German Military Power Needs to Go It Alone

{"title":"Berlin's New Doctrine: Germany Can't Wait for Washington's Say-So Anymore","body":"Foreign Policy's latest argues that German military power needs to go it alone -- a striking reframe for a country whose entire postwar identity was built on subordinating its army to NATO and, functionally, to Washington. The piece lands in a moment where the assumption underneath European security for eight decades -- that American guarantees are durable and unconditional -- is visibly cracking, and Berlin is being asked to plan as if that assumption no longer holds.\n\nThis is the same arc every dominant security guarantor eventually produces in its junior partners: reassurance, complacency, shock, and then a scramble toward self-sufficiency that's always slower and more expensive than it should have been. Germany's post-2022 \"Zeitenwende\" was the rhetorical pivot; this is the harder follow-through -- admitting that coalition dependence isn't a strategy, it's a liability if the coalition's anchor state starts hedging. The historical pattern (Suez for Britain and France, Taiwan's current defense buildup) is identical: allies talk deterrence together until the moment they realize they need capability alone, and by then the industrial base has atroph