ABSTRACT
Germany remains at heart an “ambivalent power,” torn between German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder’s recent characterization of Germany as a great power, which proudly commands North Atlantic Treaty Organization troops in Kosovo, and a country that is concomitantly unwilling to tame its obese welfare state in order to remain an economic power. Schroeder recently used the words ‘great power’ with regard to Germany,” Karl Kaiser, of the German Society for Foreign Affairs Research Institute. “That only means that Germany has national interests, but enlightened interests. It is now part of the culture of our political class. Germans have a horror of going it alone.” Long trapped within these huge land mass, with its dark forests and romantic mountains, Germany suffered for centuries from its isolation. That isolation is a thing of the past. Indeed, with this dramatic anniversary, in this gorgeously rebuilt city, Berlin itself exemplifies the reaching out of Germany—first to the West after World War II, now to the East.
