The Stille Allianz revisited

This chapter highlights the changing nature of defence cooperation between Berlin and London since the end of the Cold War. We stress three important developments which have ensured that British-German defence relations have been characterised by elements of divergence rather than the closeness which defined their relationship during the Cold War. First, the end of the centrality of NATO in security and defence policy after the fall of the Berlin Wall has made British-German defence relations more complicated - and in many ways less vital. Second, the emergence of the European Union and its Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) has highlighted NATO’s changed position. NATO has become less central and the important role of France in the European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP) and wider European defence policy has altered the specificity of British-German defence relations compared with the Cold War era. Further differences have emerged concerning the geopolitical implications of the USA’s response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks on Washington and New York in 2001. Third, defence priorities in Europe have become defined by the end of the primacy of territorial defence and have moved to meet the demands of expeditionary warfare. Whilst Heisbourg (2001) might characterise the United Kingdom as an ‘extrovert’ in defence policy, Germany remains caught between the role of introvert and extrovert in its view on the utility of military force.