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For Germany's foreign policy conservatives and conservative intellectuals the past weeks have been yet another step toward general disillusion with and disbelief at the actions of its centre-right government. For years now Germany has lobbied hard to secure a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council and now that it has barely won a non-permanent for a two-year term, it struggles to manage its newly acquired political capital. The resolution to establish a no-fly zone over Libya presented the first serious challenge to the United Nations Security Council this year. And while all of Germany's major allies voted in its favour, Berlin abstained and joined the BRIC countries – Brazil, Russia, India and China, or so Germany's foreign minister, Guido Westerwelle, claims. A group, one might note, that in the context of sovereignty and a dictator's right to slaughter what is sometimes so callously referred to as his own people, is best understood as the gang of the world's leading reactionary powers.

Once the Council passed resolution 1973 to empower the international community to provide for the safety of the Libyan populace with any means deemed necessary, the German chancellor Angela Merkel was quick to declare that the government supported the goals set in the resolution to a hundred percent. This is as close to insanity as one can possibly get in international relations, and German intellectuals rightly ask why on earth the government decided to abstain from a resolution that it now claims to wholeheartedly consent to? Germany's foreign minister, Guido Westerwelle, maintained that with its abstention Germany stood in line with such major powers as Russia, India and China. But it is here that Germany's position is turning into something completely bizarre. While Russia and China decided to stay neutral and did not use their veto power in the Security Council, Berlin frantically lobbied other powers to make sure that the resolution did not pass, at one point clearly hoping that a Russian or Chinese veto would stop the international community from imposing a no-fly zone. Though Germany fell short, it is quite a stretch for Westerwelle to argue that it stood in line with Russia and China. The uncomfortable truth is that Berlin did much more to antagonise its allies than Moscow and Beijing. And, in an effort to add the absurd to the bizarre, Germany's government last week began to explore the possibility of in fact joining a military relief mission that would focus on humanitarian assistance led by the European Union. That is if the United Nations Office of the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) approaches the European Union. This of course is nothing less than a welcome reversal of positions and a complete one at that but it also ridicules yet another claim of the German government, namely that it abstained because it was not willing to send soldiers to Libya.

Germany's abstention has been met with outrage among Germany's conservative intellectuals. Since its inception, Germany's conservative party – the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) – is split between those who favour a strong transatlantic alliance with the United States and those who believe that Paris is the more natural ally. The first group felt an enormous amount of unease in the run-up to the 2003 Iraq war, convinced that Germany should not quite so readily abandon its most important ally, while the second embraced Gerhard Schröder's strategy to form an alliance with France and Russia. But in contrast to 2003 there now is a clear mandate provided by the United Nations, wholehearted support from even some traditionally more reluctant allies such as France and even the Arab League – itself not exactly history's prime example for an effective and decisive regional body – has called for a no-fly zone. More than that, Germany is now governed by a conservative government, a government they expected to bring some stability to U.S.-German relations. Against this background, Germany's conservative intellectuals ask, how on earth the government managed to snub both traditional allies, the United States and France at the same time? And why are Russia and China now presented as some sort of natural allies without any debate whatsoever? To many not only in conservative circles, this certainly feels like political bankruptcy and they rightly point to a chancellor that is not leading and a foreign minister that is as inexperienced as he is reckless. Truth be told, most German conservatives have always regarded Guido Westerwelle as a misfit for Germany's foreign policy top job, someone who struggles with English and lacks the sort of gravitas all previous foreign ministers brought to the job. But there are two more serious problems. Not only did the foreign minister fail, there seemed to be a lack of leadership on top of the government. Angela Merkel apparently did not provide a compass for action. But more importantly perhaps, some high-ranking politicians of the CDU have indicated that they welcome the abstention, arguing that the liberal interpretation of sovereignty and the Responsibility to Protect have dangerously undermined international security. If that view would gain traction, Germany would be on a track to join the world's reactionary powers for good.

It is Westerwelle's explanation of Germany's position, however, that should have raised eyebrows. Apparently trying to limit the damage undoubtedly done, he argued that Germany's abstention was reached following what the foreign minister called “intensive, detailed and difficult consideration”. The government's position seems to be that not only did it screw up, it thought it through before wrecking long-standing principles. Moreover, one is led to wonder what sort of consideration that was exactly? Where on the one hand there is a dictator, who has ruled for over forty years, has sponsored international terrorism, attempted to develop nuclear weapons and is now using Syrian pilots and mercenaries from Niger, Mali and Chad to slaughter the Libyan people and who would have, in all likelihood had he not been stopped, turned Benghazi into a massacre against which Srebrenica must have been a lovely European picnic. And where on the other hand is the aspiration to democracy and freedom of a people oppressed for four decades. Whoever concludes from that sort of consideration that the right course of action is to fold his hands and do nothing and then goes ahead to lobby others to do absolutely nothing is not only politically bankrupt, he has a right to also claim moral bankruptcy. It is here where many German conservative intellectuals rightly think their government has ended up.

Dustin Dehez is a historian and author. He is also a member of the Young Foreign Policy Experts of the Konrad-Adenauer-Foundation.