Alexander Rahr: Russia is a part of Europe

Here you will find an interview with Alexander Rahr, a well-known political scientist, the son of Russian emigrant, who has been living in Germany. In 2000 he published a book "The German in the Kremlin" about Vladimir Putin. Today he answers several questions about his vision of Russia and Russia's role in the modern Europe.
http://www.eastwest-review.com/article/interview-famous-political-scientist-director-programs-russia-and-cis-german-society-foreign

Rood quarrel

April of 2010 has been marked as an important milestone of German politics: for the first time a female German citizen of Turkish origin took the position of a minister. Although that was not a federal appointment – 38-year old Aygul Ozkan took the position of the minister for social issues and integration problems of Lower Saxony – the event immediately drew attention of German society. One of the reasons of such attention is a not very long but quite symptomatic political scandal Aygul Ozkan got involved into right after the appointment: she made a statement in which she demanded to remove roods from school classrooms. Both this appointment and the following scandal demonstrate quite peculiar tendencies of modern German politics, which are truly worth discussing.
Could this appointment be considered a similar milestone as Barack Obama's election to a sacred study in Capitolium? I doubt so: both German politicians and Mrs. Ozkan herself admit that her appointment should attract Turks' votes in coming Landtag elections.
http://www.eastwest-review.com/article/rood-quarrel

Merkel and Westerwelle: 100 days together

In the beginning of February there was 100-day anniversary of a new “black-and-yellow” German government. There is a tradition in Germany, as well as in many other European countries, to strike the first balance after one hundred days. For Merkel-Westerwelle tandem this balance turned out to be more than controversial…
Making summary of ruling coalition’s activity, we may positively say that it failed to achieve any substantially good results. Its popularity falls: according to surveys, currently “the black-and-yellow” could get far less than a half of votes. Is it a good chance for opposition?
Representatives of social democrats – the largest oppositional party – are quite optimistic. “We shall force the government to play our rules” – stated Hans-Peter Bartels, member of Bundestag. As an example he mentioned Merkel’s decision to buy from a private individual the data about FRG citizens who use “grey schemes” to avoid taxes using Swiss banks, actively supported by his party. However, this optimism is not capable of compensating the fact that Social Democratic Party of Germany suffered a total defeat during the autumn elections. Social democrats have actually only one chance to come to power in the nearest future – to make alliance with the two other oppositional parties represented in the parliament.
http://www.eastwest-review.com/article/merkel-and-westerwelle-100-days-together

“Afghan syndrome” of Bundeswehr

September 11, 2001 was a turning point in many senses. New-York events influenced German society in a serious way, and on the wave of sympathizing with victims of terrorists German authorities managed to send Bundeswehr troops to Afghanistan. Federative Republic from the very beginning supported the USA in carrying out “Enduring Freedom” operation which started on October 7, 2001. This mission had its own particularities: in the every beginning German troops acted not on the base of UN or NATO mandate but on the base of bilateral agreement with the USA. Later they entered international ISAF contingent, the task of which was to stabilize the situation in the country and support newly created government.
Germans were given a separate region in relatively quiet north of the country. So Bundeswehr losses appeared to be not very large: today they amount to 33 soldiers and 3 policemen (comparing with 751 men lost by the USA and 188 – by Great Britain). German government worried that more serious losses might cause indignation in German society and kept German soldiers as farther from flashpoints as possible. However, it turned out that German citizens counted not only losses of German army.
On September 4, 2009 on of Bundeswehr officers requested an aircraft attack on the city of Kunduz. It is still unclear, what was the goal of this bombing: first were mentioned two petrol tank trucks hijacked by Taliban, then was mentioned a ban of armed terrorists… More or less clear is number of killed Afghans: about 150, including at least 50 non-combatants.
But this fact was not well-known from the very beginning. On elections’ eve Defense Ministry – and probably some other bodies – preferred to conceal awkward information. Society was deliberately misinformed. And when in the end of autumn the truth began to gradually become clear, a real storm arose...
http://www.eastwest-review.com/article/ldquoafghan-syndromerdquo-bundeswehr

Helmut Kohl: unifier of Europe or the «Balkan butcher»?

Here is how Helmut Kohl is regarded by Russia intellectual elite:
"Kohl will be remembered in the history books as the German politician who scored the greatest success in the 20th century. He has been at power for 16 years. It was more than Adolf Hitler or Konrad Adenauer. Since 1871, when the united Germany appeared at the European map, there was only one man who ruled longer than Kohl — it was the “Iron Chancellor” Otto von Bismarck. Actually speaking, it is him who Helmut has been compared with — as long as both of them have unified the country. We may, of course, also recall the long-lasting leader of the GDR Erich Honecker, but — unlike Kohl and Bismarck — he had lost his country."
http://www.eastwest-review.com/article/helmut-kohl-unifier-europe-or-laquobalkan-butcherraquo-part-1