We will be back” – that was the comforting message Joe Biden had for the Europeans just four months ago. Speaking at the Munich Security Conference, the former US vice president and current Democratic frontrunner in the incipient 2020 electoral campaign, sought to reassure US allies that after Donald Trump, the trans-Atlantic estrangement caused by his America First policies would quickly be overcome, and the previous consensus re-established as a …

In December Angela Merkel gave up her post as head of her party, the center-right Christian Democratic Union, a far more important post in German politics than, say, the Democratic or Republican National Committee chair in the US. Her governing coalition of the CDU/CSU and the Social Democrats has run its course after six years – with officially two more to go. There has been a brew of simmering unhappiness …

There is one undisputed winner of the EU elections – and it’s Die PARTEI (The PARTY). They quadrupled their share of the vote, from 0.6 to 2.4 percent, giving them a gain of two seats in the European Parliament. Die PARTEI is a satirical party, albeit of the higher order – picture Stephen Colbert getting elected to the House of Representatives and then fully embracing his new role.

The EU …

When people in Germany talk about trans-Atlantic relations, the conversation soon turns to Donald Trump. He’s regarded as the source of all conflict between the United States and Europe, especially with Germany.

Yet Trump is not to blame for everything. And he’s not always wrong, for instance when he criticizes China. We won’t solve any problems with the US – whether trade issues, dealing with Iran or Nord Stream 2 …

During the critical final phase of the negotiations over the nuclear deal with Iran in March 2015, John Bolton published an opinion piece in The New York Times titled “To Stop Iran’s Bomb, Bomb Iran.”

When President Donald Trump named Bolton his new national security advisor in March 2018, the next day’s The New York Times editorial column included the following passage: “

The good thing about John Bolton … …

ROSTOCK

The future mayor of Rostock is Danish. In the city’s mid-June elections, Claus Ruhe Madsen captured 57 percent of the vote. It’s been 20 years since Madsen, fresh out of university, came to Germany to get away for a while and experience something new. But he stayed, worked as a furniture salesman in the Ruhr Valley, moved to Rostock where he soon opened his own furniture store – called …

It was after midnight, but Walter Lübcke, 65, was still sitting on the terrace of his house in Wolfhagen-Istha, a small town near Frankfurt. The local politician, a member of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s CDU, lit a cigarette. He could probably still hear the music from the party tent at a nearby carnival when the bullet hit – fired at short range, from a 9mm pistol, into the side of his …

Germany has a problem, and that problem goes by the name of Alternative for Germany (AfD), “the most popular party” in certain parts of eastern Germany. No one would question that. Paul Hockenos, in his New York Times op-ed from April 15, has this much right. Nineteen months ago, the far-right party won 12.7 percent of the votes cast in the Bundestag elections, garnering 91 seats in parliament. This fall, …

In May, the Federal Republic turned 70, making it by far the longest-lasting political formation in the history of modern Germany. It will soon have outlived the German Empire (1871–1918), the interwar Weimar Republic (1918–1933) and the Third Reich (1933–1945) combined.

The Federal Republic is a remarkable democratic success story and the only such story in German history. Built on the ashes of the Nazi dictatorship, it has become a …

The hegemonic transition from the UK to the US was peaceful and promised normative continuity. The hegemonic transition to China will be conflictual and accompanied by a shift in the normative paradigm.

On Feb. 17, 1941, Henry Luce published his essay, “The American Century,” in Life Magazine. He meant, of course, the 20th century, during which the US established the basis for its international leadership in all areas, and called …