great uncertainty in Germany and Europe, because, for the first time in the history of European integration, a member state has left the Union, thus clearly rejecting the idea of an ever closer union.

From North Africa and the Sahel region via the Middle East and Turkey to Ukraine and the Baltic States, Europe is surrounded by an arc of crisis. Wars, conflicts, disintegrating national structures and, as a result, refugees, migration and the continued threat of terrorist organisations represent the key challenges to German and European security policy. Global trends, such as the impact of climate change, will be particularly devastating for these regions and will prepare the ground for instability, humanitarian disasters and fragile states, including the possible collapse of state structures. It is in the interest of Germany and the EU to help establish peace and stability in these regions, because doing so directly contributes to the security of Europe. With regard to providing military and political support to Ukraine and the East Central European partners in EU and NATO vis-a-vis Russia, there can be no doubt that Germany has an essential interest, apart from a moral obligation, to vehemently defend the territorial integrity and sovereignty of these allies With a view to countries such as Syria, Libya, Yemen and Iraq, there is also a pressing need to take action in terms of humanitarian and development policy, to which Germany feels particularly committed.

Even though focusing on security and stability in the immediate vicinity of Europe is of particular importance, Germany must nevertheless direct its attention increasingly towards regions further afield. Many countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America are gaining strategic importance in the competition between the Russian, Chinese and Western systems Germany should therefore make efforts to establish and expand partnerships in these regions. As a nation whose prosperity depends to a large extent on exports, free trade and secure sea routes, Germany has a great interest in the stability of areas that are of key importance for world trade. These include the Horn of Africa with the entrance to the Red Sea, the Persian Gulf with the Strait of Hormuz, and the South China Sea with the Strait of Malacca. Against a background of growing competition between systems and increasing rivalries among major powers and in order to offer alternatives to the Chinese or Russian model of society and state, Germany should expand its relations with regions of the world that are particularly affected by these developments. In view of the increasing pressure exerted on the rules-based liberal international order, Germany should maintain partnerships and contacts with nations (beyond the EU and NATO) that share Western values and should protect and strengthen multilateral organisations. These specifically include Japan, Australia and New Zealand, but also India and South Korea.

The global security policy situation has fundamentally changed in recent years. This has an existential impact on Germany and Europe. Russia’s revisionist foreign policy has fundamentally changed the situation in Europe. In addition, China’s political, military and technological rise has been the biggest geopolitical power shift in the international order in recent years. The parallel change in Beijing’s political stance from foreign policy restraint to self-confident and sometimes aggressive imperial ambitions (especially in the Indo-Pacific region), including exerting more global influence, is the second fundamental change in terms of security policy.

In connection with Russia’s revisionist policies and the nightmare scenario of a strategic alliance between Russia and China, it has become clear that, in the medium term, the U.S., on its own, will not be able to contain both rivals at the same time. The comfortable advantage that the U.S. armed forces enjoyed in 2000, in both qualitative and quantitative terms, over the Russian and especially the Chinese armed forces, especially with respect to modern weapon systems, has shrunk significantly. The fact that the enormous use of resources by the United States in Afghanistan and Iraq is one of the key factors for this development is shrugged off by many Europeans, but has a significant impact on current strategic thinking in Washington. Even Washington‘s massive commitment following the Russian attack on Ukraine, part of which has been the first-ever re-deployment of more than 100.000 US troops in Europe, must not hide the fact that the US will focus more strongly on a possible military conflict with China and on supporting allies and partners in the Indo-Pacific region in the future. The US expect the Europeans to assume responsibility for mitigating Russia‘s conventional military threat on their own continent, as well as for playing the main role in stabilising the neighbouring Middle East and North Africa region, with a focus on disintegrating state structures, refugees, migration and terrorism. Alongside Russia and China, the volatile situation in the Middle East and North Africa is the third major foreign and security policy challenge for Germany and Europe, especially because the consequences of war and chaos have a direct impact here.

In addition to conventional threats from inter or intra-state violence, new challenges for security policy have been emerging for some years now, such as hybrid warfare, dangers arising from cyberspace, and the emerging technological revolution in warfare resulting from the development of autonomous weapon systems. This raises questions about the degree of human control over future weapon systems, the ethical dimension in the deployment of autonomous weapons, implications for international law, possibilities for limiting the proliferation of innovative armament technologies and, ultimately, the resilience of states and societies to new types of weapons. There are also overarching issues such as the impact of epidemics and pandemics on security policy (as the Covid crisis clearly shows) and the consequences of climate change and demographic upheavals.

By now, the multilateral liberal international order, which is the basis and a stable framework for Germany’s foreign and security policy, is openly attacked by Moscow and Beijing. A rules-based international order is in Germany’s national interest, being a middle-sized power. The looming disintegration of this order would have a devastating effect on German foreign and security policy, given the fact that hardly any other country in the world has adapted to the rules-based multilateral order as well, or benefited from it to the same extent, as Germany.