Annalena Baerbock was only 2 years old when her parents started taking her to protests. Demonstrations to denounce NATO and the presence of a military base of the organization on German soil. Four decades later, the one who has been Germany’s foreign minister since last December says she is one of the “greatest admirers” of the transatlantic military alliance.
Posted at 5:00 a.m.
A whole turn? Absolutely. For meme Baerbock as for Germany, which had lived in military sobriety since the end of the Second World War.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine will have changed everything. Not only has the European country committed to sending arms directly to Ukraine – a major first – but the coalition government made up of the Greens and Social Democrats has also increased the country’s military budget significantly over the past six last months.
This reversal is not unanimous. Moreover, during the visit of the German minister to the Board of Trade of Metropolitan Montreal on August 3, demonstrators did not fail to accuse Mme Baerbock to betray the ideas of the Greens, the party in which she grew up and of which she has been the leader since 2009.
PHOTO ALEXIS AUBIN, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE ARCHIVES
Annalena Baerbock, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Germany, during a speech on August 3 before the Board of Trade of Metropolitan Montreal
Far from losing her cool, the politician responded directly to the criticism. “My party believes in using military force as a last resort, but we also believe we have a responsibility to ensure that genocide does not happen again,” said Mr.me Baerbock to its detractors.
Finding the balance between these two ideals is not easy. “But if we have to choose between the aggressors and the victims, we choose the victims,” noted the minister.
These shifts in German foreign policy are just one of the obvious consequences of the Russian invasion on the international system that grew from the ashes of World War II. In this system, there is of course NATO, but also the European Union (EU) and the United Nations.
“Yes, there is movement in this system, but it is not going in one direction,” notes Laurence Deschamps-Laporte, professor in the political science department at the University of Montreal and new scientific director of the Center d’études and international research from the University of Montreal (CERIUM).
We are not witnessing a general discrediting of post-war international institutions.
Laurence Deschamps-Laporte, from the University of Montreal
NATO, whose President of the French Republic, Emmanuel Macron, declared “brain dead” in November 2019, is today a consolidated partnership between its founding members from North America and Eastern Europe. West, certainly, but also with many of the former Soviet satellites that have swelled the alliance over the past 30 years.
Vladimir Putin, who hoped to sow division, has so far mostly succeeded in closing ranks in addition to encouraging Finland and Sweden to apply for membership.
The European Union – which showed serious signs of weakness with Brexit and the 2015 migrant crisis – is also recovering. Despite disputes over sanctions to be imposed on Russia and asymmetrical dependencies on Russian gas and oil, the EU remains cohesive and cohesive for the time being.
It is on the side of the United Nations – the main multilateral organization to emanate from the Second World War – that the findings are the most mixed. If 141 of the 193 member countries did not hesitate to denounce Russian aggression against Ukraine within the walls of the General Assembly, the Security Council is paralyzed.
Held back by the veto granted to the five major nuclear powers of the planet in 1945, the body which was to ensure peace and security failed miserably. Catastrophically.
So much so that Russia and China are using the compound to dump their propaganda rather than having to answer for their actions.
When it was granted, the famous veto’s main purpose was to convince the five great powers of the time — the United States, France, the United Kingdom, China and the Soviet Union — to work together to ensure global balance. The veto also served to assure these nuclear powers that they would not be subject to an overly dominant UN, an important concession to obtain their membership.
Unfortunately, for decades this veto has become a blank check for those who have access to it and for their allies. And it is seriously questioned in the wake of the war in Ukraine. “Reforming the Security Council has been talked about for decades, but the current crisis has made the lack of legitimacy even more visible. This reform will be difficult, but we simply no longer have a choice,” believes Laurence Deschamps-Laporte.
Of course, there is no reason to celebrate the war that has been raging in Ukraine for almost six months. All this suffering, all this destruction, all this loss of life is absolutely unnecessary and heartbreaking.
However, it cannot be ignored that this crisis has caused recalcitrant allies to stick together. And encouraged certain countries – including Germany, Finland, Sweden and Japan – to dust off a diplomatic culture inherited from the last major world conflict and the Cold War. From another era.
And there is a source of hope there. Nobody survives a huge storm by engaging the autopilot.