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For the last 20 years German Foreign Policy has been remarkably continuous. Despite widespread fears over the future course of the country after the end of the Cold War, a mix of strong normative as well as material interests has ensured that Germany continued to work towards further European integration and towards the further development of NATO and the UN. Simultaneously, the country from the mid-1990s onwards contributed increasingly more to international security by means of providing troops for UN, NATO and EU-military missions ("Normalization"). Thus, the decision to abstain from the vote on Security Council Resolution 1973 is a hugely worrying sign to say the least. It seriously calls into question some of the core tenets of German Foreign Policy in the post-Cold War era.

Firstly, it questions the assumption if Germany still wants to take on more responsibility in global affairs. The abstention is unique since it dramatically depletes German hopes of obtaining a permanent seat on the UN's Security Council. In the past German voting within the UN aimed at supporting this claim and the contribution to UN-missions even where German interests were not directly affected (UNIFIL, for example) underlined Germany's ambition. Not even a year ago Germany competed against EU and NATO-partners in a crucial vote to become yet again a non-permanent member of the Security Council. Against this background, the decision seems simply inexplicable; in particular since all German conditions for intervention (UN-mandate, Arab League-support and Arabic military contributions) were met.

Secondly, very much the same question can be raised about Germany's willingness to further foster the EU's international capacity. Only a few years ago, Germany certainly would have welcomed the opportunity to demonstrate the EU's willingness and capacity to intervene in its direct neighbourhood on behalf of the International Community and in the name of Human Rights. Since the US has been clear from the beginning that it did not want to assume leadership in the campaign, this would have been a unique opportunity to further develop the Union's Common Security and Defence Policy through concrete action. As for NATO, it is in my opinion too early to judge if there will be repercussions.

Thirdly, it questions the assumption that German Foreign Policy is guided and influenced by normative ideals. The Kosovo War provides a good contrasting point: Up until 1999 German discourse on Foreign Policy was dominated by the perception that Germany, due to its history had the responsibility to ensure that the use of force would never again become an acceptable means in the realm of International Politics ("Nie wieder Krieg", i.e. "No more wars"). After Europe's failure to intervene decisively in Bosnia-Herzegovina and in the face of a perceived threat of yet another genocide in the Balkans, this concept of responsibility was re-interpreted as a responsibility to ensure that ethnic hatred and genocide would never again be allowed ("Nie wieder Auschwitz", i.e. "Never again Auschwitz").

Yet, almost to the date 12 years later normative ideals seem to be completely absent from German Foreign Policy towards Libya. One has to remember, that in Kosovo Germany participated in a NATO-campaign that was not endorsed by a UN Resolution. In Libya we have a dictator who has used force against his own people and threatened civilians to take revenge. We have a broadly supported UN Resolution that aims to avoid just that, and yet Germany was neither prepared to support the resolution, nor to actively contribute to the campaign.

If the reason behind this really was the upcoming state elections in Germany and the worries about German public opinion, which overwhelmingly (62%) approved international intervention and even more overwhelmingly (65%) disapproved of German participation in it, then the German government has lost a lot of hard-earned political capital for a domestic gamble that did not pay off since the governing coalition lost both state elections.

20 years after the end of the Cold War the world is far from being a better and safer place. Germany as one of the leading economic and trading powers is hugely dependent on maintaining peace and stability on the globe. Sometimes this means that the country has to contribute to unpopular and risky missions. As a country we will be better off if we realised the challenges ahead of us and continued to co-operate with our partners in order to meet them. In the past German politicians have done well to conduct Foreign Policy without leering at opinion polls. Failure to do so in the years ahead might have far graver consequences than loosing a state election every once in a while.

Stephan Vormann is working on a PhD on German Foreign and Security Policy at the "Centre for the Study of Wider Europe" at NUI Maynooth.