A diplomacy of dialogue — and its reckoning

1. Dialogue as a working method

Steinmeier consistently argued that talking to difficult governments is not a concession but a precondition for influence. This informed his approach to Russia, to Iran and to the Syrian war, where he helped bring Russia, Iran and the Gulf states to the same table in Vienna in 2015.

2. Responsibility without militarisation

In Munich in 2014 he called for Germany to engage "earlier, more decisively and more substantively", warning that "a culture of restraint for Germany must not become a culture of standing aloof". For Steinmeier, greater responsibility meant above all diplomatic, humanitarian and stabilisation instruments: crisis prevention, mediation and post-conflict support were expanded in the Foreign Office during his second term.

3. Multilateralism

The United Nations, the OSCE, the European Union and NATO are, in his speeches, not constraints on German interest but its expression. Germany's 2016 OSCE chairmanship under his leadership was presented as an attempt to preserve a shared security framework with Russia even after Crimea.

4. Interdependence — and its limits

The most contested element was the belief, rooted in the idea of "change through rapprochement", that economic interdependence would moderate Russian behaviour. In 2008 he championed a "partnership for modernisation" with Moscow; as President he defended energy links as one of the last bridges to Russia. After 24 February 2022 he publicly revised that view: "My adherence to Nord Stream 2 was clearly a mistake. We held on to bridges that Russia no longer believed in and that our partners warned us about."

Quotations: Federal Foreign Office (1 February 2014); statement of the Federal President, Berlin, 4 April 2022, as reported by international news agencies.