The Decline and Fall of Merkel

Given its importance for geopolitics, we have been covering the decline and fall of Angela Merkel for some time now. After all, Merkel is a remnant of what is called the liberal world order. But she was also a practitioner of the Obama-led univeralist open borders policy. I have mentioned it before, but will repeat now, those who are whining about Donald Trump’s failure to maintain good relations with the weak sisters of Western Europe and Canada do not  see that these nations have largely abrogated their claims to world leadership. With them, it's more about nostalgia than Realpolitik.

When Trump pulled out of the Iran nuclear deal, Germany, France and England objected. They did not care about whether Iran went nuclear or was supporting terrorism. They wanted to do business with Iran. As a result, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia told Germany that it had to choose, trade with Saudi Arabia or trade with Iran. The Crown Prince proceeded to cancel contracts with Germany.

Today we read Josef Joffe, an editor at Die Zeit, in the Washington Post:

But even if Merkel makes it through this precarious summer and endures to the end of her fourth term, in 2021, she is damaged goods. Her existential problem goes far beyond the intramural political warfare. The European stage she has dominated for so long is collapsing beneath her.

The liberal world order is an Enlightenment ideal, derived, one supposes, from Immanuel Kant. It promised world government based on warm humane feelings. It stood in defiance of balance-of-powers government. It has failed over and over again and is now on life support.

Nations that seek to lead the world are not following the example set by Angela Merkel.

Nor is it just the migrants who are battering the European construction. Merkel, this benign monarch, is being shouldered aside by a new cast of leaders: Donald Trump, Russia’s Vladi­mir Putin, Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan and, farther afield, China’s Xi Jinping. These characters prefer national advantage to world-order politics.

As for the European Union, it is collapsing under the weight of its own contradictions:

Closer to home, Britain is on the way out. In Italy, the anti-European populists of the left and right have grabbed power in a free election. Strongmen are running Poland and Hungary. In Austria, the far-right Freedom Party has muscled its way into the government. In much of the E.U., populist parties are scoring double-digit percentages of the vote.

One reason is that the Union has been coasting under the American defense umbrella. Now that Trump has called the bluff, alliances are starting to shift:

Europe’s cozy life under America’s strategic umbrella is turning nasty as Trump keeps growling: Pay up, or we ship out.

Of course, Merkel is doomed by her own absurd error, opening her nation to migrants, in a type of moral promiscuity:

Still, the deadliest threat to Merkel’s tenure preceded the advent of Trump. It began to close in on her in the early fall of 2015 when she opened her heart and her country to almost 1 million Muslim migrants. Determined to show Germany’s friendly face to the world, she refused to set limits. Her fans sported “Refugees Welcome” buttons.

It was virtue signaling, but it failed:

The welcome waned as the flow continued. Merkel’s fabled “Wir schaffen das” — “we can do it” — turned into the greatest miscalculation of her career. 

Nations across Europe are rejecting the Merkel model. And they are unwilling to bail her out by taking the refugee overflows:

Never has so much goodness spawned so much misfortune. Normally, embattled leaders seek refuge in foreign policy. But Merkel is running out of partners. Paris and Rome, Warsaw, Vienna and Budapest have opposed her “European solution” for three years. Sweden and Denmark reinstated border controls in 2016. In a new tripolar world, Trump would rather play with the big boys in Moscow and Beijing.

Joffe’s concludes, on a note that I have been sounding:

As the United States, Russia and China are recasting global politics, Europe, with an economy as large as America’s, has been demoted to a two-bit player. “Defensive nationalism” — keep them out — is sweeping the E.U. and the rest of the West. Merkel is frantically trying to stem the tide. Europe should hope that she can do better than King Canute.