Germany and Peaceful Change

Kurzfassung/Abstract

From the outset, (Western) Germany has pursued a multipronged foreign policy of peaceful change. This has encompassed peaceful foreign policy change based on processes of accommodation and reconciliation with other countries (e.g., France, Israel, and countries in the Eastern bloc), peaceful regional change through coleadership of the European integration process, and peaceful global change based on its engagement within the United Nations system. In several instances, this policy of peaceful change has gone beyond the mere conduct of interstate relations without resorting to violence toward a more fundamental transformation of state-to-state interaction in which nonviolent cooperation has become the norm and the recourse to war virtually unthinkable.