Revising Ostpolitik Implications of the Zeitenwende for European and Transatlantic Relations

The Russian invasion of Ukraine marks a turning point in European security policy. Defense concepts have been altered within Europe as well as in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and Russia is no longer seen as a European partner, but a threat to security and stability in Europe. The article argues that the term Zeitenwende coined by the German chancellor is not a rhetorical figure; rather, it is reshaping Germany's approach to the East and upended German and European Ostpolitik. In fact, the new foreign policy direction sheds illusions of both the classic Ostpolitik of the Cold War and the new Ostpolitik of post-unification Germany by introducing a fundamentally different approach to Eastern and Central Eastern Europe and within NATO. The article explores the critical juncture created by the Zeitenwende of 2022 and its implications for European security policy.