The Read
Allies are re-anchoring Europe's defense on Berlin as Washington pulls away. A fighter-program collapse and a far-right surge show the weight arriving before the foundations are set.
Washington's retreat has made Berlin the default anchor of European security, with the Baltics re-anchored on German basing and Kyiv on German money and a German-built path into the EU.
The fighter-program walkout is the window's sharpest tell: Berlin will spend freely on its own forces but will not yet carry the cost of building Europe's defense industry with partners.
Germany's postwar firewall against the far right is under its hardest test since 1949, and the crack at home already caps how hard Berlin can lead abroad.
Germany withdrew from the Future Combat Air System (FCAS), its joint fighter program with France and Spain, on June 9. Two days earlier a neo-Nazi party candidate reached a mayoral runoff in eastern Germany. In the same stretch, the EU opened accession talks with Ukraine and European peace diplomacy convened in London with Berlin at the table.
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