There was something bracing about Friedrich Merz’s warning in Munich. A “deep rift” between Europe and the United States is no longer a hypothetical whispered in policy corridors; it is a condition to be managed perhaps endured. When the German chancellor suggested that America “will not be powerful enough to go it alone,” he was not merely diagnosing Washington’s overreach. He was sketching the outlines of a post-illusion West.
The Munich Security Conference has long been a stage for reaffirming trans-Atlantic vows. This year, it felt more like couples therapy conducted under chandelier light. Merz, switching into English to address American “friends,” performed the delicate act of candour without rupture. NATO, he insisted, is not a charitable arrangement Europe depends on for survival. It is an American competitive advantage, too. The subtext was unmistakable: alliances are not sentimental; they are strategic multipliers. And multipliers matter most when the arithmetic of global power grows harsher.
The rift Merz described did not appear overnight. It has been widening in increments, through trade disputes, strategic ambivalence toward Russia, divergences on China and the recurring American flirtation with NATO scepticism. Donald Trump’s earlier criticisms of the alliance have lingered like an unresolved chord. Even when administrations change, the question persists: Is America’s commitment structural or conditional? Europeans have learned the hard way that an election can recalibrate the entire architecture of their security assumptions.
But Merz’s warning was not an anti-American jeremiad. It was, in fact, a plea for sobriety on both sides. The era of great power rivalry, China’s ascendance, Russia’s revanchist, a Middle East in convulsion, does not reward fragmentation. The Atlantic, once imagined as a moat protecting liberal democracies has become a mirror reflecting shared vulnerabilities. If Washington believes it can retreat into a selective unilateralism, it may discover that scale without solidarity is a brittle form of strength.
Still, beneath Merz’s appeal to revive trust lies another, less diplomatic reality, Europe is recalculating. The widening gap between Europe and the United States is not only about mood or messaging. It is about capacity. Defence spending is up across the continent. Industrial policy has acquired a sharper edge. Strategic autonomy, once dismissed as French romanticism, is now discussed in Berlin without a smirk. The question is no longer whether Europe should prepare for a world in which America is distracted or divided; it is how quickly and decisively it can.
And that brings us to Germany. For decades, Germany cultivated a posture of economic dominance paired with geopolitical restraint. It was the continent’s indispensable banker, not its marshal. The ghosts of the twentieth century cast long shadows over any German ambition that hinted at power projection. Leadership was expressed through fiscal prudence, regulatory influence, and quiet coalition-building within the European Union. Berlin’s strength was structural, not theatrical.
Merz’s moment suggests a subtle shift. If the trans-Atlantic bond is fraying, Germany cannot simply lament the tear. It must measure its own weight inside Europe, militarily, politically, psychologically. The war in Ukraine has already forced a reckoning. The Zeitenwende, that much-invoked turning point, promised a Germany willing to rearm and reassert. Yet transformation has been halting. Procurement delays and bureaucratic inertia have dulled the drama. Now the strategic environment is applying pressure once more.
Measuring power is not the same as flaunting it. Germany’s influence within Europe depends on credibility rather than bravado. Paris watches Berlin’s moves with a mixture of partnership and rivalry. Eastern European states, acutely sensitive to Russian aggression, demand firmness and speed. Southern members worry about economic asymmetries that could harden into hierarchy. To lead Europe is to balance its anxieties while persuading it of shared purpose. It is a choreography of restraint and resolve.
There is also the American variable. If Washington perceives European defence initiatives as duplication or drift, friction will follow. Yet if Europe remains too dependent, it invites the very condescension Merz seeks to dispel. The paradox is acute; Europe must become strong enough to be taken seriously but cooperative enough to remain indispensable. Germany, as the Union’s largest economy and demographic anchor, sits at the center of that equation.
One can imagine two futures. In the first, the United States rediscovers the utility of alliance not as moral inheritance but as pragmatic leverage. NATO modernizes; burden-sharing becomes less accusatory and more systematic. Germany invests in defence without theatrical nationalism, embedding its strength within European institutions. The rift narrows, not because differences disappear, but because interdependence is recognized as strategic oxygen.
In the second future, suspicion metastasizes. American politics continues to oscillate between engagement and retreat. Europe accelerates its autonomy in ways that subtly sideline Washington. Germany pressed to choose between caution and command, edges toward a more assertive posture that unsettles its neighbours. The Atlantic becomes less a bridge than a negotiated crossing.
Merz’s speech was an attempt to tilt the odds toward the first scenario. His argument, that America cannot go it alone, was not a taunt. It was a reminder that power in the twenty-first century is relational. Even superpowers operate within ecosystems of trust, supply chains, intelligence sharing, and military interoperability. To weaken those bonds is to shrink one’s own horizon.
Yet speeches do not mend rifts. They clarify them. If there is a widening gap between Europe and the United States, it is as much about confidence as policy. Europe is asking whether America will stay; America is asking whether Europe can stand. Germany, for its part, must decide how much of the answer it is prepared to become.
The post-war settlement made Germany cautious. The present moment is making it consequential. In Munich, Merz seemed to understand that history does not pause for reassurance. It advances, indifferent to nostalgia. The Atlantic alliance may endure, but only if its members recognize that in an age of rivalry, partnership is not a luxury. It is the last remaining form of realism.
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