What on Earth Was in Those Cookies? – When the SPD Suddenly Wants to Hug Russia

It starts like a scene from a poorly acted political play. Four elderly gentlemen, all holding party membership cards, pens, and peace-loving pathos, write a manifesto. Not just any manifesto – but a document that threatens to catapult Germany’s security policy straight back to the 1980s. Rolf Mützenich, Ralf Stegner, Norbert Walter-Borjans, and Hans Eichel, flanked by over 100 SPD-affiliated co-signers, are calling for nothing less than a foreign policy reversal - out of the “alarmist rhetoric,” an end to military build-up - and talks with Russia. Yes, the same Russia that has been waging a war of extermination against Ukraine for three years. Yes, the same Russia that is committing war crimes in the heart of Europe. And yes, that same Russia whose president pursues an imperialist worldview that cannot be reasoned away with polite appeals or tea with Olaf Scholz.

One can’t help but wonder: what exactly was in the cookies passed around during that meeting?

Because the document, however diplomatically it tries to present itself, is an exercise in delusion. At its core lies the claim that military rearmament is a security threat - not to Russia, but to NATO. The deployment of new US intermediate-range missiles would turn Germany into a target. The planned defense spending - irrational. The strategy - dangerous. The threat level? Apparently negligible, at least in the eyes of the manifesto’s authors. That Putin proves the opposite daily seems irrelevant. That this war was not started through diplomacy but with tanks and bombs - equally so. The peace rhetoric evaporates where reality begins: at the front line. Ralf Stegner calls the manifesto a “contribution to the debate.” A nice euphemism for what in truth amounts to an attempt to undermine the government’s foreign policy stance. Stegner doesn’t want to leave peace policy to military experts - but apparently to politicians who believe aggressors can be brought to reason by holding the door open for them. It is a well-meaning naivety that becomes dangerous the moment it turns into a principle of action. And when Mützenich, Walter-Borjans, and Eichel join in, it hurts - not only in terms of security policy but also because it torpedoes the credibility of that very SPD which, under Scholz, actually claims to act responsibly.

Naturally, the backlash was swift. SPD parliamentary spokesman Sebastian Fiedler called the manifesto “disturbing” and “infuriating.” Green defense politician Agnieszka Brugger said out loud what many are thinking: that this course won’t bring Putin to peace - it will only reward his ruthlessness. While the Kremlin defines new targets, part of the SPD wants to reopen channels of dialogue - as if there were no diplomatic wreckage already left behind by Moscow. So what to do with this paper? Categorize it, expose it, push back against it. Because the manifesto is not just a contribution to discourse - it is a symptom. A symptom of that social democratic longing for the world to go back to the way it used to be: with dialogue, mutual respect, and Gorbachev. But that world no longer exists. And those who try to conjure it back by appealing to the conscience of an autocrat not only ignore the state of the world - they endanger its order.

The question isn’t whether one wants peace. The question is whether one is willing to defend it against those who destroy it. And if even the SPD begins to waver on that point, then other parties must show resolve. Because otherwise, all that will remain of the much-heralded turning point is a pacifistically disguised regression. And perhaps a few cookies, whose ingredients should probably be reexamined.