German vice chancellor on defending Western values

[Syt]

http://www.zeit.de/politik/2014-10/sigmar-gabriel-conflict-democracy-freedom

No Exceptions

The West must keep its promise, that every individual has a right to freedom, security and prosperity.
By Sigmar Gabriel

In moments of danger, rather than complicated thinking, one should opt for the most obvious action: helping and seeking help. Aid among the like-minded is the order of the day if, as it appears, the world has gone off the rails.

Our country is a member of the European Union and Nato. Both stand for freedom and democracy, terms that denote a promise for billions of people across the world. And both alliances have made the world a safer place. 

Such praise for the Western collective-security alliances may seem quaint. It rings of the Cold War era, when the North Atlantic Treaty was the cornerstone of our foreign policy. Even today, there is no shortage of critical voices declaring that this relationship is outdated. But obsolete it isn't.

Granted, we must look for open partnerships in all parts of the world – for economic development and modernization as well as to tackle the long list of gigantic global challenges: poverty, inequality, terrifying epidemics (such as Ebola), climate change, environmental degradation, state failure, brutal and fanatical civil wars, and the proliferation of both weapons of mass destruction and small arms. But we can allow the openness of these partnerships neither to tempt us into arbitrariness, equidistance or a rudderless drifting nor to entice us into embracing a go-it-alone national approach. It is first and foremost our time-tested alliances, the European Union and Nato, that enable us to achieve more security. Whoever finds that boring on an intellectual level should just imagine what everyday life on our continent would be like without this order.

Recent outbreaks of violence and violations of international law remind us of bygone, sinister times, of a European past when minorities were hunted and hatred for other cultures was preached. Nationalism is once again virulent. And this isn't just in crisis regions on the periphery and in the European Union's neighbors to the south and east. No, let's be honest: It's in Europe, too. 

For example, the haughty way in which parts of the academic and public-sector elite in Germany speak about the so-called "debtor states" of France and Italy transcends the bounds of fiscal reason. One can gauge the fever of national resentment not least by looking at the electoral successes of the euro-skeptic Alternative for Germany (AfD) party. Likewise, there will surely be sometimes heated discussions this fall about adhering to euro-zone deficit criteria. During those debates, we should always keep this in mind: We depend on each other, and we are alliance partners – not only economically, but also politically; not only as interconnected markets, but also as a union of European states that provides for stability and security.

This is a Western union. But "the West" stands for more than just geopolitical interests or a certain culture. Rather, it represents the universal promise of freedom and equality, of respect for human rights and of democratic participation, all safeguarded by the law.
In the debates we are having about the international order, it is too simplistic to view the West as being in a confrontation with the rest of the world. After all, its guiding principle is certainly no longer about striving to assert the dominance of a culture that is from a geographically delineated area and that dictates to others what to do. Rather, it is precisely the opposite: the universal applicability of the promise of political self-determination for everyone, everywhere, equally.

That's exactly why, for example, the NSA's illegal practices and the major Internet companies' actions aimed at data dominance are violations of Western values. That's exactly why allowing moneyed interests to be ruthlessly privileged in a system of unfettered financial markets undermines the Western conception of the rule of law. That's exactly why a European Union that perceives itself as merely a forced collective resulting from a common currency would be far removed from its true aims. And that's exactly why each citizen who raises her voice in protest no matter in which authoritarian state, from the Maidan to Tahrir Square, and each trade unionist in a newly industrializing nation who resists the exploitation of cheap labor, and also an Edward Snowden who publicly discloses the scandal of almost unlimited surveillance – all of these individuals stand closer to the values of the West than some dare to imagine.

The strength of the Western message – that the individual right of each person is inviolable – lies precisely in the fact that it has ubiquitous validity. This is also why it is put to the test time and time again. Whenever this happens, instead of leaving it defenseless, we must defend it fiercely. To this end, we must strengthen our alliances. And these cannot be fictitious new alliances. Rather, they need to be the proven alliances that we already have. Through these alliances, 28 Nato and 28 EU member states add weight to diplomacy, whether by supporting efforts to safeguard the peace plan for Ukraine or by providing emergency military aid to Kurds threatened with mass murder in Iraq.

Germany, too, must do something to lend credibility to Nato and the EU's Common Foreign and Security Policy. This is why, for example, Germany must maintain its competencies in the security and defense industry. Instead of making cuts in national defense budgets while simultaneously preserving the wasteful heterogeneity of national security and defense technologies, we in Europe must divvy up military capabilities among ourselves and agree on common weapons technologies. The right way is the efficient use of European resources, not exporting weapons into unpredictable third countries that could swiftly turn into opponents.

In Germany, people tend to interpret demands for it to assume more responsibility on the global stage as calls for it to commit more troops to combat missions. But, in reality, Germany – and, even more so, the United States – are precisely the countries that participate in United Nations peacekeeping mission to an extraordinarily minor degree. August Pradetto, a professor of political science at Helmut Schmidt University, a military university in Hamburg, has shown that, of the more than 90,000 UN peacekeepers active across the globe, only a little more than 200 come from Germany and only about 50 from the United States. "Why," Pradetto rightly asks, "aren't the United States and other Western countries much more heavily involved in UN peacekeeping and blue-helmet missions, which have proven to be considerably more successful at preventive conflict management than high-tech wars aimed at regime change?" In the end, he concludes: "The justified demands for Germany to be more willing to assume responsibility should not be understood as calls for more participation in wars, but rather for increased involvement primarily in peacekeeping measures."

At the end of the day, military means will never guarantee security and stability. Whoever aims to create stable political and social conditions that will last must foster economic prosperity as well as champion equal opportunity and fairness, which often also entails a certain degree of wealth redistribution.

The community of European states has come into being and grown as a prosperous economic space, as a civilian force for peace and as a large region in which individual freedom and human dignity are guaranteed. Herein lies its strength. Conversely, the weakness of societies constituted in an authoritarian and inequitable manner lies in the fact that, in the long run, they cannot keep their members content. More than a few popular uprisings have exposed those putting on authoritarian airs as mere bugaboos and caused major powers to collapse even though they were armed to the teeth.

Sigmar Gabriel is chairman of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) of Germany as well as the country's vice chancellor and minister of economic affairs and energy, which puts him in charge of arms exports.

The German version of the article has the expected outcry from the readership about the discrepancy between "Western values" and Western actions, and the reality of the corrupt West when it comes to corporate big dogs, all encompassing spying, power politics at the expense of the downtrodden in weak countries etc.

[Viking]

The right to prosperity is ultimately what communism seeks to grant. The right to security is ultimately what fascism seeks to grant.

Liberal western values only seek to give the right to freedom. 

[Admiral Yi]

I thought the Social Democrats had gone centrist.  This guy sounds like a fruitcake.