After Afghanistan Germans rethink their country’s foreign policy

AMERICA’S DEBACLE in Kabul has caused especially deep concern in Germany. Two decades ago, after rancorous parliamentary debate, Germany approved its first military deployment outside Europe since 1945, to Afghanistan. The vision was of a Bundeswehr (the armed forces) acting in the service of noble goals: state-building, humanitarianism and diplomacy. “It sounds like a joke today, but read the debates and it really seems like the plan was to turn Afghanistan into Sweden,” says Peter Neumann, a security expert and adviser to Armin Laschet, the conservative candidate for chancellor in this month’s election. The fact that Joe Biden’s administration now claims these goals were delusional has left a bitter taste in Germans’ mouths as they head to the polls.

Initially divided about the wisdom of the mission, Germany’s policymakers found a rationale for what was to become its largest post-war deployment: some 150,000 troops had passed through Afghanistan by the time the last ones left in June. Throughout the 2000s Germany ratcheted up its police-training and civil-reconstruction efforts there. Yet at the same time polls revealed growing public scepticism. Later, in the 2010s, Afghanistan slowly slipped from voters’ minds. Of the main parties standing in the election, only the Greens find space to mention the Afghan mission in their manifesto.