Funny, when Merz says he wants to lead Germany to be independent of America, you don't hear whining "nationalism!" - -- only when America wants a bit for for itself do you hear it.

HA! That's 100% right.

Oh, I'll say it (though not whining):

This is a bad outcome. Worse than the status quo that was there before.

It is better if the U.S. and Germany are working together to combat the spread of authoritarian and anti-democratic countries and their sphere of influence. It is worse if the U.S. and Germany decide to act more separately in countering that threat. It is bad when U.S. foreign policy is so bungled that Germany determines that we are now an inconstant and untrustworthy ally that cannot be counted on to fulfill its security commitments. It is astonishing that the Trump Administration managed to all-but-destroy the presumption of cooperation and mutual assistance with one of the most important countries in Europe in just a month of bad diplomacy.

There are also real downsides to having the countries of Europe become more militarized, and start throwing their weight around more independently rather than through coordination in institutions like NATO and the UN. While the Pax Americana might seem like a bad deal to people like Trump, it did provide more than eight decades where the European continent was free of the types of military conflicts between the old Great Powers that led to WWI and WWII. The world doesn't get more stable or more secure if the countries of Europe start seeing themselves more as independent military actors and less as members of the NATO/EU team, or if they're less coordinated in sharing resources and intelligence and working cooperatively against China, or if we go back to being an Archduke away from having to go to war there again. Trump seems determined to bring us back to the era of Mercantilism and the Metternich System, but there were real problems with that international framework....