Jeffrey Sachs is a professor at Columbia University and a special adviser to United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres. He is the author of numerous essays primarily devoted to economics.
Mr. Federal Chancellor Merz,
You have repeatedly spoken of Germany’s responsibility for European security. That responsibility cannot be fulfilled through slogans, selective memory, or the normalization of war rhetoric. Security guarantees are not one-way streets. They operate in both directions. This is neither a Russian nor an American argument; it is a fundamental principle of European security, explicitly enshrined in the Helsinki Final Act, the OSCE framework, and decades of postwar diplomacy.
Germany is obliged to meet this moment with historical seriousness and honesty. In this respect, your recent rhetoric falls dangerously short of what is required.
Since 1990, Russia’s core security concerns have repeatedly been ignored, diluted, or directly violated—often with Germany’s active participation or acquiescence. This history must not be erased if the war in Ukraine is to be ended, and it must not be ignored if Europe wishes to avoid a permanent state of confrontation.
At the end of the Cold War, Germany repeatedly and unequivocally assured the Soviet leadership, and later the Russian leadership, that NATO would not expand eastward. These assurances were given in the context of German reunification. Germany benefited enormously from them. The rapid reunification of Germany—within NATO—would not have been possible without Soviet consent based on these commitments. To later pretend that these assurances were meaningless or merely casual remarks is not realistic; it is historical revisionism.
In 1999, Germany took part in NATO’s bombing of Serbia, the first major war waged by NATO without a mandate from the UN Security Council. This was not a defensive action, but a landmark intervention that fundamentally altered the post–Cold War security order. For Russia, Serbia was not an abstract matter. The message was unmistakable: NATO would use force beyond its territory, without UN authorization and without regard for Russian objections.
In 2002, the United States unilaterally withdrew from the ABM Treaty, a cornerstone of strategic stability for more than three decades. Germany raised no serious objections. Yet the erosion of the arms control architecture did not occur in a vacuum. Missile defense systems deployed ever closer to Russia’s borders were rightly perceived by Russia as destabilizing. Dismissing these perceptions as paranoia was political propaganda, not wise diplomacy.
In 2008, Germany recognized Kosovo’s independence despite explicit warnings that doing so would undermine the principle of territorial integrity and create a precedent with far-reaching consequences. Once again, Russia’s objections were dismissed as malicious, and the underlying concerns were not taken seriously.
The persistent push for NATO expansion to include Ukraine and Georgia—formally declared at the Bucharest summit in 2008—crossed the clearest red lines, despite years of loud, clear, consistent, and repeated objections from Moscow. When a great power identifies a core security interest and reiterates it over decades, ignoring it is not diplomacy but deliberate escalation.
Germany’s role in Ukraine since 2014 is particularly troubling. Together with Paris and Warsaw, Berlin brokered the 21 February 2014 agreement between President Yanukovych and the opposition—an agreement intended to end violence and preserve the constitutional order. Within hours, the agreement collapsed. A violent overthrow followed. A new government emerged through unconstitutional means. Germany immediately recognized and supported the new regime. The agreement guaranteed by Germany was abandoned without consequence.
The Minsk II agreement of 2015 was intended as a corrective—a negotiated framework to end the war in eastern Ukraine. Germany again acted as a guarantor. Yet for seven years, Minsk II was not implemented by Ukraine. Kyiv openly rejected its political provisions. Germany did not enforce them. Former German and other European leaders have since acknowledged that Minsk II was treated less as a peace plan than as a defensive measure. This admission alone demands a serious reckoning.
Against this backdrop, calls for ever more weapons, ever sharper rhetoric, and ever greater “resolve” ring hollow. You are asking Europe to forget the recent past in order to justify a future of permanent confrontation.
Enough propaganda! Enough moral infantilization of the public! Europeans are entirely capable of understanding that security dilemmas are real, that NATO actions have consequences, and that peace is not achieved by pretending that Russia’s security concerns do not exist.
European security is indivisible. This principle means that no country can strengthen its security at the expense of another without provoking instability. It also means that diplomacy is not appeasement, and historical honesty is not betrayal.
Germany once understood this. Ostpolitik was not weakness, but strategic maturity. It recognized that Europe’s stability depends on dialogue, arms control, economic relations, and respect for Russia’s legitimate security interests.
Germany needs this maturity again today. It must stop speaking as though war were inevitable or even virtuous. Strategic thinking must no longer be reduced to alliance slogans. It must finally commit to genuine diplomacy—not as a public relations exercise, but as a serious effort to rebuild a European security architecture that includes Russia rather than excludes it.
A renewed European security architecture must begin with clarity and restraint. First, it requires an unequivocal end to NATO’s eastward expansion—to Ukraine, Georgia, and any other state along Russia’s borders.
NATO expansion was not an inevitable consequence of the postwar order; it was a political choice, pursued in violation of solemn assurances given in 1990 and despite repeated warnings that it would destabilize Europe.
Security in Ukraine will not be achieved through the deployment of German, French, or other European troops, which would only deepen divisions and prolong the war. Stability is achieved through neutrality, supported by credible international guarantees. History is clear: neither the Soviet Union nor the Russian Federation violated the sovereignty of neutral states in the postwar order—neither Finland, Austria, Sweden, Switzerland, nor others. Neutrality worked because it took into account the legitimate security concerns of all sides. There is no compelling reason to assume it cannot work again.
Stability requires demilitarization and reciprocity. Russian forces must be kept away from NATO borders, and NATO forces—including missile systems—must be kept away from Russian borders. Security is indivisible, not one-sided. Border regions should be demilitarized through verifiable agreements, not overloaded with ever more weapons.
Sanctions should be lifted as part of a negotiated settlement; they have brought no peace and have caused severe damage to the European economy.
Germany in particular should oppose the reckless seizure of Russian state assets—an egregious violation of international law that undermines trust in the global financial system. Reviving German industry through lawful, contract-based trade with Russia is not capitulation, but economic realism. Europe should not destroy its own productive base in the name of moral rhetoric.
Finally, Europe must return to the institutional foundations of its own security. The OSCE—not NATO—should once again serve as the central forum for European security, confidence-building, and arms control. Strategic autonomy for Europe means precisely this: a European security order shaped by European interests, not by permanent subordination to NATO’s expansionist logic.
France could extend its nuclear deterrent as a European security umbrella, but only in a purely defensive posture, without forward-deployed systems that threaten Russia.
Europe should urgently press for a return to the INF framework and for comprehensive strategic negotiations on nuclear arms control involving the United States and Russia—and later also China. The analogy between Kosovo and Ukraine must likewise be acknowledged honestly: borders in Europe have already been changed with Western support. Borders are changed. The pursuit of peace must be inviolable.
And most importantly: learn history, Mr. Federal Chancellor—and be honest about it. Without honesty, there can be no trust. Without trust, there can be no security. And without diplomacy, Europe risks repeating the catastrophes from which it claims to have learned.
History will judge what Germany remembers—and what it forgets. Let Germany choose diplomacy and peace this time, and stand by its word.
Please accept, Mr. Federal Chancellor, the assurance of my highest consideration.
Jeffrey D. Sachs
University Professor
Columbia University
This open letter was first published in German on 17 December 2025 in the Berliner Zeitung.. We reproduce it here in our own translation, with the author’s permission.
