Germany After the Zeitenwende : Strategic Temporising as a Foreign Policy Implementation Failure

After the Zeitenwende, Germany exhibits a persistent gap between foreign policy change and strategic output. Despite an advanced industrial base, institutional centrality in Europe, and repeated rhetorical declarations of systemic rupture, Berlin has struggled to translate geopolitical shocks into sustained military investment, economic de-risking, or clear geopolitical alignment. This article asks why, despite the announcement of a foreign policy change in February 2022, the necessary change in orientation became delayed, partial, inconsistent, and institutionally substituted during implementation. The study theorises strategic temporising as a distinct foreign policy failure mode at the implementation stage under conditions of systemic pressure. Using analyticist process-tracing across two empirical cases of Germany’s strategic temporising vis-à-vis Russia and China, the article probes whether patterns of delayed tempo, partial substance, policy inconsistency, and institutional substitution are consistent with Germany’s ontological insecurity and domestic role contestation. The findings show that incremental adjustments and rhetorical rupture coexist with persistent implementation shortfalls, fiscal and procurement issues, coalition disagreements, and continued economic exposure. The article contributes to the policy failure literature by specifying a temporal failure mode where declared foreign policy change is enacted too slowly, partially, inconsistently, or procedurally so that it fails to achieve maximum strategic value.