What makes the German foreign policy debate so unproductive (and boring) is the constant need to relitigate fundamentals. It's an endless loop of pointlessness that prevents us from getting anything done

Germans rarely debate how to advance the national interest. Instead, they debate the concept of national interest itself. Do national interests actually exist? If they do, is it amoral to try to advance them? Shouldn't all foreign policy be guided exclusively by morality?

Other countries are trying to figure out how to build the most powerful military with the resources they have. Germans are debating whether the country should even aim to have an effective military

It's the same with use of force and arms exports. Germans could debate the exact conditions under which either serves German interests in specific cases (which is interesting and really important) but instead it's just "all arms exports are evil!" over and over again

Germany's debate about the acquisition of armed drones is a great example for this. Other countries have long used armed drones and they are evidently very useful. Germany been talking about buying them forever (see thread below) https://twitter.com/RikeFranke/status/1336234955865776128?s=20

Instead of tackling tough issues around the use of armed drones (how do we use them to maximum effect consistent with our values) German politicians are now saying they won't support drones because they can be used to kill people from afar. It's delusional

Germany is not going to have an effective foreign policy until it moves from debating "are all arms exports bad" to "is it in Germany's interest to export these submarines to Norway right now." Bonus: Those questions aren't just more useful, they are also much more interesting

/end