Germany's election not a mandate for extreme conservatism

October 1, 1:07 AMGeopolitics ExaminerMichael Hughes

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Election posters of german candidates Merkel and Westerwelle

Based on the overreaction of analysts covering the results of Germany's General elections on Sunday and the country's trending towards conservatism, one would think Germany took a step backwards 75 years and was on the verge of another Nazi Machtergreifung.

On Sunday, Angela Merkel won a second term as Chancellor of Germany, winning the center-right majority that eluded her four years ago. Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union won 33.8 percent and its probable coalition partner, the Free Democratic Party (FDP), won 14.6 percent of the vote, giving the potential center-right coalition 332 seats out of a total 622 in Germany’s Bundestag. The left-wing Social Democratic Party (SPD) garnered just 23 percent of the vote and will lose 76 seats from the 2005 election, suffering its worst parliamentary election since World War II. It will send the SPD into opposition after 11 years as part of the government.

Although it’s true that a conservative-libertarian coalition will replace the current conservative-socialist government, as coalition talks begin between Merkel and her political ally, pro-business Free Democratic Party leader Guido Westerwelle, commentators and analysts are sounding the death knell for German socialism and liberalism a bit prematurely.

Intelligence analysts at STRATFOR project that Germany will align itself with Russia for economic reasons and will eschew the United States due to Germany’s growing independent-mindedness and resentment towards being used as a pawn in U.S. containment policy. The fact that Germany is no longer as dependent on the U.S. as it was during the Cold War seems to frighten these experts to an alarming degree:

The point of the discussion is this: Germany is awake. It is thinking for itself. It has its own policy preferences, its own energy preferences and its own security preferences. It already is showing signs of developing autonomy in foreign policy and energy matters, and it is very likely only a matter of time before it starts developing autonomy in security matters.

This isn’t your father’s (or even your grandfather’s) Germany. This is your great-grandfather’s Germany.

New York Times columnist Roger Cohen appears a bit panicky about German unification and its government potentially acting more in line with its own national interest. How dare they?

This Germany is more nationalistic, more evenly poised between Washington and Moscow, cool to the point of disinterest about the European Union, self-absorbed and self-satisfied, dutiful but unenthused about the NATO alliance.

Cohen also points out the dangers of a potential German and Russian “unholy alliance” and the specter of Germany moving away from the U.S. on foreign policy:

Indeed, I heard more intellectual excitement over Russia and the broadening German-Russian relationship than over Obama’s America. Germany is Russia’s largest trading partner. Russia is Germany’s 10th largest. A kind of moral complicity — two large nations that made big historical mistakes — binds them.

Germans think America made a mistake by humiliating Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union. They draw a parallel, inevitably, with Weimar. They also think it was not force — America’s — that won the Cold War but détente — Germany’s.

“Don’t expect too much from Russia,” Karsten Voigt, who has long watched over German-American relations at the Foreign Ministry, said. “Maybe a little help on Iran, but they will continue to view their interests as broadly antagonistic to the United States.”

Protest too much indeed, considering that the “conservatives” that will run Germany describe themselves as centre-right and not right-wing. The CDU and the FDP conservatism is more focused on fiscal policy, not fascism. Merkel may not agree with Obama on economic issues, but they appear to see eye-to-eye in key foreign policy areas such as the Middle East peace process, Iran nuclear containment, climate change, and fighting extremism in Afghanistan. Not to mention that Merkel’s conservative party also performed poorly, registering its worst postwar performance since 1949 when it received 31 percent of the vote. So it wasn’t exactly a total landslide for conservative ideology across the board.

If pundits think social conservatism is going to reign in Germany anytime soon, they have another thing coming. Merkel, who leads a party dominated by conservative Catholics, will have an interesting partner in Guido Westerwelle, who is openly gay and who leads a party that is culturally liberal. Westerwelle chastised the Catholic Church for its "19th-century worldview" because of the Vatican’s anti-gay-marriage doctrine.

And though he may be a free market apostle, none would dare categorize him as your typical hard-line conservative. Mr. Westerwelle would like to end military conscription and agrees with Obama on nuclear disarmament. Westerwelle differs with conservatives by wanting to get rid of nukes that the U.S. has stationed there, saying that the atomic weapons are a holdover from the Cold War, and that “They must go.”

Taken altogether, yes, Germany has moved to the center-right on fiscal and some foreign policy matters, but fear of a nationalistic German juggernaut turning its back on the U.S. seems a bit much. Just because Germany is stepping more towards moderate conservatism is not the equivalent of them marching towards a Third Reich.