Chancellor Merkel
and President Obama: Despite residual
bitterness
over NSA spying, what choice does Germany have but to continue
good relations with the United States?
American Idealism 'More Honest' than Germany's
(Die Welt, Germany)
"Erika Mustermann, a lady from
the Germany's heartland, meets Joe Average, her male counterpart from the American
states. ... 'Everyone is spying on everyone,' says Joe. 'And besides, we have
to protect ourselves against terrorists.' Erika disagrees. ... Erika likes
redistribution and the protection of the nanny state. But on the question of
whether security arises from an intelligence analysis of German telephone calls,
Erika is adamant. She prefers 'freedom.' Whether Germans would fight for that
freedom also remains unclear. Joe, on the other hand, talks a lot about freedom,
and to him, an overly-powerful state is suspect."
Quite by accident, Erika Mustermann, a lady
from the Germany's heartland, meets Joe Average, her male counterpart from the American
states. Sitting side-by-side on a transatlantic flight, they discuss, let's say,
what irritates them about one another. The language isn't really a problem:
Erika learned English, and Joe, after all, has a very high opinion of Germany.
But then the two come to the subject of NSA spying, freedom, the nanny state,
freedom and security - and the harmony appears to dissipate.
So what is the condition of German-American
relations, six months after the first revelations from Edward Snowden's far-from-exhausted
store of files, and as the grand
coalition in Berlin finally commences? An important issue in the years to
come will be whether Angela Merkel and Barack Obama return to a state of interoperable
trust. Should the chancellor have gained the impression that the president lied
about his knowledge of bugging her, that will be prove difficult.
However, for long-term relationships, chemistry
between two politicians is subordinated to the mutual perceptions of their
nations - and here there is an obvious discrepancy. You meet far more Germans
who despise America than Americans who reproach Germany: for its restaurants,
the Gemutlischkeit festival, efficiency and automobiles.
Americans can hardly believe that such a powerful nation doesn't maintain a more capable
intelligence service.
Germans think of Gestapo and the Stasi
“Everyone is spying on everyone,” says Joe. “And
besides, we have to protect ourselves against terrorists.” Erika disagrees. Despite
the former Hamburg cell
of 9/11-assassin Mohamed
Atta, Germany isn't a staging ground for violent Islamists. “You cannot
collect everyone's data just to find a few lowlifes.” And bugging the chancellor
was certainly no contribution to counterterrorism.
Joe might feel vindicated, as in fall 2007, German
security authorities, thanks to information from the NSA, prevented an attack by
the Sauerland Group. However, Snowden's revelations of the PRISM
program show that the NSA has amassed gigantic amounts of metadata both in and
out of the United States, none of which has anything to do with the 2007 plot.
So far there is no evidence whatsoever that the mass surveillance of phone and
Internet connections has significantly contributed to success in the fight
against terror.
All countries
maintain intelligence services. A handful of people inside the Federal
Intelligence Service (BND) are also active in
Washington. But they eavesdrop neither on the White House or Congress. The DNA
of Germans are forever imprinted with the memory of the Gestapo and Stasi - spying that can only be
likened to James Bond or the Red Orchestra
during the Second World War. The nation has a reflex that twitches in unison.
Almost worse than the thought that Merkel was bugged, is the idea that the BND might behave similarly abroad.
Germans sound noble, while Americans
act
The mere discussion (although extremely
unlikely) of membership for Berlin in the exclusive spy club The Five Eyes is just as brusquely
rejected as a vegetarian might rule out an invitation to a steak house. This
goes hand in hand with the German aversion to all things military: during the
mission in Afghanistan, the population didn't take to kindly to the idea that German
soldiers might die there, which is presumably not as bad as the thought that
German soldiers might kill there.
Posted By Worldmeets.US
Afghanistan reflects how the thinking of
Americans and Germans differ. The Americans fought terrorism there. The Germans
fought for the right of girls to attend school. The latter may sound noble, but
while the chance of justice for girls is far from being achieved, the noble
motives of Germans have been exhausted. In surveys, they have demanded complete
withdrawal.
Al-Qaeda, however, was driven out of
Afghanistan. Today, the terror nests sit in other corners of the world. The
Americans have achieved a sufficient level of stability for the majority of the
country to endorse leaving a residual force beyond 2014. Whose idealism is more honest?
Asian competition never sleeps
On our transatlantic flight, the talk is now
about freedom. Erika likes redistribution and the protection of the nanny state.
But on the question of whether security arises from an intelligence analysis of
German telephone calls, Erika is adamant. She prefers "freedom."
Whether Germans would fight for that freedom also remains unclear. Joe, on the
other hand, talks a lot about freedom, and to him, an overly-powerful state is suspect.
He would fight not only for his own freedom. The U.S. became
involved in the Balkan War,
although it didn't deploy there for national interests. Similarly, the majority
of Americans favor defending Israel. But Joe has little concern when the freedom
of his countrymen are affected by the collection of metadata from phone or Internet
connections. This is simply to protect his country and family against terrorist
attacks.
However, classical terrorism isn't likely the
biggest challenge for the future. International disorder is a growing threat,
characterized by the “Rise of the Rest” - the emergence of new regional powers.
Asia-Pacific tensions are growing. The future promises far more difficulty in
the Afghan-Pakistani region, as secular and religious forces collide. In Africa,
the influence of violent Islamism extends far beyond the strip of nations in
the Maghreb.
Europeans need a partner
The aircraft is landing. If there were in
fact an Erika Mustermann and a Joe Average, at this point
they would be on hopelessly unpleasant terms. Or, perhaps, displeasure with an
intelligence agency that lost the plot and needs to be reigned in would pale in
comparison to the challenges of the real world.
Germans, and with them Europeans, need a partner
who shares their values, and has the power and will to take the lead. Americans
need allies with the same principles to assist them in a more complicated
world.
Against this background, are there alternatives
to continuing and even strengthening transatlantic ties? Of course there are. Only
- all of them are worse.
