Conrad Black:
“…Conditions in Germany are just as worrisome.
Chancellor Angela Merkel and her chief coalition partner, both leaders of shrinking parties, are now clinging like drowning people to each other but sinking together. The opposition is fragmented between the reasonable but limited pro-enterprise Free Democrats, the very eccentric and militant Greens (who have already pushed Merkel to roll back nuclear power and make Germany dependent on Russian natural gas), the Alternative party which is moving steadily farther right and may actually entertain some of the views falsely imputed to Donald Trump, and the Link—the shriveled and embittered detritus of the old East German Communists. No easily visible successor to Merkel in the grand coalition looks adequate to reverse trends and no combination of the opposition parties looks remotely capable of governing. An ungovernable Germany is a historic menace.
Germany and France have both shaken the world before. Britain and France have on occasion inspired it. All three could do either now. The United States has saved Europe before, too.
It would greatly improve the quality of political conversation in Washington, in this week when it says farewell to a man who was a pillar of service to the nation in war and peace, nearly 45 years from combat hero to commander-in-chief, to set aside Muelleresque intrigue and cable news inanities, and recognize the condition of our esteemed allies.
The G20 meetings over the weekend in Buenos Aires demonstrated what we already knew: Trump and Xi will work it out. Putin is a scoundrel and a gadfly, and there are strong regional players, especially Japan and India. But the stability of the world requires that Western Europe rediscover its talent for self-government, which it spent centuries trying to impart to others…”
https://amgreatness.com/2018/12/05/the-west-needs-to-rediscover-a-talent-for-self-government/