The Leopard 2 has not yet been delivered, but further demands are already being made. To make matters worse, Annalena Baerbock also lets you look into her heart.
Annalena Baerbock was caught saying what she thinks: “We are fighting a war against Russia and not against each other.” If you are tired, worn down and unnerved by the madness of the events, your tongue will unintentionally loosen itself, so that a truth slips out that should have been left unsaid.
The old adage applies: if you can’t talk about it, you should keep quiet. Diplomats should take it to heart and, if necessary, let off steam privately. It is not for nothing that they are taught phrases and formulas that they should master in their sleep. Where words have weight, they are better weighed.
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The Federal Foreign Office wringed its hands for a mitigating interpretation: Vladimir Putin’s war violated the European peace order and international law. That’s true, of course, but it doesn’t save the ominous sentence from being correctly understood. That’s how she thinks, Annalena Baerbock, and surprisingly the words even tumble out of her mouth.
It is interesting how the war politicized Germany
Germany attaches great importance to not being a party to the war. Germany supplies weapons of all kinds and coordinates with the alliance partners. Germany also supports Ukraine financially, morally anyway, and generously takes in refugees. None of this can be taken for granted, which is why there is something annoying about the constant urge for new weapons. Mind you, this does not mean President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
What is interesting, however, is how the Ukraine war politicized Germany. Pacifists who just wanted to turn swords into ploughshares have mutated straight away into security politicians with exact knowledge of the track width of armored personnel carriers.
20 years ago, the Iraq war changed America in much the same way. Suddenly, Democrats, sympathetic to the despised Republican neocons who have always believed in regime change through war, became neocons themselves overnight. In Germany, conservatism, with its proximity to the Bundeswehr and its understanding of military operations, was a monopoly of the CDU/CSU. Today there are a remarkable number of neocons among the Greens and the FDP anyway, more reserved in the SPD.
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Jumped in anger in the triangle
Annalena Baerbock makes no secret of the fact that, in her view, the Chancellery often hesitates too long before the right thing happens. Under other circumstances, your statement that we are fighting a war against Russia would have triggered a government crisis, at the end of which the foreign minister could lose her position.
In the Chancellery they must have jumped in anger in the triangle. The loudspeaker Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann had just let herself be caught before the announcement that Germany would send the Leos 2 to the Ukraine, and the neocons among the Greens finally kept quiet. That’s why the Foreign Minister’s slip of the tongue was particularly annoying. In doing so, it undermined the coup that Germany had dragged the USA behind when it came to its decision.
The war is likely to continue as long as Putin is president
What do the Leos 2 mean for the war effort? In the editorial, the “Spiegel” says that the delivery is a “game changer” in that it could force Putin to the negotiating table. Well, happy the one who musters so much trust. The logic is the other way around: the war is likely to continue as long as Putin is president.
The war goes on, on and on, and also with the fact that the West will soon be supplying fighter jets and long-range missiles and also submarines. Red lines were yesterday. Scholz’s hesitation is also due to the fact that Germany should avoid one thing at all costs – that we are fighting a war against Russia.
