Since reunification, Germany has built its prosperity on an international order based on free trade, multilateralism, and geopolitical stability. This model relied on three relationships considered complementary: U.S. military protection, Russian energy supplies, and economic integration with China. For several decades, Berlin viewed these interdependencies as factors contributing to peace, growth, and security.
However, this environment has changed profoundly. The return of Donald Trump to the White House, Russian aggression against Ukraine, and the rise of Chinese economic power have highlighted Germany’s strategic vulnerabilities. The United States is undermining the foundations of the transatlantic partnership, weakening multilateral institutions, and using its military and economic superiority as a tool for exerting pressure. Russia has definitively shattered the illusion of a peaceful rapprochement based on energy interdependence. As for China, it has become at once a powerful industrial competitor, an indispensable trading partner, and, increasingly, a source of troubling technological and strategic dependencies.
Hans Stark is Professor of Contemporary German Civilization at the Sorbonne Université. From March 1991 to March 2020, he was Secretary General of the Study Committee for Franco-German Relations (Cerfa) at Ifri. Since March 2020, he has been advisor for Franco-German relations at the Ifri, where his work focuses on German foreign and European policy.
About the Author:
Hans Stark is Advisor, Study Committee on French-German Relations (Cerfa), Ifri