comment by
Bastian Brinkman
Carl von Clausewitz uses a metaphor from economics when it comes to the decision to go into battle. Actually taking up arms is like paying cash, the Prussian military theorist wrote in “Vom Kriege”. A battle is not a forward transaction, but shifts power directly. Russia’s attack on the Ukraine now makes it necessary to think this Clausewitz comparison the other way around: the payments made by German foreign trade are also a means of the war or against it, so they directly affect the security policy of the Federal Republic.