Germany's new diplomacy

Germany is delivering on its promise of a new foreign policy with greater verve than even its friends expected. When President Joachim Gauck called on Germany to play a bigger role in international affairs in his speech at the Munich Security Conference, foreign observers acknowledged that his words were timely, if not long overdue, but asked who would follow up, and how? Were similar messages from the defense and foreign ministers coordinated with the chancellery to ensure follow-up sufficiently coherent to represent a real shift in policy?

To both questions, the answer, so far, is yes. Gauck urged his country to step out “earlier, more decisively and more substantially" on the world stage. Frank Walter Steinmeier has been stepping out indeed: on the Maidan and in Odessa, from Tallin to Chisinau, he is on the spot and on the line. After four years of "sleepwalking", Germany's foreign ministry is adeptly wielding the complex and sensitive tool of diplomacy.

Beyond the comfort zone

This new diplomacy disturbs many Germans. A new study conducted for the Ministry itself with the Körber Foundation shows a full 60 percent of those surveyed do not want to see Germany take on more responsibility in foreign affairs. A majority professes support for diplomatic efforts but is clearly skeptical about the pitfalls of engagement and prefers a foreign policy guided not by interests but by normative considerations – human rights, humanitarian aid, climate and environment.

Effective diplomacy, however, is risky and profoundly realpolitisch. It is not about choosing the right side, but about being in the middle of things. Its practitioner must forego the comfort of morally superior disengagement. Whatever the merits of Gerhard Schröder's stance on Iraq or Guido Westerwelle's on Libya, they were pronounced in a fashion that constrained rather than expanded Germany's potential influence. Diplomacy is not a position but a process: fluid and guided by interests rather than norms, it opens up space for exchange, creates options and identifies exit strategies.

Foreign Minister Steinmeier is pushing with courage and commitment to deescalate the Ukraine crisis. And the outside world is taking note. US Secretary of State John Kerry has praised his leadership while The New York Times editorial board recently remarked that Germany seems to be the European country Mr. Putin cares about most.

Even in the era of big data, diplomacy at its finest remains a personal art, and Mr. Steinmeier has been putting his skills quite visibly on the line - with no guarantee of quick or even ultimate success. That, too, is part of the process: diplomacy is slow and non-linear, its results not always perceptible to outsiders. Often they amount merely to warding off a worse scenario than the crisis already raging.

This is exactly what Chancellor Merkel admonished last week when she rejected criticism that Steinmeier's shuttle diplomacy was an exercise in futility and insisted that she and the foreign minister were working hand in hand. In fact, her own diplomatic dexterity was on display at a recent mini-summit with French President Francois Hollande, when the two leaders declared they would hold Moscow accountable should upcoming presidential elections in Ukraine fail.

Wielding more clout

If some groups or regions in eastern Ukraine prove unwilling or unable to take part in this weekend's vote, that would amount to a setback for Germany's new diplomacy, but it should not be seen as defeat. It would, however, signify that it is time to resort to some of the other tools in the box. Former US President Teddy Roosevelt once described his foreign policy approach as "speak softly and carry a big stick." Germany's big stick is its economic clout.

On May 20, the foreign ministry hosts a panel discussion asking what the world expects from Germany. The answer is commitment and courage – not only from the country's chief diplomat, but from its business community and its citizens. The sidelines are no place for Europe's most powerful player. Germany belongs where it has increasingly been of late: in the middle of things.

Melinda Crane is DW's Chief Political Correspondent and hosts the weekly political talkshow Quadriga