August, 2020
Berlin – There are not many occasions these days to write of Berlin, because as an American I can't travel there. We in the USA have failed to respond adequately to the Covid-19 pandemic to be allowed to travel to such places. It is a shameful and sobering development.
Sad as I am about it, I am nevertheless grateful to generations of post-WWII Americans and Germans alike who, sweeping away the ashes of fascism, put together a different Germany for our time, with the kind of scientific acumen and political leadership to face down a pandemic. We may yet need the example of Germany to save our own country.
In the second half of the 1940s, far-sighted Americans like George Marshall, Lucius Clay, and John J. McCloy laid the groundwork for democratic, constitutional government in Germany. They worked with wise German chancellors who in time formed alliances spanning different German political constituencies to form an enduring social compact.
I've lived and worked in Germany in six of the eight decades since WWII. Some of that was in the U.S. military and some in various academic institutions. Looking back with the benefit of hindsight, I now appreciate more fully the joint services commendation I received while working at the U.S. European Command in Stuttgart, for "exceptionally meritorious achievement." At the time, I thought it was over the top, as I was just doing my work as a naval officer assigned there. Now I see it as integral to the establishment of the successful and enduring democracy that Germany has become.
We are going to need Germany's help beyond the issues of the pandemic. Thomas Friedman outlines why in his perceptive analysis, "To Deal with China, Trump Should Learn German." His reasoning:
The Cold War with the Soviet Union was fought and won in Berlin. And the looming Cold War with China — over trade, technology and global influence — will be fought and won in Berlin.
As Berlin goes, so goes Germany, and as Germany goes, so goes the European Union, the world’s biggest single market. And whichever country — the United States or China — is able to leverage the European Union on its side in the competition for whose technology standards, trade rules and technology will prevail will set the rules for global digital commerce in the 21st century.
“The reason that the United States was on the winning side of the three great conflicts of the 20th century — World War I, World War II and the Cold War,’’ said Michael Mandelbaum, author of “The Rise and Fall of Peace on Earth,” “is that we were part of the strongest coalition. The World War I coalition we joined belatedly. The World War II coalition we joined less belatedly. The Cold War coalition to defeat the Soviet Union, we organized. This should have been the model for dealing with China.’’
Relations between Berlin and Washington are now at their lowest ebb in decades. Germans express pity for the situation into which Americans have placed themselves. Many Americans, of course, agree and cannot wait for the opportunity to get back to reaping the benefits of decades of investment in having a strong strategic partner in Europe.
The question I see, as a person with one foot in Berlin and another in the U.S. midwest, is whether American heartland voters — perhaps the key to the upcoming elections — will choose to deal with China through Trump's tariffs and his federal takeover of farmers' livelihoods, or through Biden's approach to deal with China through alliances among partners like Germany.
Just a few years ago, the answer to that would be easy, as both the Republican and Democratic parties believed in free trade and strong international alliances. Smoot-Hawley tariffs and America First isolationism were failures, by consensus, tried and abandoned. No more. Trump's federal checks to farmers, made necessary by his tariffs, are quickly making de facto socialists of many in farm country. There is irony in this, even as Trump claims Biden is a socialist, despite Biden's record of forty-seven years in public service to the contrary.
We are beyond irony in this election; we are choosing either to embrace our past accomplishments and rise to meet the China challenge, or succumb to China through policies that toss aside what we spent decades to build.
