Ukraine: Only Germany can deal with Russia

The U.S. can’t help Ukraine, said Ulrich Lüke in the Kölnische Rundschau. Faced with the effective Russian annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula, Washington doesn’t dare respond militarily. The “disillusionment over the countless casualties and immense costs” of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq is so enormous that President Obama “simply can’t risk it domestically.” He won’t even send a warship. That leaves talking, “and the power of words fails in the face of a determined power-politics player” like Vladimir Putin. Obama’s 90-minute phone call with Putin last weekend was “fruitless and humiliating.” Putin followed it with an even greater show of force, effectively taking over Crimea altogether. And all the Americans have done since then is loudly call for some kind of punishment.

The Americans’ “hysterical” tone is not helpful, said Holger Schmale in the Berliner Zeitung. The German government now “has its hands full in coping with pressure from Washington to punish Russia.” The U.S. wants to kick Russia out of the G-8 and may even try to suspend the NATO-Russia Council. Germany “and other cooler heads in Europe” will have to persuade NATO to keep the lines of communication open. The U.S. may be willing to alienate the Russians entirely, but Europeans can’t. We depend on Russia for oil and gas. If the European Union were to level economic sanctions on Russia, Putin could respond by simply turning off the gas tap. The Americans can grandstand, but Europeans must actually do the hard work of diplomacy. “An understanding with Russia is vital.”

But Europe has to be willing to take some pain, said Daniel Brössler in the Süddeutsche Zeitung. Sure, if Russia stopped selling us its gas, that would hurt many countries—“but one of those countries is Russia.” And its command economy, hamstrung by corruption, is already ailing. “If Putin does not come to his senses, the European Union must have the courage to put him, and especially the oligarchs allied with him, under economic pressure.” He’s betting that the West will simply squawk a bit and then calm down, and that’s a bet he has to lose. Otherwise, no country outside NATO’s borders will be safe.

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Don’t look to Obama for such firmness, said Sebastian Fischer in Der Spiegel. He took power, after all, “as a president of retreat.” The pendulum swings back and forth in the U.S. between active and passive foreign policies, and after the adventurism of George W. Bush, Obama was seen as a welcome voice of calm. Unfortunately, his style doesn’t fit what history has served up. Putin is “a man not of cooperation, but of spheres of influence.”

Let’s look, then, to German Chancellor Angela Merkel, said Ernst Elitz in Bild. It is Europe’s security that is at stake, and it is we, not the U.S., who must decide what to do. Raised in East Germany under Soviet influence, Merkel understands Russians, just as Putin, who was once a KGB agent in East Germany, understands Germans. Merkel commands Putin’s respect, and only she can say to him, in Russian no less, “This far, and no further.” Merkel will prevail. “This is Europe’s hour!”