Germany’s tragedy is that it isn’t ready for the future

How do we defend Europe without the Americans? With Donald Trump inciting Russia to ‘do whatever the hell they want’ to Nato members not paying enough, it’s clear a Trump 2.0 could shatter the alliance. This isn’t news. Leaders of Germany, Europe’s biggest economy, have known this since Trump took office in 2017. They know what’s strategically necessary to fill the gap. The trouble is, this would be politically impossible for Berlin.

Compensating for the United States, which provides 70 per cent of alliance defence spending, would be staggeringly costly for Germany. It would transform spending habits of the past half-century under which welfare spending was continually expanded to pacify society with a massive, no-risk social insurance policy.

‘The ‘End of History’ was an American idea, but it was the Germans who lived the neo-Hegelian dream,’ says Timothy Garton Ash.