HAMBURG, Germany – So far, the German response to Donald J. Trump’s election has been predictable, and predictably loud: Politicians and pundits are rattling on about how Europe needs to bolster its defenses, speeches they have been giving for years.
The doomsayers have a point, of course. President-elect Trump has repeatedly called into question Article 5 of the NATO agreement, the promise to regard an attack on one of its members as an attack on all. And he has demanded that Europe, and the rest of America’s allies, start paying more for his country’s defensive umbrella.
