Instead, the German Federal Republic gained opportunities to act and power to create out of the bipolar conflict. Neither during its birth nor afterward did the German Federal Republic relinquish power or national interests. Early and subsequent governments were wise enough to make up for any gain in power through a transfer of sovereignty. Moreover, Germany renounced Eastern revision and nuclear weapons. However, the same historical crisis that gave German unity a chance also destroyed the very system of power that, since 1945, had put European history on hold.
Nothing is as it was.
NATO will have to help shape the world order, or NATO will become hollow and marginal. The European Union must enter the political-strategic arena or it will be reduced to a free trade zone de luxe. Until 1990, because of the partition of Berlin and the central front , Germany was an even bigger consumer of security than all other West European countries. If one of these democracies stands apart, it inevitably harms the others as well, and, in the end, itself. . . . Thus a virtue could be made of necessity.