The End of German-American Relations ... "as we know them"

The fifty years that the Amerikastudien / American Studies has been in existence have coincided with an unusually deep and stable political relationship between the United States and Germany, buttressed by strong cultural and business ties. This essay argues that German-American relations are at a crossroads, a point that might as well denote the end of American relations as we know them. Two basic factors account for this development: 1) the disappearance of the Soviet threat, which despite frequent conflicts tied both countries together in a strategic relationship; 2) the Europeanization of external policies in Europe, which is making Brussels-based actors much more important than the protagonist that used to define the bilateral relationship between Washington-Bonn/Berlin. These two factors were already at work in the 1990s, when incremental policy adjustment kept the relationship intact on the surface. The conflict over the American invasion of Iraq, where for the first time in 50 years a German government openly opposed a major strategic American policy objective, revealed the structural break with the past at the policy level. While it is possible to do superficial repairs, this essay argues that what is required is a new bargain that would consist of Germany becoming the chief advocate of transatlanticism and the United States acknowledging in word and deed that a strong and united Europe is in its own strategic interest. This in turn would require that Germany manages its severe economic and social problems that Americans perceive as signs of decline.