On February 23, Germany held their parliamentary, or Bundestag, elections. In the Bundestag, the two main political parties are the progressive Social Democratic Party (SPD), who currently control the government and is led by Olaf Scholz, and the center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU), the major opposition party which is led by Friedrich Merz.
Unpopular with the German people, the leadership of the SPD is stamped with a slow-growing economy and a renewed debate over immigration, a topic that Germans are increasingly becoming conservative about. Although polls and predictions commonly agreed that the SPD was set to lose reelection to the CDU, news that still brings shock is the rapid rise of the AfD.
The AfD, or Alternative for Deustchland, and Alternative for Germany in English, is a far-right political party which is pro-Russia, anti-immigration, anti-European Union, and many party leaders are outright Neo-Nazis despite German laws against hate speech and Nazi propaganda (such as Thuringia’s Björn Höcke) – laws that AfD representatives lobby for the repeal of. The AfD came in second place, occupying 20% of the Bundestag. The moment is part of a greater watershed, not against just the SPD but liberalism across the Western world as it turns towards authoritarianism, autocracy, and Russia.
Three years ago, the Russian Federation launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and since then, millions have died or been displaced. Despite the chaos and death brought by the war, it has also served as a unifier of both European & American relations. Sweden & Finland joined NATO and both halves of the Transatlantic alliance galvanized support in the face of Russian militarism.
However, that allyship rapidly collapsed with the Trump administration. President Trump has made multiple derogatory comments referring to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as a dictator and he and other administration officials have claimed that Ukraine is responsible for starting the war. In addition, on February 28, during a meeting in the oval office in which President Trump was trying to negotiate American control over Ukrainian rare earth minerals as a bargain for continued military support, the meeting devolved into a shouting match over Trump’s attempt to broker peace with Russia with Vice President Vance pitching in with unfounded allegations of ungratefulness for American support. Zelenskyy would leave D.C. early and though Trump would soften his tone in later statements to the media he continued with the decision to suspend all military aid to Ukraine.
This political shift isn’t exclusive to Europe, however. In reference to Taiwan, Trump denied that he would provide military support to Taiwan in the event of an invasion by China, saying that he “never comment[s] on that” and that he doesn’t “want to ever put myself in that position.” While Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s words of assurance to Taiwanese sovereignty may be reconciling, Trump has stated himself that he wants to seek good relations with China (despite his imposed tariffs). Whether or not this is strategic pragmatism or political disarray in Washington, Trump’s conduct over Ukraine has more alarming implications for the fate of Taiwan.
This undermining of global security isn’t one domestic to the United States and Germany, however. Vice President Vance delivered a deeply out-of-touch speech to an audience of European military and civil officials downplaying the threat of Russian militarism compared to “threats from within,” referencing European elections and censorship laws. Vance’s speech was universally condemned outside of Russian state television and scattered far-right European political parties. The steering of American foreign policy into pro-Russian isolationism is a move forcing European powers, and even our Asian allies in South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan – the latter that Trump explicitly denied saying he’d support militarily in the event of a Chinese invasion – to invigorate their own independent military-industrial complexes. Moreso, Emmanuel Macron, President of France, and the newly-elected Friedrich Merz have proposed sharing France’s nuclear weapons as deterrence against future Russian aggression. While it’s far from an official policy, the precedent of modern nuclear proliferation is one with grave consequences for the world.
