An Oxymoron of German Political Stupidity
There was a time when German government was associated with tedious competence. Bridges were repaired before they collapsed, power secured before industry required subsidies, armies kept capable before emergency billions became necessary, and the distinction between something and nothing rarely required ministerial intervention.
This was never a golden age. Even remarkable men like Brandt, Schmidt and Weizsäcker made mistakes, Kohl had his shadows, and Schröder hardly smelled exclusively of roses. Yet they belonged to a political culture in which reality retained the discourteous privilege of contradicting government. Facts were not necessarily welcome, but political authority included the unpleasant duty of recognising them.
During the long prosperity that followed, China bought German production, Russian energy arrived advantageously, globalization favored exports and the United States carried much of Europe’s military burden. Prosperity acquired the appearance of a natural condition. Germany had achieved what generations of physicists had inexplicably failed to provide: political perpetuum mobile.
There remained the customary difficulty with perpetuum mobiles. They work splendidly until one asks where the energy comes from. Germany owned factories, capital and knowledge; it did not own Russian energy, Chinese demand, American protection or a permanently accommodating world economy. Circumstances possess the vulgar habit of changing without consulting governments accustomed to them. Then they changed.
The energy relationship ruptured, China became a formidable competitor, infrastructure displayed neglect and the Bundeswehr revealed an unfortunate discrepancy between importance and capability. German politicians rediscovered an instrument whose abundance had helped postpone these discoveries: money.
Money that restores what deteriorated is investment. Money that permits policy to continue as though nothing deteriorated turns wealth into an anaesthetic. A hundred billion euros for defense is immediately a hundred billion euros; military capability takes years to establish. Reality has shown a regrettable reluctance to accept government press releases as a construction material.
Germany’s net external asset position reached roughly €3.9 trillion in early 2026. That accumulated strength buys a long interval between making a mistake and being forced to admit it. Used responsibly, that interval is resilience. Used to protect failed assumptions from correction, it finances stupidity.
Nord Stream provides the indecently physical example. Pipelines connecting German industry with enormous Russian gas reserves preserved an option without obliging Germany to use it. In September 2022, three of four strings were destroyed. German prosecutors now allege Ukrainian state involvement; Ukraine denies state responsibility, and final criminal responsibility remains to be established.
Whether the eventual perpetrator proves enemy, friend, ally or proxy changes the diplomatic problem, not the responsibility of German government. Strategic infrastructure was attacked. The obligation is to establish what happened, determine responsibility, understand what Germany lost and decide what follows. One might have imagined this obvious. Modern politics has made imagination necessary.
America pursues American interests, Russia Russian interests, China Chinese interests, Poland Polish interests and Ukraine Ukrainian interests. They are entitled to do so. The responsibility for German interests belongs, with almost comic obviousness, to those elected to govern Germany. That elementary proposition has somehow acquired the smell of political indecency. Questions about climate, migration and security are answered with urgency, morality and the virtue of supporting allies. Worthy objectives, but they are not answers.
Compassion does not abolish arithmetic. Solidarity does not abolish consequences. Values do not abolish interests. A policy does not become intelligent because its intention is honorable. Even the noblest destination remains difficult to reach by driving magnificently in the wrong direction. A country may accept considerable costs for security, humanitarian responsibility, energy transformation or allies. Leadership consists in knowing what is being sacrificed, why, for how long and toward what achievable result. Otherwise virtue becomes the most elegant hiding place incompetence has ever discovered.
The peculiar luxury of contemporary German politics is that expenditure can be demonstrated before achievement exists. Ministers announce billions immediately; results arrive later, if at all. This is government by self-certification, an arrangement of considerable convenience to the certifier. Reality remains awkwardly outside the arrangement. A bridge carries the load or it does not. An army can defend or it cannot. Reality, unlike a coalition agreement, has no compromise committee.
Germany’s wealth was accumulated because generations of workers, engineers, entrepreneurs and savers respected precisely these distinctions. A machine worked or failed. There was no parliamentary majority by which a defective gearbox could be persuaded to reconsider. That wealth now allows politicians to subsidize lost advantage, compensate increased costs, borrow for neglect—and present expenditure as evidence of achievement.
Thus yesterday’s competence finances today’s avoidance of correction. For a while, this can look remarkably like competence. Then comes the invoice. Germany possesses enough accumulated strength to correct extraordinary mistakes. Consuming that strength to protect political assumptions from reality is indefensible. Germany requires responsible government: one that looks before it lectures, calculates before it promises, preserves options, measures achievement rather than expenditure—and, when reality proves policy wrong, commits the almost revolutionary act of correcting it.
It is the minimum standard by which every engineer, entrepreneur, pilot, surgeon and responsible adult is already judged. Politics has merely enjoyed an exemption. That exemption has become unaffordable. Germany can replace bridges and rebuild capability. What it cannot indefinitely replace is national strength consumed while politicians explain why each new loss was another expression of progress. Good intentions deserve respect, not immunity from consequences.
It is time to replace these oxymorons that try to impose taxes on non-existent assets with people of responsible intelligence.
harri Ihring, Geneva 28 August 2026
