As President Joe Biden and U.S. officials get down to business with NATO allies in Washington, D.C., this week, one question lurks over the entire proceedings—Is there any head-of-state in Europe who can actually claim a leadership role on the continent?
France, Germany, and the United Kingdom, commonly viewed as Europe’s three biggest powers, are all in the midst of various degrees of political dysfunction, economic malaise, and broader disenchantment with their respective electorates. The three countries certainly aren’t going to fall apart. But there’s no doubt that the men leading them—Emmanuel Macron in France, Olaf Scholz in Germany, and Keir Starmer in the U.K.—are confronting a host of domestic problems that will inevitably detract from their attempts to make a name for themselves on the international stage. Increasingly it seems like the center of European power is drifting toward the East, where Poland and the small but vocal Baltic States of Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia are carrying the torch against the Russian menace next-door.
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