Zeitenwende : Germany’s Iran Policy after the Ukraine Crisis

The war in Ukraine has profoundly transformed Germany’s foreign policy and the broader European security landscape. Many scholars view Russia’s invasion as a historic turning point — Zeitenwende — in German strategic thinking. This study investigates the core pillars and strategic orientations of Germany’s policy toward Iran in the aftermath of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022. It analyzes the principal drivers behind Berlin’s approach and the deeper logic shaping its decisions. Anchored in the framework of defensive realism, the research argues that Germany’s policy toward Iran is influenced by an interplay of micro- and macro-level factors, including the Russia–Ukraine war, the Gaza conflict, domestic unrest within Iran, and Berlin’s perception of Iran as a destabilizing force in regional and global security. While maintaining its traditional commitment to multilateralism, the Scholz administration adopted a more confrontational and balancing posture toward Tehran, reflecting an intensified perception of threat in the post-Ukraine war environment. This shift has continued under Chancellor Friedrich Merz, whose hawkish stance — endorsing Israeli strikes on Iran’s nuclear sites and vowing Tehran “may not possess nuclear weapons” — intensifies the confrontational posture of his predecessor. By integrating defensive realism with threat perception theory, this study offers a comprehensive framework for understanding the evolution of German policy. Employing an analytical–explanatory methodology rooted in the German academic tradition, it draws on extensive library research and a wide range of scholarly and media sources. The study makes a novel contribution by linking defensive realism to Germany’s post-Ukraine war policy toward Iran — an area that has received remarkably little scholarly attention to date.