When the German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, visited the White House earlier this year for a high-stakes meeting with Donald Trump, he invited a Washington-based German researcher little known outside expert circles to a private dinner.
Liana Fix had caught his eye with a forthright essay in the journal Foreign Affairs warning of the perils of Germany becoming “Europe’s next hegemon”, whose military dominance may come to scare its neighbours and divide Europe once again. That concern might seem far-fetched after three decades since the fall of the Berlin Wall, during which a peace-loving reunited Germany let its armed forces wither and rust, prided itself on being a “civil power” and preached a gospel of military restraint.
