Such a Germany is its own confederation. Absent any malice, ill will, or “romanticism” on the part of its leadership, it will necessarily begin to act in accord with its new power – independently and with the kind of assertiveness and regard for distant interests that characterizes the other great powers, notably the United States and the Soviet Union.
The real danger posed by a reunified Germany is not that a new Bismarck or Hitler will arise. It is that the birth of a new giant in the middle of the continent will arrest Europe’s great confederational project and produce in its place, as The Economist put it, a “revised version of a previously destructive balance-of-power system,” a recapitulation of the kind of international system of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries that ended in catastrophe.
We can see the new balance-of-power system taking shape already. The shape is disturbingly familiar. The Western European powers are maneuvering to reestablish pre-war links with the ex-Soviet colonies of Eastern Europe, not just in pursuit of economic opportunity, but quite consciously to prevent Germany from dominating the region. Take the Polish question. Britain and France have forcefully supported Poland’s demand for German acceptance of the current Polish frontier. Chancellor Helmut Kohl demurs and rejects out of hand Poland’s demand for a presence at the coming “two plus four” deliberations. The Poles then seek Soviet assistance on the issue. They now wave the Soviet card – keeping Soviet troops in Poland, on Germany’s border – as a warning to Germany to be more accommodating. This pattern is not new.
As the Europeans begin to maneuver to find partners to balance and contain Germany, each country is forced into a kind of reactive nationalism. Margaret Thatcher “is practicing a very narrow brand of nineteenth-century nationalism,” complained a West German diplomat to The Washington Post. “The danger is that when one country does this, others may be forced to follow.” She might reply, We didn’t start this. But no matter. Wherever one chooses to place the blame, the result is the same: the movement toward integration, federalization, and dilution of sovereignty is halted. Europe invented the idea of sovereignty, suffered its consequences, and was about to demonstrate how to transcend it. Now Europe is heading back the other way. For a continent consisting of twenty-nine sovereignties speaking forty-five languages, that way is not just an anachronism, it is a prescription for instability.
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