The European question, the German problem, and Anglo American solutions

In his book "Europe: The Struggle for Supremacy, from 1453 to the Present" (Basic Books, 2013), historian Brendan Simms argues that the struggle for the German heartland shaped the modern world. Today, with the European Union struggling to advance its interests, Germany continues to be an organizing principle in world geopolitics.

My argument is that the trend is clear, that Germany no longer sees the big picture as something that is up to decisive importance to it. Germany simply doesn't feel threatened anymore and unlike Britian, France and the United States it doesn't feel any direct sense of responsibility for the overall European or global balance [...]. So that the European project - this is the great irony - has succeeded neither in containment nor in mobalization of Germany and the result is that by refusing the further enlargement of NATO Germany has actually encouraged the aggression that we've seen more recently. It has created a vacuum on the eastern border of the Union into which now pushes Mr Putin.