Germany and Ukraine, with Benedikt Franke

Tue 30 May 2023

Jesus College

The Federal Republic of Germany's position in the world has been increasingly fraught for some time. Her allies are either domestically embattled, like France, or striking out in different directions, such as 'Global Britain' and the Asia-focused United States, even 'Post-Trump'. Then there is tension with the PRC, whose growing economic and military clout is causing increasing alarm in Berlin. Now, the FRG is under attack over its Ukraine policy, which has shone a merciless light on decades of German 'engagement' policies towards Russia, and exposed the tension between her energy security and her commitment to the rules-based international order. But the war in Ukraine is not only a crisis for German foreign policy, but also for her domestic politics, given the role of past and present public figures, as well as institutions and corporations, in building a close relationship with Russia. As the world awaits the imminent first German National Security Strategy document, the CFG offers a distinguished lecturer and two expert panellists to discuss the issues it will address.

Lecture: Benedikt Franke is Vice-Chairman and CEO with the Munich Security Conference (MSC). He previously served as Senior Advisor for Strategic Affairs at the CSU and previous to that he was the Special Assistant for former Secretary-General of the United Nations and Nobel Laureate Kofi Annan. Benedikt holds a PhD from the University of Cambridge (he is an alum of St. John’s College) and publishes regularly on foreign and security policy.

Respondents:

James Rogers is Co-founder and Director of Research at the Council on Geostrategy, where he specialises in geopolitics and British strategic policy. He holds an MPhil in Contemporary European Studies from the University of Cambridge and an award-winning BSc Econ (Hons) in International Politics and Strategic Studies from the University of Wales, Aberystwyth

Evie Aspinall is the Director of the British Foreign Policy Group and an alumna of Cambridge.

Chair: Brendan Simms is Professor of the History of European International Relations at POLIS and Director of the Centre for Geopolitics

This event is co-hosted with the DAAD-University of Cambridge Research Hub for German Studies, which was created in 2016 and provides opportunities to strengthen and expand endeavours in German studies and to intensify interaction with German scholars as well as German public and private institutions.