Germany Needs a New Security Architecture

It seems as if the memory of the destruction and suffering of two World Wars has been wiped out. Ever more powerful and wider-ranging weapons are being supplied for the war against Russia, as if there were no red lines in the fight against the nuclear power (read Russia). President Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin‘s patience is being interpreted as weakness, which is a potentially fatal miscalculation!

If Ukraine gets the permission to use the US and British long-range missiles to attack deep into the Russian territory, then the risk of escalation to a nuclear war would be greater than during the Cuban Missile Crisis. President Putin has warned that the use of such weapons would mean that NATO countries are at war with Russia! Meanwhile, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Alexeyevich Ryabkov has announced a revision of Russia’s nuclear doctrine, which at this point provides for the use of Russian nuclear weapons only in the event of a threat to the existence of Russian territory.

On August 26 (2024), the New York Times reported that President Joe Biden had already changed the US’ nuclear doctrine back in March 2024 to anticipate the threat of a three-front war against Russia, China and North Korea. The US’ decision to station American medium-range missiles in Germany from 2026 onwards, as announced by German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in July 2024, must be seen in this strategic context. There was no debate on the issue in the Bundestag or in public. Now it’s reported that the Pentagon has commissioned a study on the effects of radioactive fallout on global agriculture, and in particular in Eastern Europe.

Should it come to war, Germany will be the prime target for attack, and if nuclear weapons are used, nothing will be left of Germany… no industry, no cities, no infrastructure and no people! In other words, Germany is trapped in a military strategy, in which there will be no survival in the worst case. Is that in Germany’s interest?

At the end of the Cold War and German reunification, there was an opportunity to establish a peace order for the 21st Century. This great opportunity for mankind was missed due to the West’s unparalleled triumphalism, all the promises made to Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin were broken, and today, the global community is on the brink of a nuclear war that threatens to wipe out lives on Planet Earth!

A nuclear war cannot be won and must therefore never be waged. John Fitzgerald Kennedy had warned the world after the Cuban Missile Crisis that a nuclear superpower should never be put in a position where it had to choose between “either a humiliating defeat or a nuclear war”. Never has it been more urgent to resolve a conflict through diplomacy than today.

Schiller Institute published this article on September 30, 2024.

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Published by Koushik Das

Koushik Das (born on May 16, 1976 in Kolkata) is a career journalist. Based in the Indian capital of New Delhi, Koushik writes mainly about foreign policies and current geopolitical issues, and rarely about other topics. His own political ideas are highly influenced by Antonio Gramsci, Louis Althusser, Michel Foucault, Michael Oakeshott and others. English philosopher and political theorist Oakeshott (Dec 11, 1901-Dec 19, 1990) says that “in political activity, men sail a boundless and bottomless sea. There is neither harbour for shelter nor floor for anchorage, neither starting-place, nor appointed destination. But we have to keep afloat”. (Rationalism in Politics, 1962) As a student of Political Science, Koushik loves to share his views on issues, which have great impacts on his thought process (and also on India, South Asia and of course on the global community), with his readers through his website – Boundless Ocean of Politics. By doing so, he tries to keep himself afloat. You will find some of his articles in https://inserbia.info/today/ (https://inserbia.info/today/author/kou_das13_i/), as he has been trying to assess the global geopolitics since 2003. You can also mail him at kousdas@gmail.com View all posts by Koushik Das