Merz also drew a lesson from Germany\u2019s own history. \u201cWe Germans know a world in which might makes right would be a dark place,\u201d he said. \u201cOur country has gone down this path in the 20th century until the bitter and dreadful end.\u201d<\/p>\n
Most strikingly, the chancellor confirmed discussions with French President Emmanuel Macron about a European nuclear deterrent. <\/p>\n
The speech amounted to a strategic repositioning of Germany: still anchored in NATO, but preparing for a future in which American guarantees are less reliable and Europe must carry more responsibility.<\/p>\n
That message echoed remarks earlier in Munich from U.S. Deputy Defense Secretary Elbridge Colby, who called for a \u201cNATO 3.0\u201d in which European allies assume a far greater share of defense burdens while Washington prioritizes other theaters. <\/p>\n
The United States wants \u201cvigorous, capable, more self-reliant European allies,\u201d Colby said, adding America had long carried a \u201cvastly disproportionate share\u201d of the burden. He singled out Germany for special praise for its \u201chistoric, tremendous shift\u201d in defense spending.<\/p>\n
Merz signaled Berlin is already preparing for a scenario with a smaller American footprint in Europe, and that Germany may at times diverge from the U.S. \u201cWe Europeans are taking precautions. In doing so, we arrive at different conclusions than the administration in Washington,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Merz also drew a lesson from Germany\u2019s own history. \u201cWe Germans know a world in which might makes…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":39431,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[124],"tags":[250,12,242,2894,1428,245,233,249,6306,396,2316,329,932,17,347],"class_list":["post-39430","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-friedrich-merz","tag-china","tag-donald-trump","tag-emmanuel-macron","tag-eu-us-military-ties","tag-european-defense","tag-france","tag-friedrich-merz","tag-germany","tag-munich-security-conference","tag-nato","tag-nuclear-weapons","tag-russia","tag-security","tag-united-states","tag-war-in-ukraine"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@people\/116453458959584011","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39430","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39430"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39430\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39431"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39430"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39430"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39430"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}