Conrad Black:

Though Trump did not publicly mention this, Merkel has amplified her own problems by buckling to the German Greens and shutting down the German coal- and nuclear-powered energy sources, thus strategically submitting mighty Germany to the unlikely mercies of the Russian dictator. Vladimir Putin and his cronies are riveted on the backs of shambling Russia, whose GDP is smaller than Canada’s. Trump hit the jackpot with Merkel. Germany owes its growing respect, position in the Western Alliance, the Alliance itself and its reunification to the United States. For 20 years the German left has threatened to drift into neutrality. It is only the unutilized geopolitical potential of Germany that has prevented American leaders from laying out as clearly as Trump now has, the need for Germany to be a whole-hearted American ally, or an outright, waffling neutral. Neither Germany nor probably Britain can indefinitely suck and blow at the same time.

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