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German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, centre, welcomes Lithuania’s Prime Minister Inga Ruginiene for a meeting at the chancellery in Berlin, Germany, Thursday, Jan. 29, 2026. [AP Photo\/Ebrahim Noroozi]<\/p>\nGerman Chancellor Friedrich Merz, centre, welcomes Lithuania’s Prime Minister Inga Ruginiene for a meeting at the chancellery in Berlin, Germany, Thursday, Jan. 29, 2026. [AP Photo\/Ebrahim Noroozi]<\/p>\n
The first month of 2026 has witnessed the explosion of American imperialism. It began with the Trump administration\u2019s invasion of Venezuela and abduction of President Nicolas Maduro, continued with bitter Trump\u2019s demand to own Greenland and control its natural resources and Arctic shipping routes, and is now culminating in the mobilisation of an American \u201carmada\u201d of warships in the Middle East poised to strike Iran.<\/p>\n
The extent of the brutality and criminality of American imperialism with Trump at its head often obscures the aggressive intent of the European imperialist powers, or fuels the misguided belief that Germany, France and Britain\u2014the old colonial powers\u2014are more \u201chumanitarian\u201d than their transatlantic rival. The remarks this week by German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, which in content were redolent of Nazi F\u00fchrer Adolf Hitler, should put paid to any such illusions.<\/p>\n
Addressing the German parliament, Merz placed his remarks in the context of a new era of \u201cgreat power rivalry.\u201d \u201cFor several weeks now, we have been seeing more and more clearly that a world of great powers is beginning to emerge. A harsh wind is blowing in this world, and we will feel it for the foreseeable future,\u201d he declared. This rhetoric serves to enforce the officially proclaimed \u2018new epoch\u2019 in foreign policy, which has seen all parties in parliament unite to spend \u20ac1 trillion on preparing for war and impose social spending cuts to pay for it.<\/p>\n
Merz\u2019s response to the new world situation he described could just as well have come from one of Hitler\u2019s programmatic speeches in the early 1930s. \u201cWe will only be able to implement our ideas in the world, at least in part, if we ourselves learn to speak the language of power politics, if we ourselves become a European power,\u201d he told the deputies. What he means is nothing less than the transformation of Europe into an independent military superpower under German leadership.<\/p>\n
Merz continued: \u201cFirstly, we must take our security into our own hands. This requires measures to reduce dependencies … It requires us to invest heavily in our own European defence capabilities.\u201d The invocation of \u201csovereignty\u201d and \u201cindependence\u201d is the ideological cover for a historic rearmament offensive whose scale is comparable only to German militarisation prior to the two world wars.<\/p>\n
\u201cTogether with the majority of this House, we decided last year to increase our national defence spending to up to five percent of gross domestic product,\u201d Merz boasted. In absolute terms, this means a German war budget of well over \u20ac200 billion annually\u2014more than is spent on education, health and social benefits combined. Merz explicitly presented this path as a model: \u201cWe have led the way, and others in Europe have followed us.\u201d<\/p>\n
This rearmament is inextricably linked to comprehensive social spending cuts. The attacks on jobs, wages, pensions and public services not only serve to directly finance the military, but are also intended to make German and European capitalism \u201ccompetitive\u201d on the global stage. \u201cSecondly, we must make our economy competitive again,\u201d Merz stated openly, referring to the growing \u201cgrowth gap\u201d with the US and China. According to the chancellor, Germany\u2019s ability to shape world politics depends \u201cabove all on economic power\u201d\u2014that is, on the ability to increase profits and open up markets and raw materials, including by military means.<\/p>\n
What Merz and the ruling class have in mind is an authoritarian \u201cFortress Europe\u201d\u2014akin to the dictatorship Trump is seeking to establish in the US\u2014that enforces its imperialist interests worldwide under German leadership. \u201cThirdly, we must stand united in Europe on these issues,\u201d Merz demanded, stating bluntly: \u201cUnity is a factor of power in the world.\u201d What he means is the united enforcement of European imperialist interests with economic and military coercion\u2014against Russia and China, but increasingly also against the United States.<\/p>\n As examples of European \u201cpower,\u201d Merz cited the leading role of Europeans in NATO\u2019s war against Russia in Ukraine and the joint action against the punitive tariffs US President Trump threatened to impose on the European powers who resisted his push to seize Greenland. \u201cAnyone who believes they can make policy against Europe with tariffs must know that we are ready and able to defend ourselves against them,\u201d the Chancellor declared. At the same time, he emphasised that \u201cwe do not want to recklessly jeopardise established alliances.\u201d<\/p>\n As long as Europe needs time for massive rearmament and, above all, continues to depend on Washington\u2019s support in NATO\u2019s war offensive against Russia, Merz is keen to avoid an open confrontation with the US. This tactical restraint does not alter the fact that German imperialism is ever more explicitly striving for an independent role as a world power.<\/p>\n \u201cThe current global realignment also presents an opportunity for all players who prefer rules to arbitrariness and who see more advantages in free and fair trade than in the unilateral pursuit of their own interests,\u201d Merz explained. He described Germany as \u201cpart of a dynamic, agile network of sovereign states\u201d and, in this context, praised in particular the European Union\u2019s planned trade agreements with India and the Latin American Mercosur states.<\/p>\n Merz\u2019s attempt to portray his bid for world power as a defence of a \u201crules-based international order\u201d is particularly cynical. In reality, Germany and Europe have supported every war of aggression led by the United States over the past three decades\u2014from Kosovo to Afghanistan and Iraq to Libya. Merz himself boasted in his speech that German soldiers had fought \u201calongside our American partners\u201d in Afghanistan \u201cafter 11 September 2001,\u201d and declared that he would not allow this mission to be \u201cdisparaged.\u201d<\/p>\n The German government continues to support US operations and wars that violate international law, as long as they serve its own interests. At the beginning of the year, Merz openly backed US aggression against Venezuela, supports preparations for war against Iran and defends Israel\u2019s genocide of the Palestinians in Gaza.<\/p>\n Against this backdrop, the official Holocaust memorial ceremony in the Bundestag the day before Merz\u2019s speech was pure hypocrisy. With its ritualised \u201cnever again,\u201d the ruling class is trying to conceal that it is doing exactly the same again: great power politics, militarism and genocide abroad, and authoritarian politics at home. Significantly, Merz did not say a word about the openly fascist developments in the US, where Trump\u2019s ICE militias hunt migrants and murder counter-demonstrators in cold blood. The reason is obvious: militarism abroad and authoritarian rule at home are also the programme of the German bourgeoisie.<\/p>\n Merz\u2019s statements on European nuclear weapons show how far advanced this development already is. Just hours after his speech, the chancellor confirmed during a press conference with Lithuanian Prime Minister Inga Ruginiene that \u201cstrategic talks\u201d on European nuclear weapons are being held. These talks are \u201cin their infancy,\u201d he said, but \u201cwe know that we have to make some decisions here, both strategically and in terms of military policy.\u201d<\/p>\n Brigadier General Frank Pieper, Director of Strategy at the German Armed Forces Command and Staff College, goes even further. In an interview with Stern magazine, he called for Germany to have its own nuclear weapons and for politicians to make \u201ca real change.\u201d \u201cGermany needs its own tactical nuclear weapons,\u201d he demanded, adding provocatively: \u201cGet out of bed and get to work.\u201d The demand for a German nuclear bomb is not only illegal, it would be a step that brings humanity even closer to the brink of a nuclear world war.<\/p>\n This madness is supported not only by Merz\u2019s right-wing Christian Democratic Union, the Social Democrats and far-right Alternative for Germany, but also by parties that claim to be \u201cleft-wing\u201d or \u201cprogressive.\u201d Representatives of the Left Party and the Greens, who already approved<\/a> the government\u2019s horrendous war credits in the spring, attacked Merz not because of his war policy, but because, in their view, he was not aggressive enough towards the US and Russia.<\/p>\n The Left Party\u2019s parliamentary group leader, S\u00f6ren Pellmann, called on the federal government to now draw \u201cconclusions.\u201d This applies \u201cboth to economic policy and security policy.\u201d He then exclaimed, \u201cWhere is the export ban on German weapons to the US? Stop kowtowing! Take action!\u201d<\/p>\n The Green Party warmongers are particularly impatient with the pace of preparations for war against Russia. Referring to the government\u2019s stated goal of being ready for war against Russia by 2029, the Green Party\u2019s security policy spokesperson, Sara Nanni, ranted hysterically, \u201cWe have 35 months left. Thirty-five months! … 35 months to go until 2029. I ask you: What are you doing until then? What is being arranged? When will the shadow fleet be stopped? When will the Taurus [missiles] be delivered [to Ukraine]? When will investments be made in comprehensive defence, and when will the population be prepared for the possibility of an emergency?\u201d<\/p>\n![](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/1769840113_315_88eab342-c04e-4642-ae44-e032b198a2aa.png\"\/)
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