Consider, then, the situation of our old ally Great Britain. Prime Minister Theresa May was just forced to pledge that she would not lead her party in the next election – to survive a no-confidence vote in Parliament. A third of all Tory members voted to throw her out. May has been humiliated. Yet her humiliation solves nothing. The clock is running toward a March deadline for concluding a Brexit deal.

In France, after four Saturdays of anarchy, arson, looting and vandalism of her national monuments, President Emmanuel Macron capitulated to the rioters. He withdrew the fuel tax that triggered the uprisings. The cost of Macron’s retreat is estimated at $11 billion, 0.4 percent of France’s GDP. The political collapse of Macron has been extraordinary.

As for Merkel herself, hailed as leader of the West in the time of Trump, her party and coalition lost so much support in the recent election that she stepped down as leader of the CDU and pledged not to run for another term as chancellor.

Europe’s fourth-largest economy, Italy, is now led by a coalition of the populist-left Five Star Movement and populist-right Lega party. The coalition seeks greater freedom on spending than Brussels is willing to allow, and a halt to migration from across the Med. With Poland and Hungary at odds with Brussels over alterations in their political systems, the EU has never seemed less united.