Germany’s Chancellor visits Washington, departs a victor

Today’s nonstop 24/7 electronic media environment places a premium on mayhem, turmoil and destructive and tragic events. In consequence, important positive developments are easily overlooked.

This is the ironic price of news media that are more decentralized and less regulated than in the 20th century, when network radio and television, along with established prestige newspapers and national magazines, dominated news dissemination.

To give a current example, the extremely positive, productive and calm visit of Germany’s new Chancellor Friedrich Merz with President Donald Trump has received relatively little media attention. This is especially unfortunate given the myriad challenges facing Europe and Atlantic area relations today, and the now-established role of Germany as a stabilizing force.

Chancellor Merz, who is fluent in English, skillfully kept the conversation with Trump focused on areas of agreement. Perhaps the most important of these is the sustained emphasis by Trump, Vice President J.D. Vance and others on European nations doing more for their own defense.

Once passions related to the personalities involved are removed from the discussion, their point of view clearly makes sense. With the Cold War now long over, nations in Europe and elsewhere should be seeking more self-sufficiency, not dependence.

The most effective and productive security alliances have been defined by partners who recognize and develop shared interests, not dominance by one nation over others. The latter approach characterized the expansionist totalitarian dictatorships that dominated much of the twentieth century, and so far in this century continue to fade.

Russia’s borders with nations of Europe is primarily a European responsibility. The United States should be involved and supportive, but dominating negotiations encourages Europeans to avoid difficult regional leadership and spend time on their preferred, relatively easy tasks of building Euro-bureaucracy and talking among themselves.

Today, while the Soviet Union is mercifully long gone, Russia’s Vladimir Putin is striving to recreate the borders of that failed state, notably through the 2022 invasion of Ukraine and the ongoing brutal, costly war.

The Cold War was rooted in different conceptions of society and relations among nations. Soviet leaders “are not like … us,” wrote American diplomat George Kennan in his book “Realities of American Foreign Policy,” first published in 1954.

Kennan, an expert on Germany and Russia, was among the most perceptive of American analysts of international relations, an ardent student and writer. The containment policy he defined guided United States policies toward the Soviet Union throughout the Cold War, and is applicable again today.

He focused on prudent, realist diplomacy, which assumes conflict among national interests is inevitable. He emphasized that Soviet and U.S. leaders were markedly different in experiences and fundamental worldview and that the essentially unproductive Communist system — if restrained — would eventually collapse.

In 1979, Princeton University Press published one of Kennan’s most challenging books, “The Decline of Bismarck’s European Order.” After unifying Germany, Otto von Bismarck provided effective diplomatic leadership to continental Europe through managing complex alliances. His removal from office and the mediocre leadership that followed facilitated World War I.

That history applies today. The European Union (EU) facilitates economic cooperation, and Germany is the natural regional leader. Chancellor Angela Merkel led Germany from 2005 to 2021, encouraging EU financial discipline.

Chancellor Merz, from Merkel's Christian Democratic/Christian Social Union, and his predecessor Chancellor Olaf Scholz of the Social Democratic Party, follow her moderate path.

The far-right in Germany is growing in support. Sensible U.S. leadership can help preserve Germany’s moderate path.

Arthur I. Cyr (acyr@carthage.edu) is the author of “After the Cold War” (NYU Press and Palgrave/Macmillan).