Post September Climate & Changing German Foreign Policy - Research Paper Example

A prime example of the limitation to Waltz’s reliance on anarchy and the survival preservation in international relations theory is the recent souring of relations between the US and Germany under the Bush administration in relation to the German stance on Operation Iraqi Freedom. For example, the events of September 11 resulted in a seismic shift in US foreign policy focusing on national objectives as evidenced by the legally weak justifications for Operation Iraqi Freedom that were ultimately rooted in a foreign policy desperate for payback (Schoenbaum, 2006, p.2). As a result, the Bush administration’s questionable justifications for invading Iraq culminated in a political battle with Germany, who opposed the US position on Iraq.

Whilst the current German administration’s relationship with President Obama has thawed diplomatic relations between both countries to a degree, the opposition to the US presence in Iraq remains and raises interesting questions about the German position in the two Iraq wars. For example, in both Operation Desert Storm and Operation Iraqi Freedom, the German role was non-combative. However in contrast to the diplomatic stance taken by the Kohl government in relation to Operation Desert Storm; the German government was vehemently opposed to Operation Iraqi Freedom and were more proactive in voicing their opposition, much to the chagrin of the US (Pauly, 2005, p.95).The focus of this paper is to undertake a comparative analysis of the position of Germany in the two Iraq wars.

To this end, it is submitted as a central proposition in this paper that the fundamental reason for the difference between the German stance in Operation Desert Storm and Operation Iraqi Freedom is the changing German foreign policy and its growing belief in its rightful role in international relations (Dalgaard-Nielsen, 2006, p.89).