Newsletter 2013/12/06 – Expansive Ambitions
KIEV/BERLIN (Own report) – An influential publicist and former Head of
the German Defense Ministry’s Planning Staff is criticizing the
“expansive ambitions” of Germany’s current policies toward the
Ukraine. The power struggle over Kiev, bombastically presented to the
western public as a struggle “for self-determination,” is “in reality”
nothing more than a “big geopolitical game,” writes Theo Sommer,
longtime “Editor at Large” of the German weekly “Die Zeit.” The EU
Association Agreements – one of which is supposed to be signed by the
Ukraine – are “reeking of expansive ambitions.” Sommer’s reference to
“geopolitics” brings to mind Germany’s more than a century old power
struggle over the Ukraine – a country “interposed” between the two
poles of power, Berlin and Moscow – in the course of Berlin’s ongoing
eastward expansion. The German Reich succeeded for only a short time
in incorporating the Ukraine into its hegemonic sphere – during the
spring and summer of 1918. Following Germany’s defeat in WW I, German
strategists continued to pursue their efforts and the objective is
being sought by the Federal Republic of Germany still today.
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