ABSTRACT
Since 1990, the united Federal Republic of Germany has been grappling with the task of defining the country’s new role in the world: is it still a giant in economic terms (the world’s number three as per gross domestic product), but a dwarf in the political arena?1 What should Germany’s currently carefully limited contributions to international military interventions (in Afghanistan and elsewhere) look like in the future? What will become of the country’s recently failed aspirations towards a permanent seat on the UN Security Council? Will a united Europe be dominated by Germany, the European Union’s most populous member state (82 million inhabitants), economic powerhouse, and cultural bridge between western and eastern Europe? And what is, or should be, Germany’s modern identity, her image, and her message to the world?
