Germany’s role and self-perception as a security provider in the Baltic Sea region

ENGermany has been in the limelight of international security issues since early 2014 when, at the Munich Security Conference, the so-called responsibility debate was initiated by the German president at the time, Joachim Gauck. His arguments, i.e. that Germany’s economic power had to be translated into international security engagement, militarily if necessary, were echoed by Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier and Defence Minister Ursula von der Leyen. Few expected that, shortly after Germany had laid out its self-professed role, the country would have to live up to the expectations it had incurred on itself when Russia illegally annexed the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea, in March 2014. Not only did the event bring home Moscow’s increasingly aggressive posture towards the West – it also put emphasis on a geographical area that seemed to have stabilised for the longest period since the end of the Cold War: the Baltic Sea Region (BSR).