Show hardship towards Russia!

Whether it is about the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, the Baltic States, the political murders on German territory, which the Russian state apparatus has now brought to court, or the attempted erosion of western democracies through cyberattacks – the list of Moscow attacks is long. And the Russian reaction to such criticism is always the same: all an invention of the West.

How should Germany respond appropriately to this? When looking for answers, one does not have to dwell long with the unholy Putin-understanding alliance between the AfD and the Left Party. The decisive factor is whether the SPD can say goodbye to its long-standing wishful thinking in matters of Russia – in other words, to make a historic turning point in bilateral relations, as it did in economic and socio-political areas in 1959 with the Godesberg program.

The road still seems long for the new Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz in particular. Shortly after taking office, he declared with unrivaled political naivety that his actions towards Moscow would be based on Willy Brandt’s and Helmut Schmidt’s Ostpolitik. What Scholz overlooks: At that time the Soviet Union had initiated a gradual opening policy towards the West, not least to strengthen its crumbling economic foundation.

Nord Stream 2 is a political project

With Putin, however, there can be no talk of an opening-up policy, on the contrary: his actions are guided by the idea that the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 was the greatest catastrophe in world history. At the same time, Putin has done nothing to improve the productivity of the Russian economy and reduce its dependence on oil and gas.

The Kremlin ruler is even less enlightened than Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in Saudi Arabia. Although he can also be murdered abroad, he is at least trying to find growth prospects for his country in the post-fossil age. Against this background, it is hardly surprising: All German efforts to establish a “modernization partnership” with Russia have been in vain. Because in Putin’s environment it is not about economic modernization, but about the exploitation of Russian raw material reserves for the benefit of oligarchs. Calls for a new version of the modernization partnership are naive until a real rethink has taken place in Moscow.

Scholz should break away from the continuity of his predecessor Angela Merkel and no longer claim that Nord Stream 2 is a “purely private-sector project”. Apparently, Scholz and with him large parts of the SPD still overlook the fact that Putin uses the money we pay him for the natural gas deliveries, not least for billions in loans, with which he keeps the regime of the Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko alive.

These are connections that Annalena Baerbock, our new Foreign Minister, understands very well. It rightly does not want to further increase Germany’s dependence on the Putin regime, which is latently prone to blackmail. And that is why it rejects the commissioning of Nord Stream 2 out of sober geopolitical calculations, but also to protect Ukrainian gas supplies.

You cannot build bridges to Putin

Theoretically, the concept of de-escalation is still correct for German-Russian relations. In practical terms, however, Putin regards Western de-escalation as a sign of weakness that he can use for new attacks. Because for many years Russia has only been a “power of negation” to which one can no longer build bridges. Putin is only concerned with serving the kleptocrats’ hunger in domestic politics.

In the case of China, by the way, the situation is different. The People’s Republic is not a “power of negation”, but a “power of creation”. It has modernized its economy with breathtaking success – although the communist leadership can count on the support of broad sections of the population despite the establishment of a digital surveillance dictatorship that scorns freedom rights in the western sense.

Because of its success, Beijing, unlike Moscow, can, for example, insist on the implementation of Chinese industrial standards internationally. China has companies like telecommunications equipment maker Huawei – Russia has none. The West may not like the gigantic Chinese infrastructure project “New Silk Road”. On the other hand, one can hardly deny a certain respect for Beijing’s geopolitical initiative.

Putin’s regime is very different and is only interested in turning back the clock in the direction of neo-Russian imperialism. To this end, the Kremlin relies on blackmail and the threat of military force. In doing so, he unequivocally challenges Germany and Europe. Appeasement politics cannot be the right answer here. Putin aims to “roll back” everything that has been achieved in Europe in terms of national liberation since 1990.

Preserve the independence of the Baltic States

Should Germany be content with its own reunification, but make the independence of the Baltic nations an option in the interests of peace with Russia? That cannot and must not be the case if Berlin does not want to give up the principle of the right to self-determination. In the Bundestag election campaign, Scholz repeatedly stated in a somewhat grandiose manner that if you order a tour from him, you will also get it. Turned into foreign policy, the litmus test for Scholz’s claim is an unmistakable stance towards Moscow.

In the planned negotiations in the so-called NATO quint format, Germany has the chance to unequivocally reject Russia’s demands that NATO should not station additional soldiers and military equipment in the Eastern European states without Moscow’s approval. After all, Scholz should have no interest in going down in history as the German Neville Chamberlain.

The author: Stephan-Götz Richter is editor-in-chief of “The Globalist” and director of the Global Ideas Center in Berlin.

More: Baerbock addresses Moscow clearly