GMF - The German Marshall Fund of the United States - Strengthening Transatlantic Cooperation

Executive summary in English below with full text in original language found here.

On the occasion of  the recent Russian attempt to pressure Ukraine to accept overnight exceedingly higher gas prices, Senior Transatlantic Fellow Jörg Himmelreich questions why Germans are often inclined to understand new hegemonic gestures of the Russian bear. During centuries of a shared past with a large variety of ties, Germans have often harbored romanticized perceptions of Russia as a mythical place spared from modernity’s troubles and involved in the most cruel catatrophes of two world wars. Himmelreich believes that Germany is misplacing its sentimentality by giving in to feelings of romanticism when dealing with Russia. Instead, Germany should act upon sobriety, common sense, and rationality. A more sober assessment of Russia’s current policies would show that a common European and transatlantic stand vis-à-vis Russia’s rekindled self-confidence would serve German interests better than isolated stand-ups such as the Baltic Sea pipeline. Germany should be an engine of a common European and transatlantic policy toward Russia based on realpolitik. Only with such a realpolitik can the West reengage Russia in a new political global order without letting it slip back into old patterns.