Gulliver’s Travail: Crafting a New Transatlantic Bargain

Abstract

The entrenched meta-narrative of Germany’s post-war role in the transatlantic relationship focused on Germany’s economic capacity and role as a joint manager of the Euro-Atlantic if not global economy. That narrative, with significant caveats, was carried over into the post-unification period, but was transformed into the spectre of a dominant, if not hegemonic Germany in Europe and the emergence of Germany as the central European player in American foreign policy calculations in the transatlantic area and beyond.¹ The centrality of Germany for Europe and the United States was uncontested and remains uncontestable for many (Hanrieder, 1995; Duffield, 1998; Merkl, 2005; Haftendorn et al., 2006). Much of the scholarly literature on the transatlantic relationship has tried to capture the limits on Germany’s role in Europe and possibilities for partnership with the United States, both before and after 1990. Scholars have described Germany as ‘number two’, a ‘reticent Giant’, a ‘reluctant power’, a ‘civilian power’ or an ‘uncertain power’ (Hanrieder, 1982; Katzenstein, 1982; Baring and Masamori, 1977; Meiers, 1995; Harnisch and Maull, 2001; Maull, 2006); characterised its foreign policy as ‘Europeanised’ or as exhibiting the qualities of ‘exaggerated multilateralism’ or ‘self-limitation’ (Bulmer, Jeffery and Paterson, 2000; Anderson, 1997; Hellman, 1996); and reason that the German interest reflects a broad raison de communauté rather than a narrow raison d’état (Sperling, 2004).