Until the early 1990s, in reunified Germany, the prevailing view was that deploying the Bundeswehr abroad could not be justified for political and, above all, historical reasons. It was only the ruling of the Federal Constitutional Court on July 12, 1994, that made it possible for German armed forces to be deployed abroad under a NATO or UN mandate, but only with the approval of the German Bundestag. Since then, the Bundeswehr has been deployed abroad on several occasions, including in Afghanistan from 2002 to 2021, in Iraq from 2014 to 2017, and currently in Mali. However, its operational deployment has been and continues to be characterized primarily by military restraint and a focus on maintaining order and providing civilian reconstruction assistance. Compared to its military deployment, reunified Germany has shown much greater intensity in the field of European policy, particularly with the aim of furthering the integration of the EC/ EU member states. This policy has been limited by four major international crises (the global financial and economic crisis of 2008–2011; the euro crisis from 2012–2015; the refugee crisis since 2015/16; and the COVID-19 pandemic since February 2020), slowing down the further integration of EU states. During these years, Germany has only partially succeeded in transferring its leadership role in the EU into greater capacity for action, as the Federal Republic’s multilateral approach is not always supported by its European partners.
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