Germany¡¯s new chancellor, Friedrich Merz, has started with a dramatic promise: ¡°The German government will provide all the financial resources the Bundeswehr needs to become Europe¡¯s strongest conventional army.¡±
That commitment, made in his inaugural speech to the Bundestag last week ((correct)), follows through on his election pronouncement that ¡°Germany is back¡± and will now ¡°really achieve independence from the USA.¡±
The excruciating historical echoes of a new and assertively militarist German chancellor need not be rehearsed. Merz¡¯s planned arms buildup means the definitive end to the ¡°peace dividend¡± that the western world had enjoyed since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, which paved the way for that decade¡¯s great prosperity.
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