The war in Ukraine and its consequences will have a long-lasting negative impact on the political, security, economic, and social future of Germany. It is the biggest war on European soil since the Second World War, a war that has brought us dangerously close to a nuclear catastrophe in recent months. For the West, this war has now been lost; Ukraine is its blood sacrifice, and EU countries, above all Germany, are the losers. The main German parties of SPD, CDU/CSU, the Greens, and FDP, as well as the established German media, bear a heavy blame for this.

However, questions about their responsibilities in this war have been mysteriously muted during the ongoing German election campaign. Similarly, the German government’s huge rearmament efforts and its attempts to make Germany ‘fit for war’ are barely discussed. There is no word about the dangers of deploying powerful US missile systems on German soil. The election posters of the established parties say nothing about any of it. The mainstream media are silent about the disastrous military and political situation in Ukraine and remain equally mute about the fundamental shift in US policy on Ukraine since Donald Trump became US President. It is as if there is a deliberate effort to keep German voters in the dark about these highly controversial issues, issues that could greatly impact their and their children’s future ability to live in peace.

Sliding into a German decline

All of this happens at a time when the war in Ukraine has reached its final and decisive—and probably also its bloodiest—phase. Militarily, the Ukrainian army is likely on the verge of collapse, and it is to be feared that this could result in a political collapse of the country too. For three years, Germany has fuelled this war as the second largest supplier of weapons. And still, the main German parties continue their rigid war policies and pretend to believe in a victory over Russia. Apart from an inconclusive telephone conversation by the German Chancellor with Putin, they have made no efforts to find a negotiated solution. Germany will now have to pay a high price for its pro-war, no-negotiation strategies.

Now, neither the EU nor Germany, but an American and a Russian president will negotiate a peace settlement to end the war in Ukraine. The negotiations have already begun, and Trump and Putin are expected to meet in person in just a few weeks. This has become possible because of a significant shift change in US foreign policy priorities under President Trump. Unlike his predecessor Biden, Trump no longer sees Ukraine as a geopolitical asset for the USA—his attention appears to have moved closer to home: to Canada, Greenland, and the Panama Canal. He will therefore seek a quick solution to the Ukraine war and be prepared to accommodate most Russian interests while largely ignoring Ukraine’s.

We must have no illusions—neither of these two presidents will have any sympathy for Zelensky, the EU, and especially not for Germany. Why should they? Zelensky is considered a spent force, while German and EU policy continues to be characterised by a refusal to face the reality of a lost war. And haven't German political elites treated Putin and Trump with a moral arrogance that is so typical for them? So, neither Germany nor the EU will have a say in these negotiations. This is bad for the EU and bad for Germany—this war is taking place on European soil, and the decisions taken by Trump and Putin will have serious consequences for the future of both Germany and Europe.

One such consequence will be that the EU, and above all Germany, will have to pay for the enormous costs of rebuilding Ukraine and keeping a faltering Ukrainian government afloat. If Ursula von der Leyen were to succeed in her ill-advised desire of fast-tracking Ukraine’s membership into the EU, the total price tag could easily add up to a trillion euros. Whether such astronomical sums would help a collapsing and depopulating Ukraine remains questionable. But it would wreck Germany’s already weakened economy and could put the entire EU project into jeopardy.

In addition, Germany would continue to be blocked from access to the raw materials and markets in the East and Asia that would be so important for the recovery of its economy. After a US-Russian peace agreement, Russia will control the entire border from the Barents Sea in the north to the Black Sea in the south. And the government would not even be in a position to cancel the EU’s self-crippling economic sanction. Germany’s road to further economic decline with all its political consequences appears unstoppable.

Escaping into ‘fit for war’ fantasies

With defeat in the war in Ukraine looming, the SPD, CDU/CSU, Greens, and FDP, supported by much of the German media, seem to prefer to hide from tough realities and to escape into the fantasy that Putin is going to attack NATO. If Germany does not massively and quickly upgrade its defences, they say, he will soon be marching through the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin. Such claims, bordering on madness, are used to distract from a lost war and to justify spending hundreds of billions of euros on a German rearmament that could make Germany, once again, the largest military power in Europe—in conventional forces even larger than Russia. All this will inevitably be financed largely through a reduction in social services.

To justify all of this, the German political parties cling to their Russophobia and ideological-moralistic ‘narratives’ of needing to defend democracy and freedom. But those justifications now begin to wear thin. While German politicians and their supporters in the media continue mantra-like to blame Putin for an “unprovoked war of aggression,” Trump is blaming his predecessor Biden for the war and accusing Zelensky of having provoked the Russian attack. And while the German narrative remains that Putin is driven by imperialistic desires, Trump is saying what we have always known: it was the push for NATO expansion into Ukraine, driven by the US neocons and continued by Biden, that led to this war. Trump has gone even further and declared that he can ‘even understand Putin’. In Germany, one would probably lose one’s job for saying that!

The new US government does not share our fantasies about an impending Russian war against NATO. As early as last year, the seven US intelligence services stated in a joint report that a Russian attack on a NATO country could be ruled out with a high probability.

What now? German mainstream politicians, most being transatlantic loyalists to the core, have lost their lord and master, a troubling development so shortly before the federal election. That is why the lost war in Ukraine, along with massive German rearmament efforts, is kept out of the national election campaign. With all the money those established parties have, this will help to secure the reelection of a Merz and Kiesewetter, a Scholz and Pistorius, a Habeck and a Baerbock, or even a Lindner and a Strack-Zimmerman; all politicians who maintain an uncompromising pro-war posture towards Russia and who are taking an increasingly aggressive attitude towards China.

According to the opinion polls, this is what is going to happen. Germany is therefore likely to be governed once more by politicians who supported a war that killed hundreds of thousands of people and made Germany one of its main losers. In other words, Germany will continue to have a government unable to adjust to a changing world around it. It will now also be increasingly at odds with the new US government. It will be unable to mend fences with Russia and China or build relations with the increasingly important association of BRICS countries. Hence, Germany is likely to slide further into global isolation—a terrible prospect for a nation that depends on international trade for its economic well-being.

At the same time, the mainstream media’s uncritical support for the established parties drives disappointed voters into the arms of the right-wing AfD. This could divide German society even further and make Germany’s future even more unpredictable. Apart from concerns about its radical nationalist wing, the AfD wants to outdo the other parties by demanding Germany commit a staggering 5% of GDP to rearmament, something which could only be financed by a neoliberal economic policy, further gigantic debts, and massive social cuts. And their flirtation with American oligarchs will certainly do no good either.

The price for the ideological-moralistic and pro-war policies of German politicians from Merz to Weidel and from Scholz to Habeck will be paid above all by pensioners and low-income earners, workers and employees, families and children, as well as small and medium-sized industries. The big companies and the rich are simply moving their businesses abroad; the USA has already created the necessary incentives for them.

German policies need to break with their past

If we want to save what can still be saved, Germany needs a definitive turnaround in all areas of its policy. It must find a way back to a peace policy and finally formulate its own interests and act accordingly. To do this, we must get along with our eastern neighbours again; we must build a trusting relationship with Russia and China and engage in trade with them. For the EU member states, the BRICS countries are increasingly important partners not only structurally and economically, but also politically.

The opportunity is there to create a new geopolitical constellation through which these two communities of states could work towards a more peaceful, multipolar world order based on the UN Charter and without military alliances. At the same time, we must maintain internal peace by making social justice the most important goal of our policies. Rearmament and the arms trade, military interventions, or the deployment of US medium-range missiles on German soil will not help at all.

We need a radical new beginning urgently. To do that, we need politicians who have always stood up for peace and social justice. The federal elections would be an opportunity to make a start on this. We should think very carefully about who we vote for on 23 February.