The Fading of Angela Merkel

摘要

Angela Merkel once claimed she had bested Vladimir Putin during their first meeting in the Kremlin, employing what she said was an old KGB technique: staring at the Russian leader in silence for several long minutes. As the sun rose over a frigid Berlin on Feb. 7, the German chancellor's rivals from the Social Democratic Party (SPD) used the same tactic. This time, Merkel blinked.