George Friedman
Germany’s decision to deploy a permanent force of 5,000 soldiers to Lithuania is extremely significant because it signals the next phase of a new geopolitical era. One of the most fundamental questions of this era is the extent to which the U.S. will limit its military and financial exposure to the global system. Toward that end, Washington has demanded that Europe assume primary responsibility for its own security and has made initial attempts to reshape the international economic order that had been in place since World War II to facilitate the change. We have been waiting to see how Europe reacts.
The German deployment is the first response. The size of the deployment is not designed to resist a full Russian attack, of course, but it is meant to trigger a massive response in Europe and instill a sense of caution in Russia. With Germany having thus created a concrete military commitment in Europe, the question now is whether the deployment is the first of many European actions or simply a solitary act. As I have argued, Europe is merely the name of the Continent, a landmass slightly larger than the continental U.S. comprising 44 sovereign states. A coordinated European response means one thing; 44 individual responses would mean quite another. Similarly, it will be important to see not how the entirety of NATO responds but how the United Kingdom, Germany, France and Poland – the alliance’s strongest and most geographically relevant members – respond. Though it remains unlikely that they would permanently place military forces in positions to block a westward Russian attack, the Ukraine war has made the prospect possible.
But even if Germany’s was a solitary act, it is a critical shift in Europe. The country has been a pariah state, albeit to a decreasing extent, since World War II – arguably, since World War I. It initiated combat in both wars, against countries that are now members of NATO, against countries now outside the alliance and, crucially, against the Soviet Union. It emerged from World War II not as a sovereign nation but as a divided territory, occupied by both the West and the Soviet Union until the 1990s. After it was reunited, it quickly became the Continent’s economic center of gravity. And though its economic weight makes it the first among equals in the EU, it has been careful to avoid asserting military power. Europe has a long memory, and for centuries, its history was the history of all-against-all warfare.
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