At the current stage of development of the information society, the significant growth of the media environment’s influence in the global information space is leading to the mediatization of the political sphere and, as a result, is having a considerable impact on political processes, including decision-making, within short timeframes. The article analyzes a current phenomenon in international relations: Germany’s revision of its post-war identity as a “civil power” and the definition of a new one – primarily from a geostrategic perspective – against the backdrop of the complete devaluation of the European security architecture and the proclamation of a new German foreign policy course, “change of eras” (Zeitenwende). This shift is occurring not through an appropriate impulse from within civil society, but under pressure from the media environment and the “media presentation” of a new international agenda. Using comparative, event, and content analysis methods, the study concludes that the legitimization of Germany’s “remilitarization” is taking place under conditions in which a stable consensus has not yet been formed – either at the level of the decision-making system or within civil society as a whole – regarding the acceptability of such dynamics. This demonstrates the determining effect of the media environment as a “converter” of the internal impulses of the political system on political communications. It is also evident that Germany’s new foreign policy identity will be of great importance for the broader security architecture of the Euro- Atlantic space. This study may be of practical interest from the point of view of developing a new logic for Russian–German relations – currently at their lowest point, marked by the curtailment of political dialogue and the suspension of almost all previous channels of bilateral interaction – in light of the changing global geostrategic and information context.
European security; Ukrainian crisis; Zeitenwende (“epochal shift”); Germany; Russia; USA; NATO; D. Trump; Eastern Europe; defining Germany’s new identity.