Beware: Germany's New World Order

[PoliticalChic]

1. Germany’s present coalition government, judged by its tumultuous first four months…“Chaos and confusion”… unwieldy mix of incompatible personalities and policies that go to make up Germany’s current federal leadership….reported Der Spiegel. “Merkel has been accused by members of her Christian Democratic Union of failing to show leadership, and opinion poll ratings for her coalition of conservatives and pro-business Free Democrats (FDP) have been falling ahead of an important regional election in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany’s most populous state, in May” (February 1). A Void at Germany’s Helm | theTrumpet.com by the Philadelphia Church of God

2. The Times Online ran the title, “Iron Lady Angela Merkel vanishes amid trouble home and abroad.” The Economist headlined an item “Waiting for Angela.” “Angela Merkel, once billed as a kind of Iron Lady, has become the Invisible Chancellor,” the Times commented.(January 25)

3. In a keenly focused view of Germany’s present need for assertive leadership, the Times observed, “Ms. Merkel looks more fallible. The first 100 days of her new government have made almost no impact on her countrymen. What is needed now is a shift from passive to active leadership, the kind that governors need in order to demand sacrifice from the governed” (op. cit.). Germans pine for more assertive leadership…

a. The once greatest export nation in the world suddenly finds itself knocked into second position by China.

b. Unemployment gradually bites deeper into the German economy amid the global economic crisis.

c. The Times rightly pointed to Afghanistan as being one of the major questions on which Chancellor Merkel’s leadership will either wax or wane. “It is a deeply unpopular war. Ms. Merkel has yet to tell the Germans it is a necessary war. Nor has she tried to drum up popular support for the mission of the German troops there. … Ms. Merkel does not know even how to start to be a war leader; there hasn’t been one in modern Germany …” (ibid.).

4. Minister of Defense Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, has even broken a postwar taboo in Germany by mentioning the German term krieg (war) in direct association with the Bundeswehr’s engagement in Afghanistan.

5. The contrast between Guttenberg and Merkel is marked.

a. He is a devoted Roman Catholic, she a somewhat diffident Protestant.

b. He hails from the Bavarian rightist Christian Socialist Union, she from the more centrist Christian Democrats.

c. He is known for his decisiveness, for taking a position and not backing down easily. She has employed a leadership style that, in the words of Times journalist Boyes, “waited for issues to cluster…as she has always appeared “slow to deliver an opinion or enter a debate” (ibid.).”

d. He is out front leading and powerfully influencing the debate in Germany on the nation’s foreign-policy question of the moment: Afghanistan… [telling] the German people that their troops are involved in a necessary war and that he actively seeks popular support for Germany’s combat role in Afghanistan.

e. He has already declared that he is not going to be led by Washington on matters of security and defense. Guttenberg is cutting his own path in his present portfolio—and Chancellor Merkel seems either unwilling or unable to resist this.

6. Guttenberg changed the whole game for German politicians by mouthing one word: “war”! Until Guttenberg shot into the forefront of the German political scene, using that word to describe German operations in Afghanistan—use of the term in association with the Bundeswehr—was simply taboo.

a. He has announced that the Bundeswehr is definitely engaged in a war outside of Germany’s borders.

b. He has gained an extra troop commitment to the Afghanistan campaign and gained the endorsement of the chancellor of that commitment.

c. He has announced a new German strategy for the war in Afghanistan and asserted that he will not be influenced by Washington in carrying it out.

7. Journalist and commentator on European affairs Luigi Barzini once noted, after long experiencing the German people in wartime and peace, that “Germany is, as it always was, a mutable, Proteus-like, unpredictable country, particularly dangerous when unhappy” (The Europeans).

a. The mood in Germany is seen, not just in the infighting at the political top.

b. Media commentators are not happy with the government’s poor performance, observing that the coalition is unable “to find solutions for a society that is drifting apart” (Spiegel, op. cit.).

c. In Germany, politically and racially motivated crimes by the far right increased to a record high of over 20,000 in 2008, according to figures released by the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) December 17. “There’s a real danger to people’s lives because far-right attacks tend to be very spontaneous, brutal and violent,” said BKA president Jörg Ziercke. WorldWatch | theTrumpet.com by the Philadelphia Church of God

d. The European Union’s Fundamental Rights Agency published a report on December 9, based on a survey of 23,500 people, stating that many minorities in the EU suffer regularly from racial discrimination. All these developments indicate that right-wing extremism is surging into mainstream Europe. Ibid.

e. On January 12, two of Germany’s top military manufacturers—Rheinmetall and MAN Group—announced their intention to merge their military vehicle production. The resulting combine will produce a new national champion and leading supplier for wheeled military vehicles in Europe. According to MarketWatch columnist David Marsh, the German government “has been providing behind-the-scenes assistance to make sure industry goes in the right direction” (January 18). The new combine “meets the long-held German desire to build industrial companies with world scale in the defense field,” he said. Germany’s corporate revival is just the precursor to a much larger, non-peaceable event. Ibid.

 

[mightypeon]

Germany has always been one of the top competetiros for "number 3 in weapon dealings", right after the USA and Russia, and it filled a bit of a market niche particularly for relativly stable devoliping nations.
While German military equipment is not as cost effective as Russian ones (who generally win most "bang for the buck" contests), and it is also not possible to get huge discounts by beeing politically pliable (which is largely how the US sells their weaponry, the weapons are ok, but usually quite overpriced), Germanys is often seen less threatening than the "Big Guys" (US Russia China) or the "Old Colonizers" (UK France).

However, I really doubt that the world has any reason to be afraid of us. After all, us Krauts currently struggle to maintain some 3000 troops in Afghanistan, meaning that any other attempts at world conquest are likely quite out ;D

Merkel herself made a bit of a journey to the left, however, this, coupled with a abortive SPD (democrat equvilant) attempt to move to the right did shatter the SPD, and gave the Union the political leadership.
One could also see her relative "invisibility" as an attempt to depolarize the political situation.

 

[waltky]

Careful there, a 4th term is what did FDR in...

Germany's Merkel will seek a fourth term, face populist tide
Nov 20,`16 -- Angela Merkel, who has steered Germany through several global crises as its first female leader, said Sunday she will seek a fourth term as chancellor in elections next year, when she could find herself up against the anti-immigrant populist tide that has swept both Europe and the U.S.

"I literally thought about this decision endlessly ... but I am ready to run for office again," Merkel told reporters after meeting with high-ranking members of her center-right party. "I want to serve Germany." Repeatedly named "The World's Most Powerful Woman" by Forbes magazine, the 62-year-old Merkel has been cast by some as the last powerful defender of liberal values in the West following Donald Trump's election as the next U.S. president. The nationalist Alterative for Germany party, or AfD, could prove to be one of the biggest stumbling blocks to her re-election. The party, now represented in 10 state parliaments, has aggressively campaigned against Merkel's decision to welcome an estimated 890,000 migrants into Germany last year, many of them Muslims fleeing the war-torn Middle East and Africa.

Trump's election and Britain's vote last June to withdraw from the European Union have reflected, in part, growing populist and anti-immigrant sentiment among voters. Elections next year could also see a far-right politician become president of France, which has been beset by violence by Islamic extremists. Merkel said she expects strong challenges from the left and right fringes as Germany has become more polarized. "This election will be difficult - like no other election since the reunification" of West and East Germany in 1990, she said. A date has not been set for the election, but it will take place sometime between Aug. 23 and Oct. 22.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel attends a joint news conference with the Prime Minister of Norway, Erna Solberg, at the chancellery in Berlin. Speculation is growing that German Chancellor Angela Merkel will seek a fourth term in general elections next year. The 62-year-old chancellor is expected to talk about a possible candidacy during a Sunday night Nov. 20, 2016 news conference at the Berlin headquarters of her political party, the Christian Democrats.​

Clearly the dominant leader in Europe, Merkel urged caution against outsized expectations about what she might yet achieve. "Everything that's about how it all depends on me, especially after the elections in the U.S., honors me, but at the same time I find it very much grotesque and almost bizarre," she said. "No person ... not even with the biggest experience, can turn things in Germany, Europe and in the world more or less to the good, and especially not the chancellor of Germany." Merkel will also seek re-election as chairwoman of the Christian Democratic Union party at its convention next month but faces no serious opposition.

A physicist by training, Merkel became chancellor in 2005. She is the first leader of a reunited Germany to have grown up under communism in the former East Germany. If she wins next year and serves the entire four-year term, Merkel will match her one-time mentor Helmut Kohl's postwar record of 16 years in office. Nearly 60 percent of Germans surveyed in a recent poll said they wanted Merkel to run again, said Manfred Guellner, head of the Forsa polling agency. "In these difficult times, Merkel is a pillar of stability," Guellner told The Associated Press. "People have the feeling she represents German interests well abroad."

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Angela Merkel, German Chancellor, to seek fourth term
Sun, 20 Nov 2016 - German Chancellor Angela Merkel announces she will run for a fourth term in office.

Speaking at a meeting of her Christian Democratic Union (CDU) in Berlin, she said she expected her toughest campaign to date, and vowed to "fight for our values and our way of life". General elections are expected in Germany next year. Mrs Merkel's poll ratings have slipped since the height of her popularity but she retains wide support. The chancellor, who has been in office since 2005, is being challenged by the populist right-wing AfD party. She announced she would stand again after meeting party leaders at CDU headquarters.

She told reporters that the decision to run for a fourth term had been "anything but trivial after 11 years in office". She added that she expected challenges from both the right and the left of the political spectrum. In September, Mrs Merkel accepted responsibility for election defeats for the CDU in several states and conceded that her open-door policy towards migrants was a factor. Germany expected up to 300,000 migrants to arrive in the country this year, the head of the country's federal office for migration and refugees said earlier this year. In 2015, Germany received more than a million applications for asylum.

Analysis - Jenny Hill, BBC News, Berlin

She's kept Germany guessing for weeks, but it looks as though Angela Merkel has finally answered the so called K-frage (chancellor question). A poll for one Sunday newspaper (in German) found that 55% of Germans would vote for her. Mrs Merkel's approval ratings have gone up and down in recent months as a result of her refugee policy but they remain the envy of other world leaders. Even so, she will be battling the tide of populism that swept Donald Trump to victory in the States and which is also washing across Europe. The anti-Muslim party Alternative fuer Deutschland (AfD) is likely to win seats in the national parliament next year. It's highly unlikely to take Mrs Merkel down but it is leaching votes from Germany's established political parties.

Those parties are - by and large - likely to be relieved by Mrs Merkel's decision. In the past few years the job of German chancellor has become one of the most powerful political positions in the world. The next incumbent must not only lead the country but deal with a fragmenting EU, in a world which may be much changed by the new US administration. It's widely (sometimes grudgingly ) accepted here that there simply isn't another realistic candidate for the job. As one broadcaster put it: "Angela Merkel - the indispensable".

Merkel's three terms in office - highs and lows