Summary — Issue 01 / 2004 Alfred Pfaller: The Imperative of Global Stabilization Key Elements of a Foreign Policy Strategy for Germany
		Many expect – or demand – that the reunited Germany (whose post-war “special situation” has finally come to an end) pursue its national interests more assertively in the arena of world politics. However, such “normalization” would not correspond to the real challenges German foreign policy is now facing. The security and well-being of the German people are threatened by the prospect of escalating inter-state conflicts which will not leave neutral states unscathed, the rise of international terrorism, and destabilizing “problem imports” (transnational crime, uncontrolled migration, diseases) that emanate from anomic tendencies in various parts of the world. Foreign policy that intends to ward off these threats must aim at (i) a “civilized” world order, which effectively prevents inter-state war, and (ii) stable societies throughout the world. However, a global regime that effectively discourages aggression by credibly threatening adequate sanctions is not in sight. Such sanctions will depend from case to case on inter-state negotiations that are highly susceptible to opportunistic considerations. Consequently, countries have an incentive to rely for their security on their own military strength and/or on alliances that make for collective strength. This quest for military strength, in turn, creates rivalries and related security dilemmas. While weak states may be disciplined by stronger ones “superpowers” cannot be subjected to such discipline. It is illusory to hope for an enhanced UN capable of doing this. Forestalling superpower rivalry that might get out of control (for example, USA–China) requires a different, bottom-up approach. Its essence is increasing international cooperation geared to the solution of problems that defy the unfolding of national power. Germany’s and most other countries’ security interests are best served if such cooperation, based on a win–win logic, successively diminishes the importance of zero-sum power games. And this is what Germany, together with as many allies as possible, should try to promote – with a particular eye to involving the superpowers. The other long-term security threat, global destabilization resulting from countries’ internal problems, has as one of its major causes the syndrome of stagnating economies, rent-seeking societies, and clientist polities. This syndrome is socially exclusive and inherently violence-prone, but highly resistant to change. The most promising way of drying it up little by little is by providing an international (regional and/or global) environment of rapid economic growth, thus giving non-clientist patterns of social organization a chance. A foreign policy that aims, for long-term security reasons, at global stabilization must assign priority to international efforts to (i) speed up global economic growth and (ii) improve backward countries’ chances of participating in that growth. This last point implies a pro-South bias in international economic regulations ranging from trade and investments to foreign debt. A German foreign policy that gives priority to global stability has to put European integration into perspective. Making Europe a “great power” in its own right, with an eye to balancing US unilateralism, could well prove counter-productive. But European integration can serve as an example of the civilizing effect of supranational cooperation. Nevertheless, the focus of foreign policy must be shifted from the European to the global arena. While an enhanced UN system might well provide, one day, for the institutional underpinning of an effective world peace order, at present the UN cannot be of much help in getting there. German foreign policy that aims to civilize the inherently dangerous world of states should focus for the time being much more on the substance of cooperation than on the normative frame of UN rules.
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