The US embrace of Russia is an existential threat to the EU. Germany must step up to save it | Catherine De Vries

To counter the crisis caused by Trump, Friedrich Merz has little choice but to abandon decades of military and economic caution

In February 1945, three world leaders - Winston Churchill, Franklin D Roosevelt and Josef Stalin - met in Crimea for the Yalta conference, to discuss the new world order they would implement after the soon-to-end second world war.

Smaller nations were given no say in deciding their fate. The Soviet sphere of influence would infest eastern Europe for decades and US foreign policy dominated the second half of the 20th century. Churchill resisted the end of the UK's global empire and independence for Britain's colonies came piecemeal; they were let go with bitterness.

Catherine De Vries is professor of political science at Bocconi University in Milan