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Feb. 27, 2025

Assessing the Zeitenwende

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Washington’s Expectations, American Strategy, and Germany’s Role

John R. Deni
©2025 John R. Deni

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Introduction

The Zeitenwende has been warmly welcomed in Washington. For American policymakers, the changes in German approaches toward defense spending, energy security, and Russia more broadly have all been exceedingly positive.

For some American officials, the changes might even be viewed as necessary. For the last several years, the United States has been increasingly clear about the necessity of having willing and able allies by its side for the purpose of strategic competition with Russia and China, as well as for managing transnational challenges such as terrorism. United States (US) strategies characterize allies as a comparative advantage—something American adversaries lack—or even an irreplaceable component of Washington’s approach. Germany, given its leading role in Europe, plays a key role in the constellation of American allies worldwide.

Nonetheless, American policymakers’ attitudes toward Germany and the unfolding implications of the Zeitenwende Olaf Scholz announced in February 2022 are not completely worry free. Resourcing, durability, effectiveness, and the broader applicability of the Zeitenwende continue to spur some apprehension within Washington. This essay will examine these concerns as well as the positive perceptions of the Zeitenwende in the United States. First though, the essay will step back to examine the primary security challenges confronting Washington and where allies—especially Germany—figure in.

Challenges Confronting the United States

American national security strategies make clear that Washington considers the People’s Republic of China and its governing Chinese Communist Party the primary threat to international security. China is the only country with “the intent to reshape the international order and, increasingly, the economic, diplomatic, military, and technological power” to do so.1 China’s actions over the last 10–15 years have transformed it in Washington’s eyes from a rising but benign competitor to a country aggressively employing diplomatic, political, economic, and military tools to change the international system and undermine the rules-based order.

If China is the so-called pacing threat, US government officials view Russia as the most acute threat the West faces today, given the brutal war unfolding in Ukraine as well as Russia’s ongoing efforts to influence US and other Western elections. This framing—acute versus pacing—has tended to imply the Russian threat has a temporality or discontinuity, which the threat from China lacks. But given the increasingly personalist nature of the Vladimir Putin regime, the Kremlin’s high tolerance for risk, and Moscow’s relative success in rebounding somewhat from early failures in the Russia-Ukraine War, a more accurate conceptualization that has emerged in Washington over the last year is of Russia as a persistent or chronic threat.2 Helpfully, this view also characterizes perceptions within NATO.3

The United States perceives both Russia and China—as well as Iran and North Korea—as autocracies with revisionist foreign policies, distinct from mere autocracies (some of which are allied with the West).4 Revisionist autocracies aim to undermine the rules-based international system that benefits nearly all countries and has provided a degree of geostrategic stability over the last 80 years. More specifically, revisionist autocracies have an established track record of aggressively intimidating and sometimes invading less powerful, neighboring states; actively undermining the democratic political processes of other countries; leveraging their economic strengths for coercion and repression at home and abroad; and exporting an illiberal model of government that limits human freedom.5

The Role of Allies

These challenges—China, Russia, and other revisionist authoritarian states bent on undermining the rules-based international system—are massive. American leaders have been clear the scale and scope of these threats require Washington to seek assistance. Under the Joe Biden administration, the United States sought to rely, in part, on marshaling the active support of American allies. The 2022 National Security Strategy made clear building and sustaining a coalition of like-minded countries is critical to American security.6 The strategy characterizes building this coalition as one of three lines of effort to achieve US national security goals, along with investing in the sources or tools of American power and modernizing and strengthening the US military.

The Biden administration’s National Defense Strategy of the United States of America (NDS) was even more explicit about both the scale of the security challenges and the importance of allies to achieving US strategic ends. It noted plainly, “We cannot meet these complex and interconnected challenges alone.”7 For this reason, the NDS subsequently referred to American allies as “our greatest global strategic advantage” and as “a center of gravity” for US strategy. In national security parlance, the latter phrase has particular meaning—in strategic thinking, if a center of gravity fails, the strategy fails. Hence, the United States makes clear it does not merely prefer to engage global challenges side by side with allies, it needs to do so—otherwise, the American strategy is likely to fail.

The United States has viewed Europe as its “foundational partner” in addressing every major global challenge.8 From Washington’s perspective, the United States prefers to take on global challenges side by side with Europe because of shared values, common interests, historical ties, compatible governance, and even military interoperability. This sentiment is not unique to any particular presidential administration. The national security strategies and national defense strategies of presidents from Bill Clinton through Joe Biden all included various formulations of the same central theme: the United States prefers to engage the world with allies, especially Europeans, by its side. Even Donald Trump’s first National Security Strategy noted, “Allies and partners magnify our power [they] are a great strength of the United States . . . . [and] The NATO alliance of free and sovereign states is one of our great advantages over our competitors.”9 Whether a second Trump administration will echo these sentiments remains to be seen.

Germany’s Role

As Europe’s largest economy, its third-largest population (after Russia and Türkiye), and its most significant political power, Germany plays an important and unique role among American allies in Europe. Germany’s gross domestic product is roughly $4.5 trillion—although this number is only about one-sixth the size of the US economy, it means Germany has the latent power to influence events across Europe and beyond politically and economically, if not militarily. Berlin’s unwillingness to convert its economic strength into political-military power has been a unique feature of its resuscitation from the ashes of World War II. History and political science indicate most countries eagerly do the opposite—if countries have economic strength, they try to convert that strength into political-military power.10 Not Germany. In fact, in 2010, then-President Horst Köhler resigned from his largely ceremonial office following an uproar over remarks he made that would have been perceived as quite normal in any other major Western power: “In emergencies, military intervention is necessary to uphold our interests, like for example free trade routes.”11

Nonetheless, over the last several years, the United States has watched Germany become an increasingly normal country. Indeed, prior to the 2022 Zeitenwende, Germany used its political and economic influence to play decisive roles in some of the most significant crises the West confronted. For example, in responding to the eurozone debt crisis, which began in 2009, Berlin defined the terms of the austerity measures several Southern European countries were compelled to implement. Somewhat amazingly, the debt crisis did not result in a single EU member state being forced to leave the common currency or the union.

Similarly, Berlin led Europe’s response to the migration crisis of 2015–16, during which Germany admitted roughly one million asylum seekers. Migration has returned as a top political concern in Germany and across Europe, but successfully managing the massive wave of migrants in the mid-2010s would not have been possible without Germany’s key role in working with Türkiye.12

Berlin also played an important role in responding to Russia’s first invasion of Ukraine in 2014. Then-Chancellor Angela Merkel worked at the center of the Normandy format, alongside France, to negotiate a path toward settling the Donets Basin war between Ukraine and Russian-backed separatists. Although the Normandy format and the resulting Minsk Agreements ultimately failed to stop the fighting or prevent Russia’s second, more brutal invasion beginning in February 2022, Germany nonetheless leveraged its power and influence in trying to manage Russian aggression.

But the failure of the Minsk Agreements was at least in part due to Berlin’s willingness to trust Putin on implementation.13 This trust reflected a far broader consensus among German policymakers and other German elites Moscow could be relied upon to play by the rules and norms of the international system if Russia was fully enmeshed in economic and political ties to the West. The siren call of interdependence as a tool for taming Moscow’s worst impulses drove Germany’s Russia policy, known as Ostpolitik, for decades—as Angela Stent argues elsewhere in this collaborative study—even as the fact such an approach was outmoded, if not ineffective, became clear after 2014.14

Berlin’s unwillingness to recognize this reality—that is, the failure of the interdependence approach toward Russia—frustrated Washington as well as many of Germany’s allies across Europe.15 And no single element of Germany’s interdependence policy toward Russia exasperated Washington as much as the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, which was opposed by US presidents as disparate as Barack Obama, Donald Trump, and Joe Biden. So great was the degree of frustration, the United States enacted legislation—the Protecting Europe’s Energy Security Act of 2019—imposing sanctions on any private companies involved in building the pipeline.16

The depth and breadth of Ostpolitik’s grip on the ruling elite in Berlin sometimes prevented Germany from taking steps Washington and many European partners deemed necessary to bolster Western security. Reportedly, even up to the point of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, German officials—as well as their French counterparts in Paris—refused to believe the American and British intelligence reports indicating a war was increasingly likely.17 To be clear, Berlin was skeptical for several reasons, including the hangover from the United States’ inaccurate intelligence on Iraq 20 years earlier. Nonetheless, the commitment of the German elite to the promise of interdependence and their belief it would inhibit Russia from invading Ukraine were so strong, some referred to Germany as Putin’s Trojan horse inside NATO, preventing the alliance from taking a firmer stand.18 What tended to make matters even worse was the fact German officials lacked an appreciation for the downsides of their interdependence fixation.19

The Zeitenwende’s Impact . . . and Its Promise

With Chancellor Scholz’s Zeitenwende speech in February 2022, Germany’s approach to Russia appeared to turn on a dime and with it most (but not all) Washington’s frustration with one of its most important allies in Europe. On Russia policy, to say Germany’s approach changed fundamentally is no exaggeration.20 This change was greeted very positively in Washington, which had increasingly perceived a moral smugness behind Germany’s interdependence strategy toward Russia.21 Now, officials in Washington view Germany as “central to the US strategy of deterring and defending against Russia,” and Germany is among those allies within NATO recognizing Russia as a long-term threat.22

More broadly, Germany and the United States appear today to be in “lockstep” on nearly every major geopolitical issue.23 This coordination is especially clear in the Russia-Ukraine War, where German officials have played a vital leadership role in Europe, overcoming the caricature of Berlin as somewhat feckless in the face of security challenges.24 Recently, German officials have been forthright with US interlocutors in recognizing, for example, the Minsk Agreements only delayed what was an inevitable conflict.25 On the economic front, Germany has played a leading role in corralling its EU partners in forging, expanding, and maintaining an array of sanctions on Moscow in response to its war of aggression. These sanctions are synchronized with those enacted by Washington.

Germany has become the second-largest contributor of military assistance to Ukraine, after the United States. Although Washington was clearly frustrated by Chancellor Scholz’s refusal to send Leopard main battle tanks to Ukraine before the United States agreed to send its Abrams tanks in early 2023, the view today among American policymakers is Germany maintains an exceptionally strong commitment to Ukraine.26 For example, Washington has a positive view of German rhetoric, Berlin’s steady commitment of additional funds, and Germany’s role in providing air and missile defense systems in particular.27

Similarly, American officials view very favorably Germany’s commitment to an expanded allied forward presence. In December 2023, Vilnius and Berlin concluded an agreement to increase the size of the Bundeswehr’s footprint in Lithuania from a battalion to a brigade. American officials were pleasantly “surprised” Germany exercised this degree of leadership and moved so swiftly to expand its military presence in the east.28 Assuming it continues to unfold as planned through 2027, the agreement will entail stationing 4,800 military personnel and 200 civilians in Lithuania: the first permanent stationing of German troops outside Germany since World War II. Scholz referenced efforts to strengthen Germany’s presence in Central and Eastern Europe in his Zeitenwende speech as evidence of Germany’s unconditional commitment to collective defense.

Regarding Germany’s own military capabilities and capacity, policymakers in Washington also praise Germany for (finally) achieving the so-called 2 percent goal endorsed by NATO heads of state and government in September 2014 at the alliance’s Wales summit. But this achievement was only made possible through the €100 billion special defense fund, which was a key element of the Zeitenwende, and most of which has been obligated. What American officials remain deeply concerned about, though, is whether and how Germany will maintain defense spending at the 2 percent level in the coming years.29 Though Scholz’s government has committed rhetorically to spending at least 2 percent, no plan exists for how Germany will fund its defense spending after 2027, when the €100 billion special fund will be depleted.30

Equally troubling from Washington’s view is the fact allies, especially Berlin, know fulfilling capability and capacity targets set by NATO and agreed to by allies, meeting the ongoing wartime needs of Ukraine, and refilling depleted stocks of armaments already given to Ukraine will require spending much more on defense than the equivalent of 2 percent of allies’ gross domestic products. For this reason, some allies are already advocating for NATO to adopt a new minimum standard at its next summit in The Hague in 2025, but Scholz’s government is not among them. If a new government—led by the Christian Democratic Union leader Friedrich Merz—is brought to power following the snap elections in February 2025, the government may become a more vocal advocate for increasing NATO’s spending target. Nonetheless, whoever leads Germany will face the same fiscal headwinds that led to the downfall of the Social Democratic Party of Germany–Green Party of Germany–Free Democratic Party coalition, and that have created concern among American officials over whether and how Germany can maintain what it began in February 2022.

Given those fiscal challenges, the case may be, only through a suspension of the so-called “debt brake” provision—a constitutional cap on the amount of debt Berlin can take on—can Germany achieve its defense-spending goals while also aiding Ukraine.31 This suspension may appear unlikely given the electoral politics of 2025. Nonetheless, all major political parties—the Left Party, the Alternative for Germany party, and the Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht excepted—have indicated to American interlocutors their desire to make increased defense spending a priority.

One area where a gap exists regarding what is otherwise a strong degree of German-American solidarity toward the Russia-Ukraine War is in responding to the role of China. During the July 2024 NATO summit in Washington, allies stated rather boldly China was a “decisive enabler” of Russia’s war against Ukraine.32 About 60 percent of the foreign components in Russian weapons systems used against Ukraine come from China.33 Nonetheless, the sense in Washington is Germany is among those European states that are uninterested in seeing where Europe’s own redlines—particularly on Chinese provision of discrete weapons systems to Russia—are being crossed.34 Recognizing redline violations might compel European governments—Berlin included—to crack down on Beijing in a way that causes Chinese retaliation. Such retaliation could be particularly problematic for the German economy, given the vital importance of the Chinese market for German auto manufacturers, machinery producers, and chemical and pharmaceutical companies.

Concern about Germany’s reluctance to question and subsequently impose consequences on Beijing for its role in the Russia-Ukraine War is part of a broader worry in Washington about Berlin’s approach toward China. Although German rhetoric appears to strike the right chord—including through the 2023 Strategy on China—policy implementation is another story. From Washington’s perspective, Berlin’s willingness to follow through on its stated strategic objectives is weak at best, especially in terms of derisking and supply chain diversification.35 Berlin’s hesitance has placed American officials in the somewhat awkward position of asking their German counterparts simply to implement German strategy. To be clear, Germany’s strategy and policy toward China are not central elements of the Zeitenwende. Nonetheless, insofar as Scholz implicitly renounced the decades-old approach to change through trade and peace and through interdependence vis-à-vis Russia, to question the utility of the same approach toward China today is reasonable.

Even if Germany proves reluctant to engage China directly over its support forRussia in the war against Ukraine, Washington hopes, at a minimum, Germany will step up its defense efforts in Europe if the United States is drawn into a conflict in the Indo-Pacific.36 American leaders are likely to expect Germany to maintain a robust German foreign policy, apply more of its own national resources to European defense, and leverage its formidable example and Berlin’s political capital in Europe to elevate the responses of others in deterrence and defense across the continent.

Conclusion

Up until February 2022, Germany was slowly but steadily becoming more of what one might think of as a normal country in the sense it was showing an increasing willingness to express and act upon its national security interests. Admittedly, this process was slow and sometimes halting, but the process had a clear trajectory, nonetheless. For example, one cannot compare the Germany of the early 1990s—one in which the Bundeswehr’s participation in Balkan peacekeeping operations was especially contentious—with that of the late 2010s, when Germany began deploying troops and tanks to northeastern Europe on a persistent basis. Clearly, Germany was evolving toward behavior most countries deem perfectly normal.

The Zeitenwende put this trend on steroids, accelerating and amplifying it in many ways. Washington has welcomed this acceleration and amplification. Significantly increased German defense spending, an expansion of Berlin’s commitment to allied security in Central and Eastern Europe, and the abandonment of Germany’s naive approach toward Russia have all been applauded by American officials. The reason is clear enough—Washington openly acknowledges it needs allies by its side to handle the challenges posed by Russia and China, as well as transnational threats such as poor governance and terrorism, and the United States rightly views Germany as a vital player in this regard.

But American officials also evince a sense of worry regarding the future of the Zeitenwende. In particular, Washington is concerned Germany risks repeating the mistakes of interdependence vis-à-vis China and Berlin has no midterm plan for resourcing the strategic change of direction the Zeitenwende represents. Whether and how Germany can address these and other hurdles in implementing the Zeitenwende will remain of keen interest to American policymakers, particularly as the new Trump administration looks set to shift US attention and resources away from Europe and toward the Indo-Pacific.

 
 

Endnotes

  1. The White House, National Security Strategy (White House, 2022), 8. Return to text.
  2. Jim Garamone, “U.S. Commander in Europe Says Russia Is a ‘Chronic Threat’ to World,” U.S. Department of Defense (DoD), April 10, 2024, https://www.defense.gov/News/News-Stories/Article/Article/3737446/us-commander-in-europe-says-russia-is-a-chronic-threat-to-world/. Return to text.
  3. Civilian member of the NATO International Staff, interview by the author, November 7, 2024. Return to text.
  4. The White House, National Security Strategy, 8. Return to text.
  5. The White House, National Security Strategy, 8. Return to text.
  6. The White House, National Security Strategy, 11. Return to text.
  7. DoD, 2022 National Defense Strategy of the United States of America (DoD, 2022), 2. Return to text.
  8. The White House, National Security Strategy, 38. Return to text.
  9. The White House, National Security Strategy (The White House, December 2017), 4, 37, 48. Return to text.
  10. John J. Mearsheimer, The Tragedy of Great Power Politics (W. W. Norton and Company, 2001). Return to text.
  11. “German President Resigns over Criticism of Comments About Military,” CNN, May 31, 2010, http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/europe/05/31/germany.president.resigns/ (page discontinued). Return to text.
  12. Anne Koch et al., “Integrating Refugees: Lessons from Germany Since 2015–16” (white paper, World Bank, April 2023); Emanuele Albarosa and Benjamin Elsner, “Forced Migration and Social Cohesion: Evidence from the 2015/16 Mass Inflow in Germany,” World Development 167 (2023): 106228; and Jennifer Rankin, “Turkey and EU Agree Outline of ‘One In, One Out’ Deal over Syria Refugee Crisis,” The Guardian, March 8, 2016, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/mar/08/european-leaders-agree-outlines-of-refugee-deal-with-turkey. Return to text.
  13. Marie Dumoulin, “Ukraine, Russia, and the Minsk Agreements: A Post-Mortem,” European Council on Foreign Relations, February 19, 2024, https://ecfr.eu/article/ukraine-russia-and-the-minsk-agreements-a-post-mortem/. Return to text.
  14. Stefan Meister, “From Ostpolitik to EU-Russia Interdependence: Germany’s Perspective,” in Post-Crimea Shift in EU-Russia Relations: From Fostering Interdependence to Managing Vulnerabilities, ed. Kristi Raik and András Rácz (International Centre for Defence and Security, 2019), 25–44. Return to text.
  15. Matthew Karnitschnig, “Berlin Mulls Tougher Stance on Moscow,” Politico, April 19, 2018, https://www.politico.eu/article/germany-russia-tougher-stance-allies-frustrated-by-berlin-indecisive-position-on-moscow/. Return to text.
  16. Bureau of Energy Resources, Fact Sheet on U.S. Opposition to Nord Stream 2 (US Department of State, December 27, 2019); and “Pompeo Says U.S. Will ‘Do Everything’ to Stop Nord Stream 2 Project,” Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, July 30, 2020, https://www.rferl.org/a/pompeo-u-s-will-do-everything-to-stop-nord-stream-2/30757543.html. Return to text.
  17. Shane Harris et al., “Road to War: U.S. Struggled to Convince Allies, and Zelensky, of Risk of Invasion,” The Washington Post, August 16, 2022, https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/interactive/2022/ukraine-road-to-war/. Return to text.
  18. Stefanie Bolzen et al., “Deutschland ist das trojanische Pferd Putins in der Nato,” WELT, January 26, 2022, https://www.welt.de/politik/ausland/plus236474917/Ukraine-Konflikt-Zweifel-an-Deutschland-das-trojanische-Pferd-Putins-in-der-Nato.html. Return to text.
  19. German chancellery official, interview by the author, June 29, 2023. Return to text.
  20. Stefan Meister, “Germany and Russia’s War of Aggression Against Ukraine: The Third Year,” German Council on Foreign Relations, April 22, 2024, https://dgap.org/en/research/publications/germany-and-russias-war-aggression-against-ukraine-third-year. Return to text.
  21. Leading US foreign policy expert, remarks at a not-for-attribution webinar, December 15, 2022, Vrije Universiteit Brussel’s Centre for Security, Diplomacy and Strategy, Brussels, BE. Return to text.
  22. Former staff member of the US National Security Council, interview by the author, October 28, 2024; and senior US official assigned to US Mission to NATO, remarks at a not-for-attribution event, April 10, 2024, Atlantic Council, Washington, DC. Return to text.
  23. Two US DoD civilians responsible for DoD policy toward Germany, interview by the author, September 18, 2024. Return to text.
  24. Former staff member of the US National Security Council, interview by the author, October 28, 2024. Return to text.
  25. German chancellery official, interview by the author, June 29, 2023. Return to text.
  26. Phil Stewart et al., “Frank Talks and Frustration: How the U.S. Got to Yes on Abrams Tanks,” Reuters, January 26, 2023, https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/frank-talks-frustration-how-us-got-yes-abrams-tanks-2023-01-26/; and two DoD civilians responsible for DoD policy toward Germany, interview by the author, September 18, 2024. Return to text.
  27. Former staff member of the US National Security Council, interview by the author, October 28, 2024. Return to text.
  28. Two DoD civilians responsible for DoD policy toward Germany, interview by the author, September 18, 2024; and former staff member of the US National Security Council, interview by the author, October 28, 2024. Return to text.
  29. Former staff member of the US National Security Council, interview by the author, October 28, 2024. Return to text.
  30. Matthias Inverardi and Andreas Rinke, “Germany’s Scholz Pledges to Meet 2% NATO Spending Target,” Reuters, February 12, 2024, https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/germanys-scholz-pledges-meet-2-nato-spending-target-2024-02-12/. Return to text.
  31. Markus Jaeger, “Why Germany Can and Should Increase Defense Spending,” Internationale Politik Quarterly, July 31, 2024, https://ip-quarterly.com/en/why-germany-can-and-should-increase-defense-spending. Return to text.
  32. NATO, “Washington Summit Declaration Issued by the NATO Heads of State and Government Participating in the Meeting of the North Atlantic Council in Washington, D.C. 10 July 2024,” press release no. 2024 001, updated July 15, 2024, https://www.nato.int/cps/ar/natohq/official_texts_227678.htm. Return to text.
  33. Kateryna Denisova, “Around 60% of Foreign Parts in Russian Weapons Come via China, Ukraine Says,” Kyiv Independent, September 24, 2024, https://kyivindependent.com/china/. Return to text.
  34. US National Security Council official, remarks at a not-for-attribution event, May 9, 2024, Atlantic Council, Washington, DC. Return to text.
  35. Two DoD civilians responsible for DoD policy toward Germany, interview by the author, September 18, 2024. Return to text.
  36. Former staff member of the US National Security Council, interview by the author, October 28, 2024. Return to text.
 
Thumbnail Photo Credit

John Brighenti, US Capitol at Night, November 27, 2018 (Wikimedia Commons, Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike License), https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:US_Capitol_at_Night_(32210923208).jpg.

Assessing the Zeitenwende