GERMANY NEUTRAL FROM WHAT? : That ‘Special Path’ Leads Nowhere : The success of a unified nation will not be in swaying between two worlds but in standing with its neighbors.

Despite the public posturing, the bottom line is that no one really wants a neutral Germany--not the Russians, not the Germans, not Germany’s European neighbors, not the United States.

The Soviet position calling for neutrality has been hammered out in heated debate between the entrenched conservative bureaucracy in Moscow, which has ruled German policy for decades, and a looser grouping of advisers to Mikhail Gorbachev, many with extensive German backgrounds. Faced with the breathtaking pace of German unity, however, the second group is now gaining the upper hand. They would prefer that the United States remain in Europe as an element of stability, and they would like to see a Germany bound to Western structures rather than an independent Germany obliged to none, provided that Germany pledges to reduce its military forces to a low level and not produce atomic, chemical and biological weapons.

The Germans also reject neutrality. The hype that continues to surround the issue stands in stark contrast to West German government statements and public opinion polls that clearly oppose neutrality. Chancellor Helmut Kohl has repeatedly reaffirmed West German opposition to any “special German path.” Kohl and Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher understand very clearly the core element of Germany’s success in the past and for the future--a process of change toward a more open, prosperous and free Europe in which the nation in the center, Germany, is bound tightly to its neighbors in a dense network of economic, political, social and military linkages. The chancellor has stated over and over again that the history of the 20th Century “shows that nothing is more detrimental to the stability of Europe than a Germany swaying between two worlds, between West and East.”

Kohl is right. The basic fact remains that due to history and geography, Germany’s world will always be complicated by the necessity of balancing seemingly conflicting interests and by the possibility of rekindling resentment and fear. West Germany’s success has been due in large measure to its efforts to stand together with its neighbors rather than stand apart.

To be neutral is to be aloof. A true neutral must prove constantly that it is dependent on no one else and subject to no one else’s rule or laws. The emergence of a boldly independent Germany, obliged to none, would be a dangerous and de-stabilizing development. Such a Germany could switch coalitions and alliances, shifting the balance of power with each turn. Such a Germany would be a source of anxiety and a target of manipulation. Such a Germany would be incalculable--the very opposite of the rather predictable West Germany that has been both product and pillar of the Western Alliance. Such a new Germany would become the arbiter of Europe.

During the Cold War, neutrality was a symbol for various, often conflicting, desires. In East Germany the vision of neutrality, which was linked to the vision of a “third way” between Stalinist socialism and raw capitalism, gained a certain appeal as an expression of emancipation from the Soviet Union. In both East and West Germany, the term also reflected an exhaustion with being the militarized front line in the Cold War. For the peace movements in both Germanys, neutrality was the buzz word for a new German mission to heal Europe’s divisions.

Now that the East Germans have emancipated themselves and Europe’s divisions are being overcome and the frozen military blocs are melting, the idea of neutrality itself, defined only in terms of membership in such blocs, is already out of date. Neutral from whom? Or, more importantly, neutral from what--from what values? The values of democracy, freedom and the rule of law have not only swept through all of Germany, they are sweeping through Eastern Europe to the Soviet Union.

The end of the blocs has already dissipated the traditional notion of neutrality itself. All of the current European neutrals--Austria, Switzerland, Finland, Sweden and Ireland--have lost part of their modern identity and are now scrambling for new roles. They are all discovering the prohibitive cost of insisting on complete independence in an interdependent world.

By focusing on terms defined by the 40 years of the Cold War, we ignore the more significant challenges before us. We are not facing German or Soviet pressure for a neutral Germany swaying between two well-defined blocs. Our challenge, for which we do not yet seem prepared, is quite another--to move beyond the current European security order to a durable, self-regulating, democratically legitimized system of pan-European security in which the notions of neutrality and blocs become irrelevant.