Ammerländer schrieb am 15.07.2024 16:38:
Diese Geschichte zeigt sehr gut, wie unterschiedlich die Sicht der Politik und der Wirtschaft sein kann (und wer am Ende gewinnt?).
Im kalten Krieg war das Problem, dass die Russen Kommunisten waren (und die wollen einem immer alles wegnehmen). Zu mindestens war das das gängige Narrativ.
Plötzlich waren die Russen nicht mehr Kommunisten. Das Problem hatte sich in Luft aufgelöst.Nach 1989 war man in der deutschen Wirtschaft euphorisch. Man glaubte mit Aufträgen aus Russland für die nächsten 20 Jahre, die Fabriken zu füllen. Man stellte Russen ein, entwickelte Osteuropa- und Russlandstrategien und versuchte Joint Ventures mit russischen Kombinaten zu bilden. Anfangs waren es nur die großen Konzerne, später kamen einige Tausend KMUs dazu und gründeten Tochterfirmen in Russland.
Russland wurde als riesiger neuer Markt gesehen, der mit billigen Rohstoffen bezahlen konnte.
Diese Sicht hatten vermutlich auch einige deutsche Politiker.Für viele westliche Staaten (nicht nur die USA) bestand nach der Wiedervereinigung die Befürchtung, dass die Deutschen mit den Russen in irgendeiner Weise zusammenarbeiten ("Geist von Rapallo") würden und das Machtgefüge in Europa sich entscheidend ändert. Frankreich bestand deshalb auf der Einführung einer gemeinsamen Währung, um Deutschland stärker einzubinden.
Für die USA blieb Russland der Gegner, ob es nun Kommunisten waren oder Kapitalisten.
Daher betrieben sie die NATO-Osterweiterung ohne Rücksicht auf andere Interessen.Von der europäischen Politik wurden die wirtschaftlichen Interessen Deutschlands nicht verteidigt. Weil man es vielleicht gar nicht wollte (UK, Dänemark, Polen) oder weil man zu schwach war (Sarkozy, Merkel). Es hätte Politiker geben müssen, die gewagt hätten den USA zu widersprechen. Gab es aber nicht (mehr).
Die Sicht der US-Offiziellen war von Anfang an ganz anders ausgerichtet:
Contrary to what U.S. officials told their Soviet interlocutors, the Bush administration privately looked to use the collapse of Soviet power in Central-Eastern Europe to enhance U.S. preeminence on the continent.143 This policy, moreover, appeared to make strategic sense at a time when no one expected the Soviet Union to disintegrate and U.S. planners had to prepare for a world in which the Soviet Union might remain the largest military threat in Europe.144 Even before meeting the West German leadership at Camp David in late February 1990, Baker was ebullient over the prospect of reunifying Germany within NATO, noting in the margins of a briefing paper that, relative to the concessions the United States and West Germany would have to offer, “you haven't seen a leveraged buyout until you've seen this one!”145 The key to this end, as the paper elaborated, was structuring the diplomatic process to create the appearance of U.S. attentiveness to Soviet interests, but actually avoiding a Soviet “veto” and giving Gorbachev “little real control” over the terms of German reunification.146 The objective was to ensure Soviet acquiescence to a reunified Germany within NATO and thus maintain U.S. involvement in Europe through the alliance.147 Similarly, Scowcroft wrote to Bush before the May–June 1990 Washington Summit that the United States needed to underline to Gorbachev the “critical link” between “a forthcoming Soviet foreign policy—particularly regarding Germany—and further improvements in U.S.-Soviet relations.”148 The senior-most U.S. leaders, in other words, were focused on garnering the strategic advantages of moving a reunified Germany into a U.S.-dominated alliance, and were even willing to threaten the overall state of U.S.-Soviet relations in support of this objective.
Reflecting this thinking, a State Department official could quip in March 1990 that the Two-Plus-Four negotiations represented a “two by four,” because they offered “a lever to insert a unified Germany in NATO whether the Soviets like it or not.” Assuming that the United States began reaching out to other former Soviet clients in Eastern Europe while Soviet military retrenchment continued, the United States could then see “the outlines of the new Europe, with Germany inside NATO (…) and a revived ‘active buffer’ between the Germans and the Russians.”149 The United States was therefore not going to accommodate the Soviet Union so much as take advantage of the opportunity to position itself for achieving maximum leverage in post–Cold War Europe. Already in late December 1989, Scowcroft was advising Bush that the United States was at a “strategic crossroads” and would either “find a way to keep up with the intensifying pace of diplomatic interaction” in Europe or find itself excluded from continental politics. Central to resolving this dilemma was ensuring that a reunified Germany maintained its ties to NATO while moving into Eastern Europe's “power vacuum” to facilitate “a much more robust and a constructive U.S. role in the center of Europe.”150 NSC staffers Robert Hutchings and Robert Blackwill elaborated on this perspective in mid-January 1990, writing to Scowcroft that German reunification and an expanded U.S. presence in Europe were mutually reinforcing.
The United States needs to stand between Germany and Russia in central Europe. If and as our military presence recedes, we will need to find ways of replacing it with a much greater political, diplomatic, cultural, and commercial presence.
A strong U.S. presence in Eastern Europe will also be an important means of shaping the process, now seemingly irreversible, of German reunification. By increasing our own influence in Eastern Europe, we can better manage an eastward drift in FRG (Federal Republic of Germany) policy and better position ourselves to affect the future of a reunified Germany.
Finally, Eastern Europe is a key to strengthening our future position in Europe as a whole. Our ability to maintain a strong political consensus in the Alliance and to develop a partnership with the EC (European Community) will depend importantly on our playing a major role in Eastern Europe.151
https://direct.mit.edu/isec/article/40/4/7/12126/Deal-or-No-Deal-The-End-of-the-Cold-War-and-the-U