Is Germany making the same Russia mistake — just in reverse?

Dear Reader,

In 2019, I wrote an article for Der Spiegel criticising the decision of a German jury to award a prize for the defence of “European values” to Scotland’s then first minister, Nicola Sturgeon. The jury was uninterested in Sturgeon’s record in Scottish domestic politics, including her habit of blaming Scotland’s problems on Westminster. What mattered was that she was anti-Brexit — and therefore one of the good guys.

The editor made a few stylistic tweaks before publication. Substantively, the piece ran as filed — with one exception. A single paragraph was cut.

“I would also be interested to know,” I had written, “whether this reliable partner of the EU will mention in her acceptance speech in Potsdam that she would like to abolish the United Kingdom’s nuclear deterrent (if only the warmongering elite in London would allow it). One wonders whether her German audience will look back far enough into the past to realise that unilateral disarmament has not always achieved the desir…