On her way to becoming chancellor,
Germany´s Green Party's Annalena Baerbock enjoys strong tailwinds. Election
polls for the 2021 federal election remain positive for the Greens, and the
public media are blowing the horns, too. The development of the Greens from
original pacifism of the founding generation to bellicose neo-conservatism
(along the lines of Albright, Bolton, Cheney or Wolfowitz) is cause for
concern.
The Greens are mainly targeting the
undisputedly blatant human rights violations in China and Russia. However, one
hears little from the Greens about human rights violations in Egypt, India,
Israel, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates or in the Western countries
themselves[1].
The threat of sanctions is a popular reflex
of moral indignation. If you search Google for "Baerbock Sanktionen"
(Baerbock sanctions), about 76300 results are retrieved in 0.36 seconds. Key
statements can be found in Baerbock's interview with the Frankfurter
Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung:
- On Russia: "Moreover, there are
sanctions as tough measures, but they are permanently thwarted because the
German government is sticking to the Kremlin's most important prestige project,
the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline. I would have withdrawn political support for
Nord Stream 2 long ago."
- On China: "a different approach to
authoritarian regimes is a key issue for me in a future German government - for
our security and our values. We are currently in a contest of systems:
authoritarian forces versus liberal democracies. This is also about China. The
New Silk Road project, with its global direct investments in infrastructure or
energy networks, is not just about niceties. This is hard-core power
politics."
The candidate does not specify the threatened
sanctions. But no one should say afterwards that they knew nothing about it.
Foreign Minister Heiko Maas (SPD) has already spoken of the "confrontation
cries" of the Greens. The drumbeat of the candidate for chancellor
suggests that the Green leadership is not sufficiently addressing the following
questions:
1) Which sanctions against China or Russia
are effective at all? Sanctions ease the pressure of conscience, but their
effectiveness is doubted. An earlier study (GC Hufbauer, JJ Schott, KA Elliott,
1990) of sanctions in 115 countries since 1915 - by what is now the Peterson
Institute for International Economics - found that economic sanctions were
inadequate to implement foreign policy goals. Behavioural changes could only be
observed in small target countries and with modest sanction targets. Meanwhile,
in addition to trade and investment bans, 'modern' sanctions target financial
transactions, business activities and individuals. Therefore, from an
analytical perspective, an attribution problem arises in effectiveness studies
(Marten Smeets, WTO, 2018)[2].
With regard to Iran and Russia, Smeets doubts that sanctions can bring about
the change from an economic perspective that is often sought through the
punitive measures taken. However, economic sanctions in general cause costs in
all countries involved in the sanctions. The country facing the sanctions is
likely to establish trade relations with third parties that are not part of the
sanctions coalition.
2) How high is the damage of sanctions for
Germany? This question has been resolved
by a study that has attempted to isolate the effects of the Russian sanctions
since 2014[3].
Broken down to individual countries and product categories, it compares the hypothetical
development without sanctions with the weaker actual development. The
difference is the trade loss due to sanctions and counter-sanctions. The
European Union (EU) in turn bears 92 per cent. Germany accounted for the lion's
share of the sanctioning countries' damage, with 38 per cent or 667 million US
dollars in trade loss per month.
3) Are there perverse effects whereby our
sanctions strengthen those in power in China, Russia, etc.? Julia Grauvogel
from the GIGA Institute analyses (IPG, 2020)[4]
that sanctions against authoritarian regimes like Russia pose a particular
challenge. Sanctions may even prove counterproductive there and strengthen
authoritarian regimes. Rulers can instrumentalise sanctions for their own
purposes if they succeed in presenting the measures as an attack on the entire
country. In this way, a chariot mentality can be conjured up against the common
external enemy.
"Made in Germany" effects[5],
meanwhile, have already been observed in China and Russia. China is now
pursuing chip autonomy as a result of US sanctions, which is hurting the
still-leading American chip designers and hitting global supply chains through
chip shortages, such as in the automotive industry. Russia has imposed a ban on
food imports as a result of US sanctions, stimulating domestic production; at
the same time, food security is again a hot topic in import-dependent states.
4) How can a sanctions merry-go-round be
stopped before it mutates into a military conflict? Western decision-makers are
regularly confronted with the question of whether to maintain previously
unsuccessful sanctions (Julia Grauvogel, IPG 2020). Therefore, it is important
to think about the possible end of the measures from the beginning. It is
easier to impose sanctions than to lift them again. Ending unsuccessful
sanctions poses a foreign policy dilemma; it can damage the reputation of the
sanctioning states. Clear predefined sanction targets may prevent such a loss
of reputation.
The Greens would make their confrontational
rhetoric more credible if they first clearly pointed out the human rights
violations in Germany and in the Western allies. As long as their attacks
remain asymmetrically directed against authoritarian emerging countries, the
Greens come across as bellicose neoconservatives in foreign policy terms. They
are thus (in my view) a security risk for Germany and Europe.
[1] Compare regular reports at Human Rights
Watch.
[2] Marten Smeets (2018), “Can
economic sanctions be effective?”, WTO Staff Working Paper, No.
ERSD-2018-03.
[3] Matthieu Crozet, Julian Hinz (2020), “Friendly
fire: the trade impact of the Russia sanctions and counter-sanctions”, Economic
Policy, Volume 35, Issue 101, January 2020, Pages 97–146.
[4] Julia Grauvogel (2020), „Über den (Un-)Sinn von Sanktionen“, IPG Journal, 13. October.
[5] The designation of origin "Made in Germany" was introduced
in Great Britain at the end of the 19th century as protection against
supposedly cheap and inferior imported goods. As is well known, the stigma
became a seal of quality.
