As the United States contends with far-right policies and politicians, Germany has already faced the reality of far-right success at the ballot box. In September, the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), which espouses anti-immigrant, nationalist, and deeply euroskeptic rhetoric, secured unprecedented pluralities in regional elections in three eastern states, claiming 32 percent of the vote in Thuringia, 30 percent in Saxony, and 28 percent in Brandenburg. These outcomes—the AfD’s strongest regional results to date—mark a significant increase from the party’s 2019 performance. They suggest more than a rightward shift in German politics; they portend a serious challenge to trans-Atlantic security and cooperation.
The rise of the AfD is not merely a domestic issue for Germany; any weakening of German democracy would reverberate globally and pose both near-term and proximate threats to the rules-based international order. Its hostility toward NATO, alignment with authoritarian regimes such as Russia and China, and deeply euroskeptic agenda has the potential to undermine the trans-Atlantic alliance, destabilize Europe, and embolden adversaries abroad.
A clear-eyed assessment of the AfD’s foreign and security policy is now critical. Should the party secure 20 percent of the vote in next year’s federal elections, as some polls suggest, it would wield significant leverage in the Bundestag, immediately jeopardizing aid to Ukraine and undermining long-term confidence in Europe. Crossing this Rubicon would not only cement its influence in German politics but also extend its reach deep into Brussels and beyond.
The rise of the nationalist AfD
In Germany, the AfD has capitalized on frustrations over migration, economic anxiety, and skepticism of Berlin’s continued support for Ukraine. After the United States, Germany is Ukraine’s second-largest provider of military aid. Many AfD supporters herald the party as a rebuke to Germany’s long-standing involvement in international institutions such as NATO and the European Union, which they view as counter to German interests and, more pointedly, as eroding national sovereignty.
The AfD is an avowedly nationalist political force, and its orientation falls firmly outside the constitutional consensus of the Federal Republic.
The latter point is worth emphasizing: The AfD is an avowedly nationalist political force, and its orientation falls firmly outside the constitutional consensus of the Federal Republic. The party is linked to far right-wing hooliganism and has been accused of encouraging violent street attacks on rival parliamentary candidates. Germany’s own domestic intelligence agency, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, has declared that its youth wing, Die Junge Alternative, engages in frequent far-right hate speech, classifying it as an extremist organization and recently placing it under state surveillance. So radical is the AfD that in May 2024 it was expelled from the Identity and Democracy group in the European Parliament, which includes Marine Le Pen’s National Rally from France and Matteo Salvini’s Lega from Italy. The expulsion followed multiple scandals surrounding the AfD’s lead candidate, Maximilian Krah, whose comments defending Nazi SS members and alleged financial ties with Russia and China drove widespread condemnation.
The AfD is not yet in power nationally. The much-vaunted “German firewall” against the far right has made the prospect of a governing coalition that welcomes the AfD highly unlikely, though not strictly impossible. But at the local and municipal level, the AfD is already governing, and the center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) has shown some openness to future cooperation: Friedrich Merz, the CDU’s leader, suggested that his party could enter into local agreements with the AfD before walking those comments back.
Yet this “will they or won’t they” debate obscures a more fundamental point: The AfD does not need to be in government to disrupt German politics. In alliance with the populist left-wing party BSW, led by the charismatic upstart Sahra Wagenknecht, the AfD has already had a chilling effect on support for Ukraine. A draft budget approved by the government in June shows that Germany plans to cut military aid for Kyiv, reducing it by roughly half to €4 billion ($4.43 billion). On the issuance of common debt, including joint European borrowing to support Ukraine, the AfD advocates for keeping Germany’s strict debt brake and enforcing stringent, often onerous fiscal discipline on other member states –– a position incidentally shared by the sitting Finance Minister, Christian Lindner. Although the AfD is unlikely to implement its most extreme policy proposals, its influence at the federal level and its targeted legislative obstruction will certainly persist, testing the limits of any future governing coalition and challenging Germany’s role in the trans-Atlantic security order.
AfD’s anti-Americanism and NATO skepticism
At the heart of the AfD’s foreign policy is a profound rejection of American leadership and a deep skepticism toward NATO. Alice Weidel, the co-leader of the AfD, has been especially vocal in her contempt for American security guarantees, stating bluntly in a recent interview with the German public broadcaster DW, “The security interests of the Federal Republic of Germany are diametrically opposed to those of the United States.” This stark declaration encapsulates the AfD’s rejection of the trans-Atlantic security partnership that has defined German and European defense policy for three quarters of a century. Weidel, and other AfD leaders have consistently framed Germany’s relationship with the United States as one of subordination, with Washington using NATO as a vehicle to impose its geopolitical agenda on Europe.
The party’s leaders have repeatedly criticized the U.S. military presence in Germany and expressed their desire to sever the close defense ties between the two countries. The AfDs 2016 Grundsatzprogramm (foundational policy document) calls for the complete withdrawal of all U.S. troops from German soil. The party’s foreign policy spokesperson, Matthias Moosdorf, has cast doubt on whether the United States would honor its NATO commitments at all. He argues that the United States would only intervene if America itself, rather than its European allies, were attacked, suggesting that Germany should seek better relations with Russia.
For Germany’s second-largest opposition party, such skepticism is more than a little concerning. Article 5 of the NATO Treaty—the cornerstone of the alliance—guarantees that an attack on one member is an attack on all. The credibility of this commitment is vital to maintaining the deterrent effect that has kept Europe at peace since the earliest days of the Cold War. Indeed, for decades, Germany has relied on the presence of U.S. forces—some 35,000 in total—to give meaningful muscle to collective defense. The removal of U.S. forces would not only weaken Germany’s immediate defense posture but would also send a signal to adversaries such as Russia that NATO’s security guarantees are less than absolute.
By questioning NATO’s core mission and calling for the removal of U.S. forces, the AfD’s policy proposals undermine NATO’s ability to function as a credible deterrent.
These demands come at a time when Russian President Vladimir Putin is intensifying his nuclear saber rattling, recently making changes to Russia’s nuclear doctrine, positioning nuclear-capable missiles in Belarus, and carrying out unprecedented covert attacks against NATO critical infrastructure—clear threats meant to erode Euro-Atlantic support for Ukraine. By questioning NATO’s core mission and calling for the removal of U.S. forces, the AfD’s policy proposals undermine NATO’s ability to function as a credible deterrent. If Putin believes Germany’s commitment to NATO is questionable or faltering, he may be tempted to act, seeing an opportunity to push his advantage in Eastern Europe.
Pivot toward Russia and China
Perhaps even more alarming than the AfD’s hostility toward NATO is its open embrace of authoritarian powers such as Russia and China. Party leaders have repeatedly advocated for lifting the sanctions that were imposed on Russia after the annexation of Crimea and the February 2022 invasion, arguing that restoring full trade relations with Moscow would better serve Germany’s economic interests. The AfD’s 2024 manifesto bluntly asserts that “weapon supplies to war zones do not serve peace in Europe” and demands the “immediate lifting of economic sanctions against Russia.” The party is particularly harsh in its critique of energy policy, denouncing German sanctions on Russian gas as self-sabotaging and dangerous, while accusing them of being part of a broader conspiracy to enrich American war profiteers at the expense of German taxpayers.
Since Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine, energy costs in Germany have spiked dramatically, with natural gas prices rising by more than 35 percent in 2022. Instead of addressing the flawed policies that tied Germany’s economy to authoritarian petrostates, the AfD has intensified its opposition to climate action and clean energy investments. With alarming predictability, the AfD dismisses the severity of climate change, with party co-chair Tino Chrupalla arguing that human impacts on emissions are “very small” and that policies addressing climate change are driven by a “hysteria” meant to extract money from hardworking Germans. His proposed solution? Buy more Russian gas.
The AfD does not fare much better on China. Its 2024 manifesto echoes China’s rhetoric on sovereignty, multipolarity, and nonintervention, asserting that Germany should “adhere to the principle of non-intervention in the internal affairs of states”—a talking point frequently used by Beijing to justify its increasingly assertive posture in Hong Kong and Taiwan. The manifesto also endorses German participation in the Belt and Road Initiative, a vast infrastructure project aimed at expanding Chinese influence globally, and advocates for Berlin to join the Shanghai Cooperation Organization as an observer state, along with the Eurasian Economic Union, a Moscow-led trading bloc that includes Kazakhstan and Belarus, among other states.
Weidel herself has blamed U.S. involvement for “stirring up” tensions in the Taiwan Strait, echoing Beijing’s narrative that Washington is the primary cause of instability in the region. And Maximilian Krah, the AfD’s then-lead candidate, stated earlier this year that Germany, as an export-driven economy, has interests that do not align with Washington’s “anti-China” axis, noting that “decoupling from China would serve only the interests of America,” referring to efforts to reduce critical vulnerabilities in European and American supply chains, particularly in the telecommunications, energy, and health sectors. During the AfD’s 2024 campaign, Krah came under investigation for allegedly accepting payments from Russia and China in exchange for promoting their interests as a member of the European Parliament.
The threat to European unity
The AfD’s vision for Germany does not just threaten NATO—it also poses a direct challenge to the future of the European Union. The party has long advocated for “Dexit,” a “Deutschland exit” from the EU, modeled on Britain’s Brexit. While the AfD has softened its language in recent years, no longer explicitly calling for a withdrawal, it continues to characterize the EU as an undemocratic institution that encroaches on German sovereignty. For example, the AfD continues to advocate for the abolition of the euro, a radical and far-fetched policy that would reintroduce national currencies. Its 2024 manifesto calls for dismantling the eurozone entirely, claiming that “only through national currencies can each state regain sovereignty.” While the AfD’s push for abolishing the euro remains highly improbable, it nonetheless constitutes a central pillar of the party’s platform, having been one of the core issues upon which the AfD was founded in 2013.
Beyond economic disruption, the AfD’s hostility toward the EU threatens to undermine Europe’s collective ability to address global challenges. The EU has played a central role in responding to authoritarian aggression, whether through coordinating sanctions on Russia or more recently through efforts to curb Chinese influence in critical supply chains. The AfD would likely push to abandon these efforts in favor of a more transactional approach. Without a strong and capable Germany at the heart of Europe, American interests will undoubtedly suffer, particularly in coordinating efforts to confront Putin’s war of aggression against Ukraine, but also on challenges ranging from AI governance to climate change. Unlike leaving the eurozone, an emboldened AfD parliamentary faction could easily obstruct EU decision-making on enlargement, including Ukrainian accession to the EU; weaken Germany’s commitment to Euro-Atlantic collective defense; and hinder the bloc’s ability to act decisively on a green industrial policy.
Conclusion
The AfD is on the rise, and its foreign and security policy offers a troubling preview of what could come to pass should far-right policies gain more popularity at home or abroad. Should the current German coalition collapse—Berlin may very well be the next domino to fall in a growing wave of nationalist and far-right movements gaining traction across Europe. Yet the more significant takeaway is that the AfD already has avenues to push its agenda. By exerting pressure on a fragile governing coalition and paralyzing the center, preventing it from leading effectively, it may succeed in reshaping German—and by extension, European—politics.
By advocating for the withdrawal of U.S. troops, questioning NATO’s Article 5, and aligning itself with authoritarian powers such as Russia and China, the AfD poses a real and present threat to the trans-Atlantic security community. The stakes for trans-Atlantic security and cooperation could not be higher––on both sides of the Atlantic.