Never before Germany faced such severe criticism through NATO as during the Iraq War. The Irak War displayed all problems a modern society is faced with if it takes regulative action in a region with a different mentality. It makes us think about the prospects of such interventions and renders us sensitive for the victims on either side. Günter Joetze shows how this war through its unimaginable costs contributed to the global financial crisis, weakened the West, and in doing so caused a shift in the international balance of power.
Since 2002 Günter Joetze collected material in connection with this question and talked to contemporary witnesses. He spent 18 years of his working life in bilateral negotiations and his last duty was that of the president of the ‘Bundesakademie für Sicherheitspolitik’ (Federal College for Security Studies). After that he held a teaching assignment at the Freie Universität Berlin.
“Der Irak als deutsches Problem” (Iraq as a German problem) is a special edition of the HSFK-Studien published by the Nomos publishing house and was presented in Berlin on April 22, 2010 by PRIF and by DGAP (the German society for Foreign Policy).