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What do we mean by “the West”? What, if anything, unites us — now, in 2021? More than a century has passed since the word acquired its civilisational meaning. In that time, other parts of
the world have caught up and perhaps overtaken us in many ways. The West no longer has a monopoly of economic, scientific or technological progress. It never was a geographical entity. In
the Cold War, Europe, North America and other countries in this coalition of the winning were once defined by their enemies. That is still true. Today, however, even more than in the past,
these enemies are not national but ideological. The unifying values — or, better, virtues — of the West are not new: freedom, democracy, the rule of law, human rights. Those who deny these
virtues thereby declare themselves to be our enemies. Most of these foes, however, deny that they are such: they lay claim to their own, enforced forms of freedom, practise a perverted form
of democracy, silence their opponents in the name of law, and lie about their respect for human rights. The West has never been a consistent champion of these or other values, but the
virtue of democracy is that it turns politics into a perpetual competition in which the best ideas usually triumph in the end. And so we often see that when a politician or a party ceases to
defend the values that define us, they will be replaced by those who better embody them. By the same token, individuals and movements that were once critical of or even hostile to Western
civilisation may learn and, in time, evolve to become staunch advocates of the values they once despised. So it seems with the new Green candidate to be Chancellor of Germany, put forward by
a party that emerged in opposition to the West. Like the Greens, founded in 1980, Annalena Baerbock was born 40 years ago and grew up in a radical Leftist, environmentalist and oppositional
milieu. But that opposition ceased to be existential when the Cold War ended and in recent decades the party has also ceased to be perpetually in opposition, serving as a coalition partner
in most of the states that make up the Federal Republic. Now the Greens are poised to become Germany’s largest party at the national level, too. They are in a position to exploit a series
of mistakes by the outgoing Chancellor, Angela Merkel, and her party, the hitherto dominant Christian Democratic Union (CDU). The latest polls put the Greens ahead of the CDU and its
Bavarian sister party, the CSU. Unless they throw away their chance between now and September’s election, the Greens should find themselves with the pleasant choice: becoming the dominant
partner in a centrist coalition with the Christian Democrats, or playing the same role in a Left-leaning coalition with the Social Democrats, plus a smaller party. What makes the sudden rise
of Annalena Baerbock so dramatic is in part her youth: if elected, she would be postwar Germany’s youngest ever Chancellor. The closest parallels are with Willy Brandt, the charismatic
Social Democrat who stormed to victory in 1969 and then fell victim to a spy scandal, and with Mrs Merkel herself, the first woman and the first East German, who came to power in 2005. Both
she and Brandt were, however, significantly more experienced by the time they took the helm. Ms Baerbock has never held ministerial office and came from nowhere to become co-leader of the
Greens just three years ago. The architect of the Republic, Konrad Adenauer, campaigned on the slogan “No experiments” — an attitude that resonated in a divided Germany. Now this cautious
country may be about to elect its most experimental leader since 1945. Why are the Germans prepared to take the plunge? The answer, surely, is that the Greens have changed. For the first two
decades of their existence, the party was split between pragmatic “Realos” and hardline “Fundis”. The Realos won and Ms Baerbock is firmly rooted in that tradition. They have won most of
their battles on the environment — although their implacable hostility to nuclear power has had the paradoxical but predictable result of extending Germany’s reliance on fossil fuels. The
party’s middle-class and increasingly middle-aged voters have ensured that its policies are, in general, impeccably moderate. Nothing there to frighten the horses — apart from its proposal
to impose speed limits on the _Autobahn. _(Every previous attempt to enact such limits on the car-mad Germans has come to grief.) So why have the Greens emerged as _primus inter pares_ among
the six major parties that now vie for power in Germany? After 16 years of Merkel-led coalitions, voters can be forgiven for feeling that it is time for a change. But the reason they have
plumped for the Greens has less to do with novelty — they are by no means the newest party in the Bundestag — than basic values. The Greens are the most consistent advocates of human rights
and in recent years have become increasingly critical of Russia and China. After years of a government that ducks and weaves, they stand for clarity. This is a gamble, of course: ever since
Brandt’s _Ostpolitik _essayed _détente _to bridge the Berlin Wall, Germany has in practice given priority in foreign policy to trade over all other considerations. Now the Greens are talking
a different language, freed by their anti-capitalist origins from dependence on German industry and commerce. We shall see how far they mean it. For the moment, though, Annalena Baerbock is
a refreshing contrast to her CDU rival, Armin Laschet. The latter is notorious for his equivocations on Russia and China. He even cast doubt on the Kremlin’s responsibility for the
Salisbury Novichok attack. Ms Baerbock, by contrast, says she would stop Germany becoming even more dependent on Putin’s Russia with the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline. She says that China
should be handled with “dialogue and steeliness”, implying a tougher line on Beijing’s denial of democracy and human rights in Hong Kong and its genocidal treatment of the Uighurs. The
West may at last be about to stand up to Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin. Once again, we are united by the virtues that underpin our civilisation. But that will mean girding our loins to
defend those values. The Greens are still unsure about the US military presence in Germany. They advocate a European army, but one already exists. It’s called Nato — and it is desperately in
need of reinforcement. Fortunately, Joe Biden and Boris Johnson are both strong advocates of Nato. Neither is an obvious soulmate for Annalena Baerbock. But, like others before her, she
will find that in order to set free the doves of peace, it is necessary to ally oneself with the hawks. A MESSAGE FROM THEARTICLE _We are the only publication that’s committed to covering
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