ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the rise of German power in Europe and the Eurozone. It employs the concept of geo-economics, originally developed by Edward Luttwak and recently reintroduced by Hans Kundnani, to understand the implications of German policy for European geopolitics. The post-Bretton Woods transition to floating exchange rates and the rapid development of mobile transnational financial markets centered on Wall Street made it more difficult to pursue the more or less covert mercantilism that had underpinned the European post-war growth model and concomitant social settlement. The onset of the banking crisis in the context of asymmetries that have haunted Europe since the last days of the Bretton Woods system thus posed an enormous challenge to the capacities for European crisis management, and ultimately to Germany. If Germany does in fact seek to play a more assertive role on the European geopolitical stage it will do so under the umbrella of the American superpower.
