Troops of Germany's Quick Reaction Force training near Mazar-i-Sharif in Afghanistan.

A reply to Eric Gujer - By Theo Sommer

The Germans to the front!" On June 22, 1900, that was the straightforward order of Admiral Lord Seymour, the British commander-in-chief of the international expedition corps marching toward Beijing to punish the Imperial Chinese government for supporting the anti-Western Boxer Rebellion. His Lordship had gotten stuck at Fort Hsiku. German marines attacked to take the fort and clear the road ahead. The attack failed; 16 Germans were killed, 62 wounded; Seymour had to retreat. Four weeks later, Emperor William II sent reinforcements under "World Marshal" Count Waldersee. No caveats then. In his envoy's speech to Waldersee's troops, Kaiser Bill trumpeted: "Should you encounter the enemy, he will be defeated! Give no quarter! Take no prisoners! Whoever falls into your hands is forfeit."

Reading Eric Gujer's essay, "The Anxious Great Power" in the August issue of this paper, I was reminded of the events 108 years ago. The whole reasoning of my distinguished Swiss colleague boiled down to a distant echo of Admiral Seymour's battle-cry: "The Germans to the front!"

I have no problem agreeing with Gujer's basic theses: That Germany is a major power; that it must pull its weight on the world scene; and that it cannot simply leave international politics to other nations. What I do have a problem with is his insinuation that united Germany does not pursue an active foreign policy; that it declines to engage; and that its government defers to a society with isolationist leanings.  In my view, Gujer's arguments suffer from two huge deficiencies. One is factual, the other conceptual.

First the facts. They are curiously skewed, both with regard to pre-1990 divided Germany and the reunited country thereafter. Some statements are simply absurd. For instance, the assertion that Germany is "a country without a colonial history." (Never heard of the German colonies in Africa and Oceania? The butchering of the Hereros?) Or the remark that the world sensed disaster when West and East Germany ganged up in actions "coordinated between Bonn and East Berlin?" What "coordinated actions" does he fantasize about? There were none. What existed was an identical fear in East and West that - with 7,000 U.S. nuclear weapons in the Federal Republic and half as many Soviet nukes in the GDR - nothing would be left of our partitioned nation if they were ever used. But the two German states were never in cahoots.

There are other grave misconceptions. The old Federal Republic was far more than just "the ward of the Western allies." It was a major actor in its own right, contributing 500,000 men in uniform to NATO's line of defense in Europe. Surely, it took care of its economic interests, but without focusing "mainly" on them. In fact, German initiatives gave direction and thrust to Western policy vis-à-vis the Soviet Union at two important junctures: Willy Brandt's Ostpolitik became the seminal factor for the West's détente strategy, while Helmut Schmidt's championing the NATO Double-Track  decision put deterrence in Europe on a more rational foundation.

Gujer's analysis of German foreign policy also strikes me as a very weak cup of tea. The country, he argues, still clings to its 19th-century ideal of a mid-sized power, lacking "the will and the imagination to act globally." The international community, however, "expects Germany to participate in the solution of regional conflicts - financially, politically and, if need be, militarily."

Come on, now. Isn't that what we have been doing all along? At least since 1995, when Germany's Supreme Court lifted the restrictions which until then had prevented the deployment of the Bundeswehr outside of the NATO area?

Financially, we pay 8.6  percent of the United Nations budget, a sizeable portion of which is spent on UN peacekeeping missions. In the framework of the EU, we contribute to the stabilization of the Palestinian Authority. Our foreign aid budget - ?5.8 billion in fiscal 2008 - is slowly but steadily rising. And we chip in handsomely whenever and wherever natural disasters like tsunamis or earthquakes strike.

Politically, too, Germany does not shy away from engagement. We are a member of the Mideast Quartet, which is trying to speed up the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. We participate in the Group of Six set up to curtail Iran's nuclear ambitions. Wolfgang Ischinger, a senior German diplomat, chaired the final round of the negotiations about the independence of Kosovo. Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier blazed the trail in the attempt to bring Syria to the point where Damascus wants to shed its rogue state label, and he made an - ultimately unsuccessful - effort to mediate between Abkhasia and Georgia. Along with Chancellor Angela Merkel, he tries to keep the communication channels open between Tbilisi and Moscow. By the way, Merkel, as G-8 president last year, placed climate change for good on the agenda of the leaders assembled around the world's top table.

"Declining to engage is tantamount to relinquishing all influence," says Gujer. Really? Tony Blair swallowed George W. Bush's Iraq obsession hook, line and sinker. It did not buy him the least bit of influence. Which proves that going along with an aberrant Big Brother cannot be the only measure of an active foreign policy. In German, we have a word for such misplaced loyalty: Nibelungentreue, fatal fealty. Its message is clear: We should never say "yes" for the wrong reasons. Hasn't former German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder long since been vindicated for his stance on Bush's Iraq war: Yes to solidarity, no to adventures? And wasn't Merkel's stance on Sarkozy's original Mediterranean  Union scheme absolutely well-taken?

Nor are the Germans draft dodgers when it comes to military engagement in regional conflicts. Even before the Constitutional Court lifted the ban on out-of-area operations, the German army was deployed, for logistical and humanitarian purposes, to Somalia (1992, around 2,400 men), Cambodia (1993, 150 soldiers, one field hospital), and Rwanda (1994, 40 soldiers). For five years, 40 airmen  flew 8,500 hours transporting the UNSCOM observer teams all over Iraq (1991-1996). In 1996, a contingent of several thousand men served under NATO command in Bosnia-Herzegovina; about 500 Bundeswehr soldiers are still there as part of the EUFOR peace force. In the 1999 war against Yugoslavia, the German air force flew 500 sorties. About 250 specialists in nuclear, chemical and biological weapons were stationed in Kuwait during 2002. In 2003, the Bundeswehr participated in EU operations in Macedonia and the Congo; the following year it took part in Operation Enduring Freedom, monitoring the African coast from the Red Sea down to Kenya. Since 2006, the German navy has been standing watch over the Lebanese coast. A contingent of 40 unarmed soldiers, soon to be boosted to 250, has been deployed under the UN flag in Sudan; 15 serve as UN observers in Georgia. Close to 2,500 German troops are still posted in Kosovo as part of KFOR.

And let's not forget that since 2002, between 2,000 and 3,500 Bundeswehr soldiers have been stationed in Afghanistan at any given time. This includes about 100 special forces going after the Taliban in the south under OEF command. Hardly anyone knows that the German ISAF area of responsibility extends all the way to the Chinese border (or that for the first time ever, German Luftwaffe planes delivered aid to the quake-devastated region of Sichuan).  While the humanitarian aspects of the army's involvement were, indeed, highlighted by the government, former Defense Minister Peter Struck never made any bones about it: In today's world, Germany has to be defended at the Hindu Kush, too. Our soldiers know full well that killing and getting killed may be part of their mission.

At times, there were 10,000 German soldiers stationed abroad. Last month, the number was slightly lower: 6,300 men and women served in nine different theaters. As they stay for six months, normally, three contingents between 6,000 and 10,000 are needed: one actually deployed, one preparing for deployment, one reconstituting and recuperating after deployment. The 35,000-strong response forces are the "teeth," backed by the 70,000-strong stabilization forces for low-intensity operations and the "tail" of 147,500 support forces. Two-fifths of the German army is regularly involved, directly or indirectly, in military missions abroad. Drückeberger - draft-dodgers? Isolationist Germany? Hardly.

So much for the facts. Now to the conceptual deficiencies of our Swiss friend's case.

Not for a moment do I believe that the concept of superpowers, major powers and mid-sized powers is a relic of the Cold War. Certainly, the United States is today the only country with global strategic reach - but what profit does it derive from that? It will remain preeminent but no longer predominant. It lacks the clout, the legitimation and the moral credibility to shape the world in its own image. In the emerging "post-American world," to borrow a term from Fareed Zakaria, military power won't readily translate into political influence any more. We  are entering a multipolar world in which China, India, Russia, Brazil and others will assert their interests and fight for a place in the sun.

It is simply inconceivable that in this looming multipolar world Germany - a country of barely 82 million people - could act the part of the lone rider. Forging a European foreign policy is not "hiding behind Brussels." It offers the only chance to the Old World, Germany included, to hold its own in the emerging international power structure. A hundred years ago, every 5th inhabitant of our planet was a European. Today it is every 10th; by mid-century, it will be every 14th. Unless we hang together, we shall be hanged separately.

We live in the age of jihadism. The tectonic plates of wealth and power are shifting from the West. We have to adjust to the rise of Asia and other ambitious fledgling powers. We must secure our energy supply, food at supportable prices, the sustainability of our life and lifestyle. And we must tackle all the "problems without passports" - climate change, migration, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, the dangers emanating from instable, failing and failed states. In such an age, playing cavalier seul cannot be the answer.

The formidable task before us is to build up Europe's capacity to assume international responsibilities in a deeply troubled world. European visions, unless underpinned by adequate resources, will remain mere hallucinations. And we must patiently go about accomplishing the indispensable unity of the European consciousness. We definitely have to unite, even unify in order to be able to brace the storms that history may unleash upon us - ideally, in coordination with the United States under a new president willing to listen to his allies.

In all this, Germany should heed the lessons of its recent history. Prepare to defend yourself. Deter potential enemies. Don't go out in search of monsters to slay. Talk to your friends but also to your adversaries; seek avenues toward cooperation even in confrontation. And eschew adventures - if need be, at the price of standing apart, as in the case of Iraq. 

This is the best path to follow for a country that is more than just a Switzerland writ large but not, by any measure, an old-style Grossmacht, a big power of global reach. We must pull our weight, yet we must not throw our weight around.