Almost a quarter century ago the unsolved environmental pollution problems led to the founding of a new party in West Germany, the greens. Shortly thereafter, they turned into the primary and only pacifist party in Germany. The left and right wing had both led governing coalitions with liberals in the 1980's and were thus supporters of the then-ongoing Cold War arms race.
The greens pressured the established parties into creating more environmental protection legislation, but their pacifism stance was largely ineffectual.
The Cold War finally ended in 1989-1992, but the new conservative minister of defence wasn't particularly competent as his pre-pre-predecessor Wörner. He was a career politician who had been sent into the MoD office as a career dead-end. He turned creative, though - and the newly sovereign united Germany began a salami slice tactics-driven creeping movement towards interventionism.
The green's response to ever more military adventures was to cry foul. They decried the "militarized foreign policy" a lot during the 19990's.
The liberals had shed their left wing in the early 80's and Germans had become tired of conservative Chancellor Kohl, so the social democrats under Blair-like Schröder (part of right wing of his party) had the opportunity to return to power - this time with the greens. All the pundits, journalists, lobbyists and so on pressured the greens with doubts about whether they were fit for a governing coalition, and pressured them into proving this fitness (by behaving like establishment). The leading green politicians were thirsty for power and office, and the outcome was probably predictable.
The cabinet Schröder was formed on 27 October 1998. On 24 March 1999 Operation "Allied Force" began, the Kosovo Air War with German participation (Tornado ECR planes firing on Yugoslav troops). It took the greens less than five months for their fall of man: They had turned from a pacifist party decrying the militarisation of foreign policy to a war-supporting interventionist party. They even became radicals, as most converts. The support for the military adventure of idiocy in Afghanistan was stronger among green politicians than among others. Yesterday, they decided on a party assembly that they would support a military intervention against IS if there was a UN mandate.
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One's background can coin one's interpretation of events a lot. My background includes economic studies, and thus I cannot resist interpreting these events like this:
The greens were never real anti-interventionists and thus no real pacifists. They were merely envious of other parties playing with toys the greens don't have. The military is a toy to politicians. At some point late in 1998 the greens understood they're now in power and the toy is now theirs, and suddenly it was a fine toy to play with. Parties who were in power and expect to return to power keep this attitude; they keep liking the toys of government, even if they temporarily decry their use by others.
The problem is once again a principal-agent problem. The people of Germany as a whole don't get to play with the toys of governments, and have little if any benefit from such great power games. Interventions aren't really in their interest. It's different to the agents of the people, the politicians. They get to play with the toy, and like it - at the expense of the people in the toy and most other people of Germany.
Today, the only counter-interventionism party of relevant size in Germany is the far left party; the sum of former East German "communists" and the former left wing of Schröder's SPD (the left wing deserted because of Schröder's social policies). It's all-but guaranteed that they will turn pro-intervention too once (if ever) they get to play with the toy.
The only permanent vaccination against interventionism are likely national-level, law-creating plebiscites. This form of direct democracy is the only one in which the principal makes no use of an agent and defeats the principal-agent problem by deciding himself, in his own best interest.*
There are no true anti-interventionism parties.**
related:
2008-06 The German party landscape
2009-07 Plebiscites and a Federal German myth
2010-03 Let's improve our democracy, a work in progress (I)
2010-05 Allensbach poll on Germans in Afghanistan
2010-03 Let's improve our democracy, a work in progress (I)
2010-05 Allensbach poll on Germans in Afghanistan
S O
*: All relevant German parties but the conservatives nowadays support such plebiscites. Now we can guess whether they will still do so when they get the opportunity to actually introduce them, for at that point they would cut into their own power. It's safe to talk about that when one is not in power or only junior coalition partner of the conservatives.
**: In Germany.
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