New Delhi, Feb. 26 -- After it became clear, following the German election results, that Friedrich Merz, the leader of the Christian Democratic Union-Christian Socialist Union twin-party Conservative grouping, would become Germany's next chancellor, one of the first policy announcements he made was that he would work for Europe's independence from the US.

This declaration of European autonomy from its traditional transatlantic ally echoed a theme that has been running through French President Emmanuel Macron's pronouncements since his discovery, during Donald Trump's first term as President, that Nato (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) had become brain-dead, and Europe needed to build the capability to defend itself with its own men an...