In spite of positive noises, Washington is disappointed with Berlin, writes DEREK SCALLY
WHEN IT comes to current US-German relations, Berlinwatchers seem to agree that the glass is half empty.
That the glass belongs to Chancellor Angela Merkel, who will attend a White House official dinner this evening in her honour, is, they insist, beside the point.
At the dinner President Barack Obama will present the German leader with the medal of freedom, the highest civilian honour in the US. And yet a palpable German pessimism about the US persists. Its main features: a feeling that Washington is disappointed in Germany, that Barack and Angela are wary of each other, and in general lower expectations.
There is, of course, no smoke without fire. Since the collapse of Lehman Brothers, US and German finance ministers have been at odds over what a post-crisis global finance architecture should look like – and how best to arrive at one.
Dr Merkel also has some explaining to do too on her nuclear energy about-face.
But most importantly, she will need all her diplomatic skills to explain Berlin’s abstention from the recent UN Security Council resolution on western military action in Libya.
Behind closed doors the Obama administration, and in particular defence secretary Robert Gates, has made clear its annoyance at the German position. Hilary Clinton used a recent speech to deliver what her German audience perceived as a diplomatic swipe.
“The world did not wait for another Srebrenica in a place called Benghazi,” she told the American Academy in Berlin.
Some here have gone so far as to suggest Libya is a rerun of an old feud when the chancellor was Schröder, the president was Bush and the country was Iraq. Then opposition leader, Angela Merkel made clear on a visit to Washington that she was on the side of the Bush administration.
Expectations that she would shift Germany’s position to follow the US proved unfounded. Berlin officials, with an eye on the medal changing hands tonight, suggest that freedom includes the freedom to abstain.
Surely, given all these tensions, now is the worst possible moment for the first official visit of a German leader to the US since 1995? This evening President Barack Obama will praise Dr Merkel for her East German biography and political achievements as an “inspiration” for all freedom-loving peoples.
“My friendship with Chancellor Merkel is based on my deep respect and admiration for her leadership qualities and, on the experience that I can trust her when she makes a commitment,” he told Berlin’s Tagesspiegel daily yesterday. He was equally effusive about Germany; asked how the country could work to assume a more global leadership role, he answered: “Germany already is a global leading power.”
The president’s charm offensive has left many here suspicious and struggling over whether to take the compliment. Like Mr Obama’s Nobel peace prize, some analysts suggest the state visit and the freedom medal are an investment in the future: in a bilateral relationship with Germany where a lot works – from trade to security – in the hope that what doesn’t work can be improved.
It can be seen, too, as part of a new US engagement with Europe, from Moneygall to Warsaw, and an acknowledgment that all roads lead through Germany.
“People in Germany underestimate the standing Merkel has internationally because they think she doesn’t have the stature and charisma to be that person,” says Jan Techau, head of Carnegie Europe, the European centre of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Complicating matters, he suggests, is a lingering Germany inferiority complex. Where its partners see a strong, stable partner, Germans continue to see themselves as “the kind of people who maybe should not play such an exposed international role”.
“The Americans have understood that Germany is special because of the past but I feel they don’t have the appetite any more to put Germany on the couch every time they talk to them.”
Even the most optimistic analysts say it’s too soon to expect the therapy couch to be removed entirely from German foreign policy. In that sense, the success of President Obama’s new engagement may depend on how well he deals with Berlin’s “fear of entrapment”. “Whether it’s Nato capacity-building or an EU rapid reaction force, Germans show a readiness to build structures and capacity, but fear placing themselves in a political situation where they are bound into committing troops,” says Dr Henning Riecke of the German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP).
“Obama wants to make plain to the Germans that they are already a global leader and to make them understand that they might want to take on this role and that it would be regrettable if they don’t.”
Given German traumas, the US leader will need more than just charm to convince a self-doubting people that, in the 21st century world, Germany is needed – in every sense of the word.