Dr. Stefanie Babst

The United States, Europe, and their global partners need to design a broad and well-coordinated strategy against the regime in Moscow in order to thwart Vladimir Putin’s ambitions now and in the future.

Forced into negotiations with Moscow at gun point, the United States and its European allies need to get out of the corner that President Vladimir Putin has pushed them into. NATO should state its own preconditions and not shy away from applying economic sanctions.

The Western allies need to review what went wrong in Afghanistan with a genuine sense of humility. Otherwise they are bound to repeat the same mistakes in the future.

A double crisis involving China and Russia as early as next year is a plausible scenario. However, the German politicians jostling to succeed Angela Merkel have presented no answers. Worse, they are not even acknowledging the need for a long-term strategy.

Most politicians likely to form the post-Merkel government haven’t grasped the magnitude of the tasks ahead when it comes to rethinking Germany’s foreign policy.