This article follows Part 2 - European history as the history of empires, in which I proposed a unified theory to understand imperialism in all its forms.
Like most jobs, running an empire is a big task. Part 3 therefore uses the theory to look at the challenges Germany has doing so.
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In response to a paper published by the French military last October on the multi-dimensional Chinese threat, I commented: "Ce document pose encore un autre problème politique à la Commission Européenne et à l'Impératrice Merkel ... ", deliberately inserting 'Impératrice' (Emperor) in order to provoke.
And it worked, drawing out the following very good response from a well-connected and senior German political analyst:
„Impératrice“ - couldn’t agree less. I think Hans Kundnani‘s book on the „Paradox of German Power“ captures it much better. Germany is not striving for hegemony in Europe. … and if it ever were to try, the attempt would be highly detrimental to its core interest of avoiding the emergence of hostile coalitions around it. A peaceful, integrated, internally balanced EU is essential to German national security.
... This seems to be one more iteration of the essential strategic requirement to safeguard one‘s interests as a power in the middle between other competing powers. This classical dilemma known already in Bismarck‘s days ...
It's a response most will agree with on this platform, as it's the established notion of all Western elites. But actually, what Hans was arguing is the opposite of what Western elites believe.
Hans argues that Germany has emerged as Europe's dominant power. Few can deny that Germany today is very different from the stereotype of 19th- and 20th-century history; Chancellor for 16 years Angela Merkel did not use the jack-booted hard power and violence that German leaders from Bismarck to Hitler did to force European elites to do her bidding, but soft power and the negotiating levers that come with it to achieve the same objective: to hand leadership of Europe to Germany, to make Germany its hegemon and master. Merkel was compared with Bismarck extensively in European media, not as a balancer of competing powers, but as their unifier, bandwagon and leader. As the quote above suggests, Germans think that they more than anyone have learned its lessons, and those lessons are not to confront but to co-opt, not to balance but to bandwagon, and to not to rule with authoritarianism but with liberalism, all to achieve the same objective of gaining hegemony and dominance. Hans then goes on to discuss what it means to have a 'German Europe' in the 21st century, and concludes that the old 'German question' has indeed re-emerged but just in geo-economic form.
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Because Germany doesn’t want to be seen for what it is, it hides inside the Center of Europe, what we called in Part 2 KernEuropa. Our model for empire is clear that imperialism won't exist, let alone succeed, unless the elites in its client states are onboard and fully invested in it; and in the EU, it has always been the French President of whatever colour that has been its most blatant supporter. That Germany likes to hide behind France is a source of power for France, as we shall see a little later ....
Like other empires, Germany thinks of itself as a benevolent hegemon spreading its values at a cost to itself but worth bearing for the common good. In Hans' German Europe, the values that give legitimacy to empire are - as German Chancellor Olaf Scholz articulated in the first news item in Part 1 - those of democracy, the rule of law, and individual liberty, in short, the values of political liberalism. Part and parcel of this, but only publicised when profitable, are free markets and free competition, in short, the values of economic liberalism. How imperial value is applied is in the gift of C, enabling it to extract Herrschaft from P in return for its benevolence.
Maintaining imperial inequality requires complicated arrangements. P must be ruled by periphery elites (cP) that consider C as a model for their own country to emulate; they must organise their own order so it complies with the interests of C in holding its empire together. Keeping such elites in power is essential for empire to last; the American empire especially has taught us that keeping such elites in power comes at a cost to values, and to blood and treasure too. Periphery elites that don't support imperial inequality must be disciplined; this is why euro-elites constantly criticise and are vituperative against Jarosław Kaczyński, Mateusz Morawiecki, Viktor Orbán and others, threaten to take them to court, and call them 'anti-European'.
Often, elites in developing countries (cP) seek subsidiary and minor-league membership in an empire in order to get support from imperial elites (cC) when pushing through domestic 'modernisation' and 'reform' projects against a people (pP) that may not be eager in the least. Welcoming their fealty, the empire will help them stay in power, by endowing them with all the means to keep radical opposition at bay. How this is done is not straightforward in a European empire that is supposed to be kept together by moral values rather than military violence.
Mistakes can be made, by cC aswell as by cP, both of whom may believe they are in a stronger position than they really are, and fail as a result. For example, cC, in spite of stealthy funding from Mario Draghi's European Central Bank, failed to keep the Italian 2014-2016 Renzi 'reform' government (cP) in power against popular resistance (pP), that resistance being defeat in a referendum that the elites hubristically thought they would easily win. Draghi is now the unelected Prime Minister of Italy, this time enthusiastically funded by the European Commission that, breathing down the neck of the now-octogenarian Italian President, appointed him during Lockdown. That he was also formerly Vice Chairman and Managing Director of Goldman Sachs, Governor of the Bank of Italy, Director of the Bank for International Settlements, and on the Boards of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the Asian Development Bank indicates that the German-European Empire is very much guided by the values of economic liberalism.
C itself can also face domestic difficulties, and must be careful to make pursuit of its narrow national interest appear to be in pursuit of benevolent imperial values. In this it may require P's assistance, which may not always be forthcoming. Between 31 August and 13 September 2015 Angela Merkel tried to boost Germany's imperial reputation and resolve its demographic problem by substituting unregulated asylum for regulated immigration. She opened its borders declaring that they could no longer be policed in the 21st century, and were demanded by international law, and required the EU to follow suit. No member state did; some like France kept quiet about it, while others like Hungary and Poland loudly insisted on their sovereignty. As they broke with the unspoken law never to embarrass the Emperor, within a fortnight they inflicted a defeat on Merkel from which she never recovered. The fiasco also aggravated cleavages in the C-P politics of empire, with the East (the former Soviet states and East Germany), with the West (UK), and with the South (the Mediterranean littoral states).
Empires are kept together because their elites (both cC and cP) have harmony of interest at the same time as their respective underclasses (pC and pP) have disharmony. Nevertheless, because P has disharmony of interest to C, so empires have the potential to break up. The EU though cannot use military power to prevent countries exiting, so when the UK decided to Leave, KernEuropa never considered conquest to keep it 'in Europe'. From C's perspective, however, an amicable British departure might have undermined imperial discipline, as P countries unsatisfied with the imperial regime might have considered leaving as well. Even worse, if Brexit had been prevented by meaningful concessions in exchange for staying, other countries might have asked for renegotiation of the Besitzstand der EU (European Union law) deliberately written to be non-negotiable.
So the choice for Britain - as the European Commission President over a wet weekend in January 2016 took delight in educating a jejune British Prime Minister - had to be between remaining without concessions, or leaving at high cost to itself. Germany did equivocate, though, because Britain was often Germany's ally, balancing French dirigisme with its commitment to free markets, free competition and the values of economic liberalism. With Brexit, that balance would be lost. France knew this, and so insisted on tough negotiations, and cooked up conflict with its northern neighbour and old sparring partner to ensure the UK did leave.
Geostrategic concerns also drive the governance of empire. Where one empire borders another, it is willing to pay a price for keeping cooperative governments in or uncooperative ones out. Elites that can threaten to take or change sides can extract concessions, even if their internal politics are perhaps unpalatable to the imperial elites (eg Romania, Serbia, Turkey, and, dare I say it, Ukraine). Here, military hard power makes itself manifest, in contrast to values soft power. While the EU cannot yet use force directly, it can provide aid to friendly governments that feel threatened by another empire, and in return receive concessions. The most obvious example today being the Eastern European frontline States keeping silent on the admission and allocation of non-European refugees in exchange for Germany's military forward-deploying to defend against (and threaten) Russia.
C may hope to rule without recourse to the threat or use of force. With today's technologies of control blending aspects of Aldous Huxley's Brave New World with some of George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, imperial rule today has become easier than in the past. Ultimately, though, there can be no hegemony without guns. It is in this context that the Ukraine war and NATO's demands to increase military expenditure to 2% of GDP must be seen. It means a doubling of German military power. Despite our horrified reaction to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, its real significance is related not to NATO but to the EU. Germany alone will soon be spending 40% more on weapons than Russia, and all of that spending will be on conventional weapons. This will keep countries like the Baltic States and Poland content within the now militarising Empire, to sign up for an EU Army, and to be less reliant on and loyal to a NATO that is led by that other empire, the USA. It will also give Russia good reason to upgrade its nuclear arsenal, and encourage countries to take a more provocative stance against Russia. France, which already spends 2% on its military, is hoping a doubling of German military spending will both stymie German economic prowess, and enhance Franco-German cooperation in arms production and exports (along with China, Russia and USA, France and Germany are the top 5 weapons exporters). The increase in German capabilities will more than compensate for French weakness in conventional forces (a weakness due to the French military spending so much on its nuclear Force de Frappe, an instrument ironically that cannot be used against those very Islamist militants in West Africa who are trying to interrupt French mining of nuclear weapons material!).
Being an imperial power is far from easy, even if one sets aside the self-destructive temptation that empires have of over-extending themselves, as in the Soviet and American examples. The popular mood in Germany has for decades been against militarisation, and the Bundestag's constitutional prerogative to regulate German troop deployment is still in place, but with EU funding of the Ukraine War and Chancellor Scholz' startling announcement earlier this month received with a frenzy of nationalistic fervour of a €100bn Special Fund for the BundesWehr in addition to locking NATO's 2% pledge into law, the financial burden of Empire might prove a stretch. Even before the Covid Lockdown, the increasing imperial side-payments to the Mediterranean countries that were suffering under the German hard-currency regime called the euro, and growing size of the 'structural funds' supporting the Eastern European states and their 'pro-European' political class were starting to alarm the German elites. With France suffering from low growth and high deficits, and the UK no longer contributing to EU coffers, Germany alone is paying for the Empire, a required order of magnitude that may in the future exceed its abilities.
And don't be fooled by the results of the September 2021 Federal election. The Refugee Fiasco of 2015 electorally transformed Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) into the largest opposition party. With the EU opening its doors once again, this time to Ukrainians fleeing West in their millions, Turkey will release even greater numbers of refugees to roam with impunity into Greece and Bulgaria and across the Black Sea into Romania. Human waves from failed state Libya and elsewhere in North Africa will again be encouraged to float over the Mediterranean. AfD's nationalism is isolationist and anti-imperialist, and so unsurprisingly is branded by the German imperial elite as 'anti-European'. AfD nationalism amounts to unwillingness to pay for empire with a corresponding willingness to allow other countries to do their own thing; witness the party’s belief that what is going on between Ukraine and Russia is between them, a belief it shares with another powerful opposition party, the anti-economic liberalism and anti-militarisation Die Linke.
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So will it be a 1000-year KernEuropa or even EuroReich?
It could be, because the most potent instrument of control, namely the soft-power narrative of the values of political and economic liberalism, does not require military force.
Furthermore, in the world of RealPolitik, far from Europe but with its tentacles already grasping and feeding on an alarming number of the EU's Periphery member states, we will soon see the muscles flexing of what is shaping up as the widest and deepest empire the world will ever witness, one whose Kern or Center or Middle Kingdom itself had been in the dim and distant past a centuries long and vast Empire, and whose language is that of suzerainty, tribute, and kowtow, and most recently of revenge for the 'century of humiliation'. Possibly the only counter to this coming empire may be another one.
Ultimately, there can be no hegemony without guns, and as we have been reminded by the Ukraine war, there can be no law without force, so with German rearmament and the coming creation of an EU Army the empire will obtain its final solution for self-preservation. As Bismarck, founder of the Second Reich, Iron Cross, and RealPolitik - and referenced approvingly by Euro elites today - declared: "Not through speeches and majority decisions will the great questions of the day be decided - but by iron and blood" ... your Comment?
