Advocates of realism and restraint should greet this last appointment with dismay. Given Baerbock's limited foreign policy experience and past statements, including support for arming Ukraine and for humanitarian interventions generally, she may become an obstacle to the policies of detente and strategic autonomy currently being pursued by French president Emmanuel Macron. She may also emerge as an opponent of U.S. president Joe Biden's stated policy of "stability and predictability" with Russia.

Baerbock, a 40-year-old diplomatic novice, had been the Green Party candidate for chancellor in the German federal election. Worryingly, and in a break with recent German government policy, she has consistently espoused interventionist views that one leftist American magazine has described as a combination of "aloof complacency, ignorance and aggressiveness."