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The world is facing a Zeitenwende: an epochal tectonic shift. Russias war of aggression against Ukraine has put an end to an era. New powers have emerged or reemerged, including an economically strong and politically assertive China. In this new multipolar world, different countries and models of government are competing for power and influence.
For its part, Germany is doing everything it can to defend and foster an international order based on the principles of the un Charter. Its democracy, security, and prosperity depend on binding power to common rules. That is why Germans are intent on becoming the guarantor of European security that our allies expect us to be, a bridge builder within the European Union and an advocate for multilateral solutions to global problems. This is the only way for Germany to successfully navigate the geopolitical rifts of our time.
The Zeitenwende goes beyond the war in Ukraine and beyond the issue of European security. The central question is this: How can we, as Europeans and as the European Union, remain independent actors in an increasingly multipolar world?
Germany and Europe can help defend the rules-based international order without succumbing to the fatalistic view that the world is doomed to once again separate into competing blocs. My country's history gives it a special responsibility to fight the forces of fascism, authoritarianism, and imperialism. At the same time, our experience of being split in half during an ideological and geopolitical contest gives us a particular appreciation of the risks of a new cold war.
END OF AN ERA
For most of the world, the three decades since the Iron Curtain fell have been a period of relative peace and prosperity. Technological advances have created an unprecedented level of connectivity and cooperation. Growing international trade, globe-spanning value and production chains, and unparalleled exchanges of people and knowledge across borders have brought over a billion people out of poverty. Most important, courageous citizens all over the world have swept away dictatorships and one-party rule. Their yearning for liberty, dignity, and democracy changed the course of history. Two devastating world wars and a great deal of suffering-much of it caused by my country-were followed by more than four decades of tension and confrontation in the shadow of...